Way too many people involved in these "discussions" of security and "freedom" are much too young to remember the blood in the streets of the 60s and early 70s. Generally the blood was shed by folks who wanted to change back to the ideals set down in the Constitution, or were just in the wrong place at the right time, with the gleeful assist of hands representing the political twerps who were VERY interested in maintaining the status quo.
Love your country, but distrust your government. They are two completely separate entities. Our country is embodied in its people and the social framework defined by the Constitution. Altering of the framework by trial lawyers, politicians, bureaucrats, special interests, and judicial branch activists is always a threat to the country. Regrettably we have of late been VERY lax in our disciplining of those who would modify the framework to their advantage.
In times of "emergency" it's all too natural for the "Government" to do a power grab. It's OUR JOB as citizens to resist that grab unless it has been proven beyond any doubt that any particular power grab is the ONLY way for the country to survive and a suitable sunset on the grab has been engraved in stone. Normally the best thing our federal government can do domestically is to get out of the way and let the locals and citizens handle it. Outside of information gathering on those that have been identified as threats and disseminating that information to the locals to handle arrests etc there is little that the Feds are doing now that will help. They are still fighting the last war by the methods that worked (or didn't work) then, not this one. That said I think the power grabs so far are much less than what would have happened with a Gore/Reno administration.
History in countries all over the world has shown that ALL laws that CAN be abused to maintain someone in power WILL EVENTUALLY be used to do just that, at the expense of the citizen. Often this abuse is at the cost of the lives of the citizens. We had 2 major world wars last century, and several "police actions". "Legitimate" governments killed THEIR OWN citizens to a total of several times the number of casualties (both civilian and military) in all declared and undeclared wars combined last century. The USSR by itself executed, worked to death, starved to death, or medicated to death well over 30 MILLION of it's citizens last century. Totals that can be confirmed worldwide was over 100 million, with unconfirmed estimates pushing double that.
ANY lawmaker or administration official that passes a rule, law, or policy that could POSSIBLY be abused to the extent the citizens COULD face the problems the Apache, Sioux and Cheyenne tribes faced in the 1880s (a low point in our history) should be allowed and encouraged to immediately exit public life. Encouraging them to depart with a rope and an oak tree, while appropriate, would probably be frowned upon. I guess it's best to use the ballot box to fire them, but a dozen or more bureaucrats feeding crows from the trees on the mall would be an excellent object lesson for the rest of them.
