"Those who would give up essential liberty . . ."

Reason Hit and Run reports:

Remarkable article in today's Congressional Quarterly. An excerpt (though you should read the whole thing):

Eight months before the White House appointed him the Homeland Security Department's top intelligence official, retired U.S. Army Gen. Patrick M. Hughes told a public forum at Harvard last year that the government would have to "abridge individual rights" and take domestic security measures "not in accordance with our values and traditions" to prevent terrorist attacks in the United States. [. . .]

So he'd already decided to destroy the Constitution in order to save it, eh?

I think I've mentioned it often enough, but here goes one more time: I think the terrorists need to be killed, but you don't win this battle by surrendering your most basic principles. The terrorists and their supporters don't hate the United States (and the rest of the "free" world) because of George Bush, rock'n'roll music, Starbucks, free trade, or because the US Senate refused to ratify the Kyoto Treaty. They hate because we are free and they cannot allow this to continue. Until and unless we all adopt all of their demands, they will continue to kill innocent people. There is no negotiation tactic we can try that will somehow magically assuage all the hatred and turn their hate into tolerance. Tolerance is one of the very things they are fighting against.

Abandoning individual rights is exactly the wrong way to protect Americans and the rights of every western civilian.

"Therefore, we have to abridge individual rights, change the societal conditions, and act in ways that heretofore were not in accordance with our values and traditions, like giving a police officer or security official the right to search you without a judicial finding of probable cause," said Hughes.

Yep, demanding travel restrictions, unlimited searches, internal passports, and all the trappings of a police state will certainly deter those terrorists, yes sirree Bob. And the rivers will freaking well run uphill.