[cryoshon]

Nah. Every time the FBI pushes someone into accepting their offers of bomb-making materials, they scream about it from the rooftops as though they've prevented 9/11 v2.0. Of course these are largely vulnerable or mentally ill people who are also politically disgruntled.

Remember the Boston bombings? I sure do. The FBI had a line up on them before the fact, then were too slow/stupid/whatever to prevent the bombs from going off. To repeat: they had information in hand as a result of surveillance, then still fumbled the ball.

At the core of these "security vs liberty" debates is usually three assumptions which are fallacies:

1. Complete security is possible, if only we give up our liberties (it isn't, look at violence in prison populations)

2. Complete security is desirable, so we should give up our liberties (it isn't, because we'd be in prison)

3. Giving up our liberties will have no unintended consequences (it does, involving willingness to put new ideas out)

[ekiru]

Although I don't agree with any of those premises, that debate is not one-sidedly poorly supported. A lot of the opposing arguments prove too much.

For example, a common remark in discussions on relevant topics are paraphrases of that "those who would give up essential liberty" quote. Yet, those comments appear much less frequently of discussions of other sacrifices of liberty for the sake of security.