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Comment by deciplex | Hacker News Reader

>Today, the number one threat to our freedom comes from the prospect of terrorist attacks on US soil.

This is only because of the actions the US government would certainly take in response, i.e. eliminate various freedoms that still remain.

(I wonder if it's appropriate to speak of 'freedom' anymore? Most of the stuff in the Bill of Rights seems more like revokable privileges at this point.)

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> This is only because of the actions the US government would certainly take in response

Happy to see that you agree. To take your assertion a step further, the US government would likely take such action through the legislative branch, duly elected by US citizens. It is those citizens who would demand that legislators take action.

To some extent, the US government does merely reflect the paranoia and action-at-any-cost attitude of its citizens, as it, and they, go about their daily business of paying mere lip service to freedom and little else. They're also complicit in seeing to it that the culture they govern continues to promote this social trait.

Even so, a democracy which has voted away all its freedom, still can no longer be described as 'free'.

Also, re-reading your previous post, for part #1, parallel construction means there are numerous, in fact literally uncountable (without top secret clearance, anyway), examples of that. Which, to my mind, is a solid start on #2.

In theory, the whole reason those legislators are there is to insulate the country from knee-jerk reactions on the part of the citizenry (or a vocal component thereof.) The framers understood that direct democracy wouldn't be sustainable.

Instead, what we've seen since 9/11 is that the legislators themselves are the ones who are afraid of their own shadow. Just as nobody marched in the streets after 9/11, demanding that George Bush invade Iraq, nobody begged the NSA to implement ubiquitous domestic surveillance capabilities with no effective oversight. These are crimes of opportunity.

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