>Being forced to wear a seat belt or a helmet does relate to "freedom", by contrast, but since they both have the general public's welfare in mind we put up with that kind of thing.
>But it is surprising to me (and most non-Americans I suspect) that listening in on phone calls and watching internet traffic and intercepting bank movements (SWIFT) and looking over library or video store records etc is deemd acceptable by the residents of the "land of the free".
>
>I deem it acceptable for a free nation that was attacked, in a manner like 9/11, to take necessary measures to prevent it in the future. What the hell is the government supposed to do, just sit back on it's hands and allow terrorists and terrorist sympathizers to use resources in this country against us???? If they did, people would be screaming their heads off about the government doing nothing.

I agree that "necessary measures" are appropriate to fend off further attacks. But, as you know, I've disagreed with the methods employed by the U.S., both externally and internally.
I'm fortunate in that the internal measures only affect me (as far as I know) indirectly and infrequently, when I visit the U.S. (or just pass through it on my way elsewhere).

>
>It's too bad that it's difficult to the Nth degree to quantify how much the total security measures over the last five years have headed off additional potential acts of terrorism and violence, because I'm sure it has.

Well I have 2 problems with this:
1) The top-secrecy involved can allow us to only make ASSUMPTIONS. We can't know for sure. Incumbents can publicly state things like "of course we've thwarted numerous potential terrorist attacks" and that number could be 3 or it could be more than 300. I have to guess some have been stopped. But what were the objectives of the plot(s), how far were they into the plot (might have been detected before carrying out, by regular police means), etc.
2) How many regular folk are under surveillance because of things like they dialed a wrong number or included some watched-for-words in an e-mail or did a perfectly legal money transfer to some place in the middle east or too the wrong book out of a library, etc. Similarly, how many people are sitting in some detention center now, assumed disappeared or run-away by their families?

It seems to me that, in a "free" society, **ANY** surveillance of any kind ought to be discussed by law makers and agreed as necessary before any of it is carried out. It's the poorest of excuses that "we cannot tell the enemy what we are doing to find them". The price AND BENEFIT of living in a "free" society is that THE PEOPLE get a say in such things.


>
>Kevin