Obviously September 11 indicated that security procedures on airline were far too slack, and very likely in a lot of other situations as well. But jumping from that to an assumption that the whole gamut of other infringements of constitutional rights was appropriate is going rather further than the evidence suggests.

Just because one extreme - in this case the incredible lack of security that allowed the hijackings to take place - has been shown to be unacceptable, it doesn't mean automatically going to teh other extreme, even temporarily. (And a lot of temporary things have a horible tendency to turn permanent.)

But I can't go along with Carol C's suggestion that people should feel inhibited from criticising things that go on in other countries. Often I suspect it's easier for outsiders to see what is going on. There is perhaps a special responsibility to make an effort to get the facts right.