Donuel;

One of the things that I think gets overlooked by not just yourself but most other people in a discussion such as this one is that somewhere there are people, cabinet officers, legislators, national security advisors, economists, CEO's, security people and the like who have to make decisions about what to do - right now. They have to protect lives and property in an immediate sense.

Of course, I agree that we must think clearly and act decisively to change the context that produces terrorists and the people who are willing to shelter them, however there are some people whom we expect to make decisions about what to do this afternoon, tomorrow and next week to protect us and our families. Unfortunately this kind of pressure in an emergency has led to major injustices, especially the rounding up of Japanese on the West Coast and Axis nationals on the East Coast following the US entry into WW II. However, our system was such their injustices were finally recognized and their tribulations apologized for. The bravery of their sons became appreciated to the extent that in the 1960 there was a feature film about the Japanes-Americans fighting who unit in the US Army was one of the most decorated in the entire war. An open society recognized and apologized for one of its mistakes. The injustice now stands as an example of the significance of suspending civil rights.

If you are ever in a position where you have to make a decision that will immediately affect the safety and the confidence of hundreds, to say nothing of hundreds of millions, of lives, you may find that you, too, have a tendency to over react. The purpose of a Consitution is to bring things back into balance once a crisis has been normalised. Whether or not we are able to do that in this case will be the test of whether we have won or lost.

Sourdough