As usual, you delight on telling us why the glass is half-empty, or worse. This gratuitous thread with all those hot button words like 'soviet' and 'police state', and your hot button conclusions about the terrible loss of personal liberty could not be farther from what our real world is in 2012.

Instead of making a superficial, out of context commentary your cherished focus, why not recognize the way America is working today, and how remarkably good that is under the circumstances.

It is nothing short of miraculous that there has been no large scale domestic terrorist disaster in eleven years. Law enforcement agencies from coast to coast have recorded hundreds of 'near misses', many stopped only because of vigilance. You don't like vigilance because it means watching and listening, which the bad old authorities should never be able to BEGIN to do without court orders, warrants, etc. We've written lots of laws to protect our precious liberties, most before the requirement of urgent action to effectively combat sophisticated terrorism.

What you completely miss is all the other laws and the recourse we have if our precious liberties are 'violated'. We can complain, like the "T" riders did in Boston, and excesses stop. We can sue, and have our rights upheld, make a big pile of money for our clever lawyer, and a little pile for us! What a great country!!! Law enforcement agencies are obsessed with avoiding complaints and lawsuits. That keeps their 'police state' mentality in check. And when they are really professional and carefully record or video incidents, they expose the perp who hollers "police brutality" pulling the gun and firing off the first dozen rounds.

What you also completely miss is that the power to know everything through vigilance is our greatest protection. We need to have the most well developed information gathering capability possible.

Maybe I can make the big picture simpler for you. Would you rather have someone someone search your bag for 'no apparent reason' as you get on the subway, or spend a few months in the hospital with severe burns from the bomb?

Go ahead, choose. It's another one of your rights.