An excellent riposte to the PATRIOT Act's boosters in Reason. As the administration ramps up its efforts to bolster support for their package of post September 11th domestic surveillance measures it's important to keep your talking points handy.

Civil libertarians want the answer to questions that as yet have barely been asked and never been answered: How will these new powers make us safer? Would they have prevented the September 11 attacks? Do they add anything to the existing powers the government failed to deploy effectively before then? Are they broader than necessary to aid in the fight against terror?

The PATRIOT apologists will have none of this. The default, as they see it, is to grant new powers unless there's proof that they'll lead overnight to tyranny. The presumption of liberty is replaced by a presumption of power. The sad reality, though, is that even a police state can't guarantee total safety: Whatever we do, the coming years will see more terror, more attacks. If we conclude, each time, that the culprit must be an excess of domestic freedom, a lack of government power, we are traveling a road with no end.

It seems obvious that any government that grants itself the powers of surveillance, detention, trial, and judgement in secret is a danger to the democracy and liberty they purport to defend.