Your freedom not to see cops on the street – or for that matter, your freedom not to see anything else – never existed in the first place. Cops and the military have always had the right to go anywhere they want on public streets. Maybe yours look more “militarized” than mine do. Post-911 cops in California look and act exactly like pre-911 cops, except that if the federal government is aware of a likely terrorist plot, the local authorities are now more likely to know about it. Since I’m not a terrorist myself, perhaps I’m having a hard time appreciating the lost “freedom” to sneak a bomb past Chief Wiggims and Officer Bar Brady.

Your loss of freedom to take tweezers and nail clippers on board a plane is silly, but then again, so is getting all that hot and bothered about it.

You never had the “freedom” not to have a “sneak and peek” warrant taken out on you. We’ve discussed this one before. Besides, all that warrant stuff is a privacy issue, it’s not about freedom. Even if the sky were to fall and the Fourth Amendment were abolished outright, that wouldn’t necessarily make us less free – except in the sense that we’d be less free to break laws under circumstances where we previously assumed we would never be caught (or that if we were caught, the evidence would be excluded from trial).

Bottom line: we’re all slightly inconvenienced by increased security measures designed to make sure 9-11 doesn’t happen again. From this, everyone’s favorite crank Congressman just happens to draw all the same alarmist conclusions that he’s been drawing from everything else that’s happened over the last 17 years. [Probably longer than that - I picked that number because he had to be his current "sky is falling, police state coming" kook by 1987 at the latest, or he never would have gotten the LP's nomination in 1988.]

My freedom to not have to show up at the airport 2 hours before my flight.

My freedom to not see militarized police wondering the streets.

My freedom to take tweezers and nail clippers onboard a plane.

My freedom to not have a sneak and peak warrant taken out on me.

Next time someone drones on about the massive loss of liberty since 2001, ask them for specifics. What specific freedoms did you enjoy on September 10, 2001 that you do not enjoy today? Only after they are identified with specificity is it even possible to examine the freedom/security trade-off. And yes, I am calling B.S. on B.F., too. Of course we trade some freedom for some security. The question is how much freedom we must give up, in exchange for how much security.