Keeping things in perspective.
According to Wikipedia, the United States suffers from around 42,000 deaths from car accidents a year. This is a lot of deaths. We could probably save a lot of these lives by doing a few simple things. We could increase the penalty for speeding to a felony. We could raise the driving age to 21, and we could not allow anyone over 65 to drive. We could place sensors in every car that could track your driving style and forwards the data to the department of transportation for review. All of these things are possible, and would save lives, however we don't do them. Why? Because people accept the current level of traffic laws as intrusive enough, and are prepared to accept 42,000 deaths a year in order to not have to lose some of their freedom.
Another example. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, we lost 696,947 people to heart disease in 2002. That is a HUGE number of people. Not all of these deaths are preventable, but a lot of them could be avoided. We could make exercise mandatory, monitored by a chip implanted in our chest. We could make it illegal to eat high fat foods. We could force every American to submit themselves to a battery of tests each year, and then data mine that information to find who needs immediate preventative care. We could reduce these deaths dramatically, but we don't do these things. Why? The same reason as above, we do not feel that the loss of personal freedom is worth the lowered risk of dying from heart disease.
These two examples are obviously to illustrate a point. We are willing to give up our freedom, and allow external control and oversight of our lives up to a certain point. Most of us are happy to accept seat belt laws, but we would balk at having our driving records monitored and forwarded to the government. We are willing to accept a certain loss of privacy for our own good, but only to a certain extent.
If we lose 42,000 people a year to car accidents, and almost 700,000 people a year to heart disease, but we aren't willing to give up more of our privacy on these issues, then why are so many Americans willing to give up their privacy to protect us from terrorist attacks?
In the last 5 years, we have lost less than 4000 people to terrorist attacks, the vast majority of them in one attack. You are far more likely to die of heart disease or a car accident, or any number of other preventable ways than as a result of an attack. Yet so many Americans have been willing to allow the Bush Administration to gather details on every call they make, adding it to a large database, so it can be analyzed to protect us from Terrorism. We have given up a fundamental right of privacy, to protect us from a very unlikely risk. We wouldn't be willing to allow the government access to every detail about our driving, or every detail about our health, so why is it that every detail of our communications is any different?
The only difference I can see is that people have a disproportionately large fear of terrorism, and this is very easy to understand, considering the fear mongering of our President and his Administration. We have spent millions, even invaded another country, to save us from a reasonably minimal risk. We refuse at the same time to pay attention to, or spend similar amounts of money on, health crises that can be easily prevented. We are concentrating on all the wrong things.
I am not saying that it is not important for us to protect ourselves from Terrorists. It is absolutely essential that we work hard at that. But should we be quite so willing to allow our President to break the law, violate the constitution, and remove some of our basic freedoms? Should we let him take away our rights? Of course not. We need to keep a clear perspective, and we need to remind our President that he is not a King, he too is subject to the law.