“Tyrannical police states
spy on their own citizens,
kidnap people at will, and
imprison them without bothering to charge them with crimes or even
give them a trial by jury. Police states
imprison innocent people,
again and
again and
again. Then they
declare kidnapped victims non-persons and
torture or
kill them at will.
“How do police states get away with it? From
Hitler to
the present, totalitarians say that we must give up our rights and freedoms because it's the only way for law enforcement to have the tools to protect us from catastrophic terrorist incidents. Of course, that's the opposite course advocated by America's Founding Fathers, like Benjamin Franklin, who counseled: ‘They that would give up essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security.’”
(Thomas Eddlem, dangeroustalk.com, 2006.)