If ANY of the cops that had stopped Atta driving around the U.S. on an expired visa had checked on that, 3000 more people would be alive today.
We don't need to turn into a surveillance state to maintain security.
In fact, we fought a Cold War against a foe with hydrogen bombs, enough chem/bioweapons to kill everything on Earth, and an active program of infiltrating spies and saboteurs into the U.S. WITHOUT requiring ID to fly.
Wear your chains lightly.
Good point. Somehow we survived the Cold War without the Patriot Act, national ID cards, Homeland Security, and so on.
(Then again, given our transition to a police state, maybe we really didn't prevail with regards to the Cold War)
What a lot of my fellow Libertarians don't realize is that only if we win this war, and as decisively as we did in 1945, will we be able to get our Constitution back.