Good points - I certainly agree with your past and share your concerns.
Unfortuantely, many of the steps that our government has taken to "protect us" from terrorism are in reality totally ineffective against actual terrorists but very harmful toward honest, law abiding citizens.
In reality, they are just power grabs and they are relying on the naivety and emotions of the voters. Too many times here on FR, I have read "I trust my president to keep my family safe and if he says the government needs this power then that is good enough for me"
The anti-terrorism measures are just like laws that the gun grabbers come up with to protect us from "bad guys with guns". All they do is penalize law abiding citizens and do nothing to actually combat gun related crime. All the while, more and more freedoms are lost.