Mixed messages, definitely. For one thing, people appear not to be realizing that even with terrorism, trains and airplanes are still safer per passenger mile than automobile. Driving people to drive more (no pun intended) isn't going to save any lives. Besides which, if I've got an emergency flight to catch, I may be willing to take the risk. Is there some reason that all flights must be held to the same security, so long as everyone getting on knows what level of security that is? Moreover, the suggestion of greater humint bears with it infiltration (and possible agent procacateurship of) any group that the government doesn't like. -Allen

America's dilemma: Balancing security and an open society

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Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- after the bombing at the olympics and the loss of twa flight 800, americans grappled sunday with how to maintain security in a society that prizes individual liberty above all.

Travelers said they would accept longer delays for better baggage checks and politicians reopened debate over thorny provisions cut from an antiterrorism bill. But many weighed the desire for safety against the pleasures of an open society.

"We must never accept as a fact of life that we will have to live with terrorism," said Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick. "We must and will come up with the tools to prevent these events."

But Gorelick conceded there may be a price. "Balancing the competing interests in openness and security will be something that will be a subject for all of us for many years to come," she told NBC's "Meet the Press."

[...]

Joyce Lee, catching a train home to Newark, Del., from Washington's Union Station on Sunday, said she's "a little leery about travel these days."

"You don't know when you're going to get it. A bomb could go off anywhere, anytime," she said. "I would definitely be willing to go through more security because safety and having to wait a few extra minutes is worth it."

Security consultants predicted public pressure would force greater restrictions in public places and increased scrutiny at airports. But others noted that security was tight at the Olympics before the bombing, and warned that adopting a police-state mentality would represent defeat.

"I don't want to see the terrorists win by, in effect, revoking our Constitution," Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said on Fox's "News Sunday."

A terrorist can always move on to the next target. If airports are sealed, will train stations be safe? How about movie theaters?

"Ultimately the question is, can you protect perfectly in public places?" said Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell. "And the answer is no."

[...]

The antiterrorism bill that Clinton signed earlier this year applied the death penalty to terrorism convictions and provided $1 billion for law enforcement to fight terrorists.

But a provision to allow the FBI to wiretap all phones used by a suspected terrorist was dropped and one requiring explosives manufacturers to insert chemical tracers in their products was weakened.

Gingrich said Sunday that he was willing to revisit those issues, but that a proposal to allow police to conduct so-called "roving wiretaps" was too great an intrusion of privacy.

"Our system is designed to go slowly, frankly, to protect freedoms," he said on "Meet the Press."

Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., said that despite the recent incidents, the Cold War's end has produced a period of relative safety for the United States.

[...]

But he warned that unless steps were taken to block terrorists from obtaining weapons-grade uranium or chemical weapons, Americans might soon be longing for the days of the simple pipe bomb.

The key to fighting terrorism, he said, was increasing the United States' ability to gather human intelligence -- information often gathered covertly by infiltrating terrorist groups or spying on their sponsors.