Some days when I’m driving to and from work, it becomes laborious to listen to the news. I love NPR and their somewhat-liberal-but-mostly-critical slant on news, but lately it has just been depressing. This war between Israel and Hezbollah has been very tiring, and some days I just tune the radio to one of a few popular-music stations to lighten my mental load.

This morning, however, the war returned to the home turf. The UK reported that some 20 people were arrested for attempting to blow up Trans-Atlantic flights bound for the USA, and that they were using improvised liquid explosives, such as TATP or nitroglycerin, disguised in ordinary shampoo or water bottles. Thus, the UK has raised its terror threat level to Red, as has the US. In addition to these, all carry-on luggage bound for USA from UK has been prohibited, and all liquid containers (save for baby formula) are either banned or have to pass inspection at the station.

“So what?” you say, “Why is this any different from the other news?” It wouldn’t have really bothered me until a commentator mentioned that it was a typical response to terror attacks to “give up freedoms for security”. That got me thinking, “What have we sacrificed for security?” Benjamin Franklin was purported to say that a man who sacrifices liberty for security deserves neither. Where do we draw the line?