How quickly we forget, it seems, that the executive, legislative, and executive are all part of the 'government.'

We don't have a system like the UK in which there are some ministers who form 'the government' and can be taken out by a vote of no confidence by 'parliament.' Anyway that also seems to be a rhetorical fiction, separating parliament from 'the government.'

What we have here is an argument not about what the government can and can't do, but who in the government can do it. Various people favor various branches, in large part, it seems, because they believe that certain branches share biases they trust and others share biases they don't trust.

All in all, though, a sensible person could question the independence of a bunch of ex-lawyers (judges) and a bunch of ex-lawyers (legislators) - in fact, it is mostly the executive where some variety enters into it; whether we trust them or not is yet another story. In the end, you'd think that judges, cops and lawmakers tend to be in the same camp vis a vis the freedoms of the people.

So, why bother with all this judicial review? Basically to involve more people and slow things down. But do we really want to just gum up the works in fighting terrorism, with the hope that a less powerful government will treat us better? Frankly, if we want a less powerful government, we should probably cut all sorts of mandates, privileges, and so on - eliminate state charity, subsidies, federal regulation of intrastate commerce, etc - and leave the NSA and CIA to do their work fighting terrorism, at least for the moment. The long arm of government into our personal lives starts with the pocketbook, health care, taxes, etc and ends with law enforcement, not the other way around.

You are very concerned about the intrustion of government into your pocketbook, health care taxes, etc, and yet you're not concerned about law enforcement. Try driving while being black sometimes.

Any good libertarian knows that if a government can be intrusive, arbitrary, and discriminatory in any way possible, it will do so. That's why good libertarians are defenders of civil liberties.

A conservative argument could be made that a renegade Democratic administration could start targeting Republicans just because they opposed administration policies. Not that that would ever happen in say a Bush White House!

Well, here the main issue is that of terrorism prevention, at least it seems so to me. We aren't arguing about tax evasion, traffic violations, or improper investigation of many of the common crimes that people engage in, where we typically want to limit law enforcement so that they don't become abusive and overzealous.

We should also be mindful that we are talking about gathering of information - this isn't about any of the guilt determination or sentencing. It is about observation.

So yes, there are some conservatives who should be concerned about these regulations - those include some of the potentially violent or terrorist militias. But unless you are ready to propose the black helicopters, I'm not seeing an intrusion here on the same scale as, say, waterways legislation that lets the federal government decide what you can build next to an old irrigation ditch.

in these decisions is not to slow the process down, though that may be an unfortunate result. The reason for spreading responsibility across at least two branches of government is to keep everybody honest. Is it foolproof? Of course not, there might still be abuses. But the possibility for abuse drops dramatically when you've got somebody looking over your shoulder.

It's not that I trust one particular branch more than another, it's that I distrust a concentration of power in any one branch. Keeping everybody honest is worth the delay it causes.

It is undoubtedly a trade off; speed is sometimes important, otherwise we could have a referendum on anything.

Well why don't we hold Timothy Guitner, the New Treasury Secretary czar, to the same standards with regards to cheating the IRS out of back taxes for 4 years and only paid 2 of them because he was about to get the job. Eureka, that is illegal too it's in the law and if I didn't pay my taxes the long arm of the law would have came down on me. Yet where is the scrutiny on him, are we to believe that noone in there right mind is thinking this. I remember vividly when they rooted through Joe The Plumber's history and found he didn't pay a some taxes and demolished this man who just asked a question of the man running for office. But we can't look into a man that will have total control of the treasury because he was appointed by BO. Give me a break and get your head out of the sand. BO is no different than any other BS speaker in the house, empty suits. Full of themselves and trying to glorify themselves in front of us simple folk. There seems to be a "scandal begets scandal" ora around this president that doesn't seem to touch him... Seems odd because look at most of his cabinet....DIRTY!!! The country is being taken over by all these left wing activists who don't have our security in mind, only there self agenda to promote. Shut these people up because these people all lack common sense. One last thought.......George Bush had a higher rating (25-30%) than our congress who are.........Majority Democrats. The house couldn't sustain a double digit approval rating (9%) in the last year and yet these are the same people who all pulled to get this man in office. The house was full of empty rhetoric the last couple years and now we have the executive office too that can manage this. I wish him the best of luck, but I'm far from ignorant and can see and do things for myself. Pay my gas and morgage, give me a break and how bout you people get off your butt and find a job. It may not be what your looking for but at least it can give you another avenue to travel and who knows what that may lead too. Quit looking for a governmental handout, your making alot of us sick who work our butts off and still come up short. I'm not looking for a handout, just an opportunity that gives me the option to work for it.