So much to choose from today

But it has to be this :BBC NEWS | UK | Terror plan may spark fresh outcry

I listened to Charles Clark on the BBC today, trying to justify why we had to give up civil rights to save our society from these shadowy people who want to destroy it. I'm sorry, but it really doesn't work like that. You can't give up a fundamental principle and pretend that no damage has been done. Principles are like that, they are either wholly intact, or completely broken. Governments that say 'trust us, we won't misuse this power' must be treated with the deepest suspicion. Ironically, I think the Tories understand this, but Labour clearly doesn't (I suppose Stalin claimed to be a socialist too). It reminds me of this possibly apocryphal story, which I always thought was attributable to Winston Churchill, but which a quick Google reveals an equal number of people think was by George Bernard Shaw, with a minority claiming Mark Twain as the source. Anyway:

Mark Twain/Winston Churchill/George Bernard Shaw is at a party, mingling with the upper crust, and he's talking to an obviously rich matron who is busy lamenting the death of morality. Shaw/Churchill/Mr. Twain interrupts her to ask, "My dear madam, your complaints are well-grounded, but I wonder if you would sleep with me for one million dollars?" The woman replied, a bit flustered, "For one million dollars Well, who wouldn't?" "Unfortunately," Churchill/Mr. Twain/Shaw continued, "I don't have one million dollars. Will you sleep with me for twenty?" The woman became offended and said indignantly, "Certainly not! What kind of woman do you think I am?!" To which Churchill/Shaw/Mr. Twain replied, "We've already established that; now we're just haggling over the price."

The point being, regardless of attribution, that principles are absolute, and once given up, they are gone.