whither privacy, and freedom?

The strong counter-terrorism efforts undertaken by the British government are announced by officials and covered by the press, and so it’s logical to assume that the British people are aware of the various programs, right?

Probably not, Timothy Garton Ash suggests:

This has got to stop. Britain’s snooper state is getting completely out of hand. We are sleepwalking into a surveillance society, and we must wake up. When the Stasi started spying on me, as I moved around East Germany 30 years ago, I travelled on the assumption that I was coming from one of the freest countries in the world to one of the least free. I don’t think I was wrong then, but I would certainly be wrong now. Today, the people of East Germany are much less spied upon than the people of Britain. The human rights group Privacy International rates Britain as an “endemic surveillance society”, along with China and Russia, whereas Germany scores much better.

What degree of infringement on our freedoms are we willing to tolerate in order to feel secure?

It seems quaint now (shamefully so) to think of how outraged I felt only ten years ago when, in conversation with friends, I heatedly accused Rudy Giuliani of being a “fascist” for his Orwellian installation of surveillance cameras in Washington Square Park (in an effort to keep out drug dealers and other undesirables).

Like many people, since 9/11 I’ve traveled a long road in search of answers to these questions—without success so far.