For the record, I do NOT condone the incidents of physical abuse, and believe that disciplinary or legal action should be taken against the abusers, but I also do not believe that withholding contact necessarily falls under that category.

Also it should be noted that of the 762 original detainees, most if not all have been released and/or deported. If there were screwups or abuses, they are being investigated. All of this is in the public eye.

A lot of newsprint has been expended on how we failed to connect the dots on the 9/11 terrorists. I have done some looking into the history of the terrorists in America and Europe.

I am not a legal expert, but it seems to me that there is nothing those people could have been hauled in for and kept confined that civil liberties people would have considered legitimate. They would have had hearings that would have made, with luck, the local papers. They would have had the usual defense lawyers, the legal rights, and the whole ball of wax, and most would probably have been released in short order.

To go back to work.

There aren't any easy answers. At least I don't have any. A balance is being attempted between safety and privacy, security and individual freedom. As a libertarian, a lot of what is being done makes me uncomfortable as well. Maybe the government isn't balancing at the right point. I do know no attacks have occurred in America since 9/11. Cause and effect is impossible to prove, so our security arrangements, however flawed, get no credit. You know that if there was an attack, it would certainly be blamed on those same security arrangements. That's life.

In the cold light of logic, it is impossible to attain perfect safety without imposing restrictions on our lives that would make us something other than what America is supposed to be. Even then there would be no guarantees. The real answer may be that we will have to set the balance point somewhere where intermittent attacks have to be absorbed. Again in the cold light of logic, a typical terror attack has no more real impact on the economy and lives than a major natural disaster, and we cowboy up and deal with the latter year after year without falling into a national malaise or financial depression.

The other answer is to wreck the terror movement in its lair, and this doesn't make a lot of people happy either.