It goes without saying that a society with cameras everywhere, compulsory national IDs, universal fingerprinting, and requiring papers to move around the country, would have much lower crime and be less vulnerable to terrorism. This has in fact been proven: the violent crime rate in totalitarian countries is often quite low--if you factor out violent crime on the part of the government, that is.

You're the one constantly griping about our civil liberties. Is this the price we want to pay?

If Ashcroft proposed having two cops on every block, you'd crap yourself in indignation. Make up your minds if you are worried about not enough surveillance or too much. You're going to get whiplash.