It was arguably the defining event of our time. When terrorists crashed jet airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, our world changed forever. Our sense of safety and security was shattered. For all of us who lived through September 11, 2001, we will never forget the sense of shock, anguish, and rage. More than 3,000 of our fellow

countrymen had been killed, men, women, and children who had been going about their lives,

unaware of the evil that awaited them. We will also never forget the shared sense of fear and

vulnerability. Terrorism was nothing new, but for most of us Americans, it was something that

happened in faraway lands with names we often couldn't pronounce. We weren't used to these

atrocities happening on our own soil against our own people. There was also a sense that this

could just be the beginning. We were shocked that a group of terrorists were able to pull off a complex

operation involving the hijacking of four planes and using them as suicide weapons. We were horrified

by how crafty and effective the perpetrators had been, and we couldn't help but think it was

just a matter of time before it happened again. The man in the Oval Office, George W. Bush, was tasked with the responsibility of bringing those responsible for the attacks to justice and protecting the American people from further attacks.

Turn that moment forward, the chief priority of the American government was the war on terror.

President Bush was faced with dilemmas inherent

in a free society during a time of insecurity. He had to make difficult decisions about just how

America would confront the threat of terrorism. Does one handle terrorism as a crime, a matter

mainly for law enforcement, or as an act of war, a matter mainly for the military

and the intelligence agencies. And given the nature of terrorism, where shadowy networks

operate through illicit channels, the government felt the need to increase its intelligence

and special operations capabilities. So President Bush signed the Patriot Act, along with a host of other

bills and government reorganizations. But this came at a cost. Many Americans feared that the government

was doing too much behind the scenes with little or no accountability. They worried that the

privacy of American citizens was being curtailed. But others believed, and still believed to this day,

that these actions were necessary to protect the nation from another catastrophic attack.

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