We shouldn't waste our time observing "rights" and "liberties" when fighting terrorism

You're right, I was a little confused about how the Pro stated their arguments. Alright, I'm gonna start dropping the arguments I'm not doing well on, so: 2) The right to life. Ah but what exactly is life? I hate to argue semantics, but the constitution is only what we interpret it as. Life can of course mean the right to be alive. But it could just as easily mean the right to live life. You know what I mean? The right so enjoy life. No where in the constitution does it say specifically that you have the right to be alive. AND nothing stops people from killing you on a whim. You could be murdered at any time. There are thousands of homicides a year in this country. And here is where your argument starts to fail. If I have the right to live then that is my right. I don't have to guard it. Just as I shouldn't have to guard my right to privacy, or my right for freedom of speech. Unfortunately things like the Patriot Act require people to stand up and speak out, because more and more the people of this country are finding themselves guarding rights that the government has no right to infringe upon. 3)The real world corellary. Alright, a specific example when our ignorance made it possible to exploit our rights? The unwarranted wiretapping that has been exposed. I'm sure you've heard about it, but for the benefit of anyone who hasn't: The Bush administration performed wiretaps on US citizens without warrants, and without probable cause. It took place for years before it was finally exposed. This was a direct violation of the 4th amendment right of US citizens. In the case of the warrantless wiretapping, there is no exaggeration, what the government did was a violation of the constitution. All of this was made possible by the lack of knowledge of American citizens, when the story was broken, the wiretapping program was halted. 4) Terrorists when when... Interesting point. But think about it like this. A few months ago there was a major bomb scare in Boston. What happened was Cartoon Network put up little LED pictures around the city in an effort to promote a television show. A few concerned Bostonians didn't recognize them for what they were and reported them to the police. Around the country security was stepped up causing a panic among a ton of US citizens. The security increases around the country caused fear. You might argue that increased security makes people feel safer. However, do people feel safe after a bombing even if there are a ton of law enforcement officials around? No. It's a combination of the threat of attack, as well as the awareness of the threat of attack (promoted by law enforcement officers), that creates fear. They're called TERROrists for a reason, they exist to spread terror. Killing people is important to them yes, but since they can't kill everyone scaring them is just as good. And, we are protecting ourselves, at home and abroad. That protection can take place without infringing upon our civil liberties. "Your argument only functions when our lifestyle and freedoms are changed. As per your above arguments we are ignorant to these apparently devastating changes, therefore our lifestyle remains the same." Touchï¿½. However , the lifestyle of the average American citizen does stay the same, while the lifestyles of some citizens change drastically. People that are selected for extra screening every time they go to an airport. People that are shunned by society simply because of their heritage. People that end up in prison camps because they weren't born in this country. And of course, while the lifestyle of the average citizen may not be affected today, their lifestyles will most definitely change when civil liberties are limited even more in the name of "safety". 6) Sacrifice status quo/slippery slope It's nice to think that if our rights begin to be infringed upon more that people we speak up and it will stop. However that's historically proven not to be true. The government won't dare limit the rights of the white male citizen, as those are the people that still have the most influence on this country. However the government will slowly take away the rights of citizens not born in the US. The people of Middle Eastern decent that are suffering today will continue to suffer more in the future, and no one will speak up. Take the always used example of WWII. When Hitler began to take away the rights of the disabled no one spoke up. When the blacks were discriminated against, no one spoke up. When the Jews were rounded up and put in camps no one spoke up. It took an all out war with Germany for the injustices there to finally be silenced. "Obviously, internment camps and RACIAL profiling are excessive. Nowhere does racial profiling, or rounding up middle-eastern americans come into play in my argument. Profiling, sure. I do believe that a 90-year-old woman or a 6-year-old girl does not have anywhere near the chance to commit a terrorist attack." I'm glad we're in agreement. Unfortunately the government does racially profile, and they use the PA as an excuse. Since you didn't specifically state that you were against racial profiling, I assumed that you agreed with the government on this one. I'm glad that's not the case. "We have not had a terrorist attack since 9/11" We also didn't have a terror attack before 9/11, when the PA was not in place. It's been demonstrated that we can protect this country without infringing on individual's rights. "My arguments help to ensure the CONSTITUTIONALLY MANDATED right to life, which is valued above all other rights. " Again, we disagree on the meaning of life, and it's not valued above all other rights. If we take your idea of life to be true, then what's the point of living if we live under a tyrannical government (not the case today, but perhaps in the future). If the government continues to limit our rights in the name of safety, and protecting our lives, than the environment created might not be worth living in. "You claim on one hand that these violations are killing our way of life, but on the other that we are ignorant to them" No I don't. I claim that these violations are unconstitutional, unwarranted, and will EVENTUALLY kill our way of life. And yes we are ignorant to the small injustices that take place daily. I was looking around for your arguments on the "Slippery Slope" and I'll I could find was this, in your second argument: "The whole slippery slope argument doesn't really apply. All of your examples assume that we are, in some way, realistically denied our civil liberties." Which doesn't make a ton of sense. You can say that the slippery slope argument doesn't apply, but that doesn't make it true. The idea behind a slippery slope is that it may be insignificant now, but in the future it will be extremely significant. Today the average citizen is not denied civil liberties that effect their day to day lives. Some citizens lives are effected drastically, and a lot of citizens rights are being infringed upon without their knowledge. That's the top of the slope. If we don't stop now, we'll end up at the bottom. And I'd like to point out a couple of things: 1) Before 9/11 the Patriot Act was not in place and there were no major terror attacks (Other than the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma city) on the US. 2) Our government is treating it's citizens like criminals. The government has infringed upon the rights of it's citizens based on suspicions, not facts. Safety is a convince argument, there's no denying it. It's hard to say that the right of citizens are more important than the lives of citizens. But no where do you assert that that safety requires the violation of our rights. You say that safety is paramount, (which I disagree with, a safe but lifeless life is not one I'd like) but are the violations necessary for our safety? You don't have any evidence to say so.