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

I DO NOT advocate the actions of our government. I am arguing a hypothetical principle, not the legitimization of things the government has done. 1) Constitutionality This is bad for you because winning this argument allows my claims to function on the same level as yours. Your main claim throughout the debate is that rights are consitutionally gauranteed. This arg means that the government's duty to protect us is also constitutionally mandated, and therefore, carries the same weight as our rights. By dropping this argument, you make the debate a weight of harms rather than principles. If both of our duties are constitutionally mandated, you have no abstract claim to civil liberties in the face of government duty. This means I only have to prove that not protecting citizens is worse than not protecting a reasonable amount of rights violations on a actual, rather than an abstract level. We both agree the rights I speak of are lettered in the constitution. I could literally read them to you. The "rights" we would violate aren't there. Where is the right to privacy or the mandate that says the gov has to be PC in the face of danger? I don't see how the harms you talk about are actually violating the constitution. 2) The right to life First, let me point out that the right to live is rooted more deeply in the consititution than any other right, as we both agree. Now it becomes a matter of how you define that right. Essentially, your argument functions on the idea that without rights, life isn't worth living. This is ridiculous in the scenario I have presented. Remember that I defend REASONABLE rights violations. Would you RATHER DIE than live in a world where the government needs fewer warrants to check your record at the public library? I'm sure many (including myself) would argue that without ANY rights, there is no point to life, but I wouldn't discard myself over technical constitutional infractions. This means the right to be safe/alive functions on the same level as your claim to rights. This makes the debate boil down to risk. Which rights need more protecting or are in the biggest jeopardy? Obviously, since the rights violations would be reasonalbe ones (allowing us to maintain any crucial rights that would affect us), we should protect right to life (in whatever sense), which is being inherently threatened and has been severly taken from us before, (9/11). 3) The Real World Correlary I'm not saying the gov is just, or that the acts they have done are legal. What I DO argue is that a reasonable denial of rights has no REAL WORLD effect on society. Yes, there have been instances where the gov has done bad things. That has no bearing on my arg. Does anyone's life get altered when we let grandma through the security checkpoint so we can check capable people? The important rights ARE those that protect us from those situations. I'm advocating the REASONABLE sacrifice of rights, in order to let the gov do its job. These small sacrifices of rights are not responsible for immigrants being put in detainment camps and people of middle-eastern descent being sought out by racial profiling. These rights sacrifices simply look at the practical sacrifices we can make in order to make our protection more efficient and secure. With all of the wiretapping stories come just as many stories about a 7yr old girl getting patted down by a fed. marshall and his drug dog. The terrible things that have happened to some people are not supported in my claim. I think they are terrible. Because irrational, illegitimate actors have done terrible things in the name of safety does not mean that we can't do practical things for that same cause. That would be like saying "Since the Crusades were in the name of religion, no one can act on behalf of religion anymore". 4) Terrorists Win While the people who are trying to hurt us are trying to scare us, they do this by killing people. The 'terrorists' don't have this 'yell boo' mentality. We have a reason to be sacred. They ARE trying to kill us, whether fear is a result of that or not, we NEED to protect ourselves. Letting the terrorists win should not be relevant. Thats a common argument, but why should we care? As long as we are safe and secure, I don't really care that the terrorists believe they are victorious. Reasonability comes into play here too. Are terrorists like "Hell yea, Bush installed wiretaps on 3,000 Americans today!"?. The stripping down of our rights is only good for them when it is significant enough to change our way of life. My case obviously doesn't do that because of the very nature of reasonbility. 5) Reasonability The nature of my reasobility claim allows me to access safety (to whatever degree is settled later in the debate), allows me to avoid all of these "immigrants get sent to death camps" scenarios, and implies that we would find ourselves in an appropriate balance between safety and rights. Now that you have conceded this notion of reasonability, you have to win that a SMALL sacrifice in non-vital rights is worse than the harms I indicate. 6) Slippery Slope First, the checks of our government will keep the reasonable that I advocate from turning into the significant. Second, the people will stop any significant rights violations from happening. Look at the uproar over profiling at the airport. Can you imagine if the gov started quartering troops in homes or taking away free speech? The only response you make that applies is that we would be ignorant to these rights violations, in which case, THEY DONT MATTER. If they don't have any effect on us, why not sacrifice them in the name of keeping ourselves alive? Furthermore, you give me NO reason to believe that rights violations now will lead to violations down the road. Historical examples don't apply. Those things were done illegally and were clearly not reasonable (for more on this refer to my above point 3). You have made it seem like I am defending what the gov is doing. I'm not. My argument is not responsible for the current or past atrocities that have happened. I advocate the REASONABLE sacrifice of rights in order to better ensure our safety. Next, your arguments functions on constitutional infringement. Where are the rights you speak of in the const.? Second, the gov's duty to protect its citizens and our right to life are in clear, undeniable print in the document. Any intepretation can see this. These function on the same, if not better, ground as your rights violation claims because ignoring either would violate the const. Sacrificing rights does lead to safety. These small rights sacrifices make the gov perform its job exponentially better, giving exponential amounts of safety. Without safety, we get attacked and our citizens die. Common sense dictates, if they don't have to perform each PC move, they can more effectively take the steps needed to protect us. However, rights violations have diminishing returns, which is why I advocate a reasonable amount. In weighing the harms of each scenario, because of the constitutional duty of the government, and the right to life you can only claim actual consequences of rights violations and can no longer argue it on principle. Also, because of the right to life debate, the only question is risk and harm. Violating the right to life would cause death, rights violations would cause discomfort or inconvenience. As the risk of our right to life being breached increases we have to sacrifice our meaningless privileges in order to be safe. When the sacrifice of rights outweighs the safety risk, then come talk to me. The important rights are those that prevent the bad things you talked about from happening, the gov IS violating THOSE rights, but I'm not sacrifing those. We can give up certain rights and privileges in order to ensure our safety, as long as that insurance outweighs the damage the sacrifices. Reasonable sacrifices obviously accomplish this.