Edited sentence: "But bin Laden didn't just prod Americans into disregarding their own laws and principles when dealing with their real and supposed enemies; he goaded them into turning on each other.... Those who opposed going to war in Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, were portrayed as unpatriotic haters of America."Congress passed the grotesquely named Patriot Act, removing civil liberties that took centuries to earn.... National security, rather than life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness became the fundamental determinant.... A national media seized by a shameful fit of jingoism whipped up an already fear-stricken population."Setting aside the trillions expended in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have bin Laden to thank for a lot of today’s economic misery.... But it was the loss of America’s liberties, the sacrifice of individual freedom, and the breakdown of its rule of law that was bin Laden’s greatest triumph."Telecommunications companies were press-ganged into participating in illegal wiretap operations against American citizens., the CBC's senior Washington corresondent Neil Macdonald has written, "In many ways, Osama bin Laden died the victor.... The United States became a meaner, more paranoid, more impoverished place.... Thousands of people were locked up on flimsy pretexts and held for months without trial.At the president's direction, White House lawyers concocted specious legal arguments allowing government agents to practise torture.Government secrecy and classification of information expanded exponentially.Gradually, the Muslim world began to believe it was at war.Habeas corpus was ignored; the White House arrogated to itself the power to pronounce an American citizen an 'enemy combatant,' stripped of legal rights or due process.In an analysis of the impact of Osama bin Laden on the U.Muslims learned to live with hard stares and suspicion.One can only imagine bin Laden's delight.The cleavage between right and left, red and blue, urban and rural, became deeper than at any time in modern history.They also began kidnapping people off foreign streets, sometimes the wrong people altogether, and shipping them off to regimes that didn't bother at all with legal opinions.They were pulled off flights for the sin of having prayed publicly