I had a whole different agenda ready, but an article in this morning's Berkshire Daily Living email blast had a story that caught my eye. The AP story Scanners and pat-downs upset airline passengers makes me wonder how - or if - people think.

Lest we forget, it was less than 10 years ago that 19 Muslim extremists hijacked 4 commercial airliners with box cutters they had smuggled onboard. We all know the end result of that day - the Twin Towers down, the Pentagon hit, and thousands of Americans dead. Is it really that much of an invasion of anyone's personal privacy to prevent that from happening again? 

Here's another question: Is anyone really naive enough to think that we can let our guard down even slightly at this point? I firmly believe that the only reason we've been as safe as we've been the past 10 years is because of the increased security measures, the increased wiretapping, etc. Given that a few crazies have managed to sneak through security (the Shoe Bomber, the Underwear Bomber) and a few other plots have been stopped in advance, I would tend to ask if the government doing enough; I certainly wouldn't complain that it is doing too much.

Call me crazy, but in the choice between public safety and civil liberties, I'll take public safety any day.