The war on terror is a battle of convenience

Just to throw out a philosophical argument, it seems that the "global war on terror" is more about inconvenience than effect. Take travel. One way to get to near perfect security is to not allow any take-on's or checked baggage. Just send what you need ahead. Wildly inconvenient on planning your travels, but very safe and there would be no need for background checks, x-ray machines or invasive searches of your stuff, but think about how much faster the lines would move and as an added bonus it would cripple the drug trade. Plus, while it seems like a hassle now, I'm 100% positive some entrepreneur somewhere would find a way to handle the hassle on the cheap.

Or imagine if rather than just seemlessly flicking a switch to monitor all your calls, someone had to come by your house and install the federally approved data recorder in your home. Do you think people would be as blase about governmental monitoring if were an invasive process, and not invisible as it is now?

Because giving up our privacy (and by my count our rights and our security) does not get a check-mark for "inconvenient" it happens easily and with our consent.

Because giving up the "security" of traveling with our stuff gets a check-mark for inconvenient, we are willing to sacrifice our actual security.

Those who wish to do us harm sleep on the dirt in caves, convenience is not their real concern.