It is a grievous failure of the state whenever liberty is compromised in the cause of safety.
When these freedoms are exercised, all citizens have a clearer view of who they live beside and what may need to be done.
The search without warrant is a undesirable but minor extension of an existing power and, while we retain an open society, abuse by the state should be apparent.
Ethnic profiling is a specious complaint made more and more frequently by groups (even in Australia). In effect, it is a demand that police ignore intelligence and refuse to act on information that an offender was "dark skinned" - or that the greatest terrorist threats correlate with the Islamic commitment (and indeed even with visitations to particular Islamic groups).
All governments tend to act in the interests of the governors rather than the governed.
European governments are showing a growing tendency to act on all sorts of supranational issues without democratic mandate.
Democracy only constrains this when an active citizenry demands honesty, openness and freedom.
We must remember that most European governments at this time, wish to conceal from the people that their immigration policies have combined with their anti-assimilation policies (misnamed as "multiculturalism") to turn many European suburbs into toxic ghettos.
In these testing times, what we need, more than ever, is complete freedom of speech, assembly and association as well as complete honesty and openness from government.
As I write this, the coverup over the New Years Eve attacks near Cologne station is being revealed. Again the same pattern of denial - firstly of the facts - and then of the linkage to the policy of uncontrolled acceptance of huge numbers of young males from mysogynist cultures.
