I know this thread will generate little if any interest, but I wanted to recommend this book: One Man's Freedom by Edward Bennett Williams as a brilliant, lucid, and often moving account why the principles underpinning Western civilization, be that in the traditions of the common law and the Magna Carta, or the Bill of Rights in the American Constitution should never be given up.

This book was written in 1962, in the face of the Cold War, and I'm astonished at the similarities of the assault against individual liberty that was attempted then and is being attempted now.

And I'm not just talking about Guantanamo Bay, or torture in holding cells in Eastern Europe. It's small encroachments on liberty that are the most dangerous. It's the relaxation of the knock-and-announce before search rules, wriggling around wiretap warrants, being creative with evidence from CCTV footage, increasing procedural bars to federal habeas claims, and so on that allow us to descend into exactly what we abhor the most.

The book is out of print, and occasionally pops up on eBay or Amazon at a very good price. I cannot recommend it enough, especially to those who think a little compromise of these values are necessary to defeat the enemy. This is after all, what Tony Blair described as the defining question of this generation.