No, not quite a dictatorship; Liberty v security.(How tough are John Ashcroft's measures?)

Economist (US), The, December, 2001

Is the Bush administration really imperilling freedom for the sake of security?

DISPUTES about civil liberty, like jury verdicts, tend to be binary. Guilty or not guilty. A threat to freedom or a necessary wartime protection. George Bush's proposals to deal with suspected terrorists are just like this. On the one hand, an unholy alliance of leftists and conservative libertarians condemns almost all the measures (accusations of "shredding the constitution", "kangaroo courts" and "summary executions" abound). On the other, law-and-order types--who include a large majority of ordinary Americans--think the proposals are, if anything, too mild.

In fact, a review of what the administration is doing supports neither hysterical opposition nor uncritical...

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