It's hysteria... (Score 1)

" They that can give up liberty to obtain a little temporary security deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin

Although I find this quote fairly accurate, and as said before, one must understand that there are acceptions to this. Especially in wartime. The reason as to why security is so tight is because we don't know who the enemy is, people were shocked to find out that the terrorists were people who they conversed and lived next to many years prior to 09-11-01. However, I must agree with Chico Science and find that having your personal belongings and car checked a bit on the absurd side. What are you going to do, manage to stash potentially dangerous biological warfare materials before even reaching your car??? But at the same time, most of the U.S. should realize that this is to a certain point, hysteria. Washington D.C. was not invaded since the War of 1812, and we have never been attacked by other nations with such a high loss of civilian life in our nation's history. These certainly would grant a certain level of humiliation, and anger that we don't want to see repeated. But still, we need to keep this panic in check, for fear it may go to far, and Franklin's quote will prove its point.