The 9/11 dilemma: freedom vs. security: ten years after 9/11, the United States is still trying to balance protecting the nation from terrorist attacks with preserving civil liberties.

• Author: Smith, Patricia
• Position: Cover story

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On Sept. 11, 2001, A1 Qaeda terrorists attacked the United States, turning hijacked passenger planes into missiles and killing almost 3,000 people in New York, at the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., and in Pennsylvania.

The attacks shattered America's sense of invulnerability and ushered in an ongoing battle with radical Islamic terrorists who, to this day, are bent on killing Americans. Washington responded with a host of measures--many of them controversial--to protect the nation.

As we commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11, the nation is still struggling with the challenge it confronted on Sept. 12, 2001: how to protect against additional attacks without trampling on the civil liberties that Americans have cherished for more than 200 years.

Striking that balance "requires constant debate, and sometimes that debate is going to get loud and angry, and that's a good thing," says Clifford Mays, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy.

The debate has played out repeatedly in the last decade. The critical issues raised include:

* Can the government listen to our phone conversations and read our e-mails without warrants?

* Should suspected terrorists at the Guantanamo prison in Cuba have the right to challenge their detention in court?

* How much power does the president have to search for and punish those accused of having terrorist ties?

* Are harsh interrogation techniques ever justified? And at what point do they become torture?

Today, it's not unusual to see heavily armed soldiers patrolling airports or stadiums--a sight that can be both comforting and unnerving. And Americans have become used to taking off their shoes, getting patted down by security guards, tossing their water bottles, and walking through body scanners before boarding a plane.

Many of these security measures were authorized a month after 9/11, when Democrats and Republicans in Congress united to pass the Patriot Act, which expanded the government's powers to conduct counterterrorism surveillance and investigations.

But during and after the congressional debate, civil liberties groups said that parts of the law infringed on constitutional rights. They objected to things like the government's new power to check library records to see what someone had been reading.

Listening In?

In 2002, President George W. Bush authorized the National Security Agency to monitor the phone calls and e-mails of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Americans and others inside the U.S. suspected of terrorist ties, without first obtaining warrants.

When the program became public in 2005, a firestorm erupted. Opponents cited the Fourth Amendment's protection against "unreasonable searches and seizures," which has been interpreted to mean that authorities must obtain court-issued warrants before conducting wire-tapping or other types of monitoring.

Bush argued the program was a legitimate exercise of presidential power. Security...