It’s always dangerous to express an opinion when nobody has all the facts. That said, I can’t not express my view of the discovery of a plot in Miami to destroy the Chicago Sears Tower and other public buildings. If an FBI operative, posing as a den mother, infiltrated a Cub Scout troop, taught the kids how to make bottle rockets, and led a discussion about cool targets, would that make the children terrorists? That’s about the level of organized mayhem that the Miami group could ever have implemented, and they might not have been able to even formulate a plan without the help of their “al Qaeda” informant. These are not terrorists in the sense that Americans want the word to be used, although they may be disaffected people who need a reminder about the limits of freedom in the U.S. or a group that invites ongoing monitoring. We are really the guilty ones: we allow the current administration to use the news media to distract us with this kind of skirmish in the war on terror at the same time that Bush and Cheney decry the irresponsibility of the media in reporting to the people on truly frightening topics such as the recently revealed secret program to track Americans’ bank records. How many examples of ill-conceived government-sanctioned invasions of our privacy should we tolerate before we try to figure out how to halt this behavior? I feel insulted, betrayed, and no more secure than before.