From Gag Rule by Lewis Lapham:
‘Ashcroft said that the onerous regulations under which the FBI had been operating for the last thirty years “mistakenly combined timeless objectives – the enforcement of the law and respect for civil rights and liberties – with outdated means.”
‘As modified by the context and subject to the circumstances, the phrase “outdated means” can be taken to refer to any paragraph in every article of the Constitution. Which is both good to know and important to bear in mind, because a modern war against terrorism cannot be fought with an old scrap of parchment and obsolete notions of freedom. Let too many freedoms wander around loose in the streets, and who knows when somebody will turn up with a bread knife or a bomb? Better to remember the lesson learned in the Vietnam War, which proved that the best way to save the village was to destroy it. So also now, in another time of trouble, the American people can best preserve their liberties by sending them to a taxidermist or donating them to a museum.’
