On the seventh anniversary of the 9/11/01 attack on America, we must remember those who died that awful day. Just as importantly, we must remember the mistakes that made us vulnerable so that we do not repeat them. Many of those mistakes involved overreactions to abuses of authority in an earlier era.

When something bad happens, it is common for people to demand that measures be put in place to make certain that it never happens again. The problem is that the measures needed for such certainty may increase the likelihood of some even worse occurrence. The most notorious of these measures was the ill-conceived and ultimately disastrous wall between law enforcement and foreign intelligence, intentionally preventing the sharing of information about terrorist threats. While there were certainly real abuses that this measure sought to prevent, it should have been obvious to anyone with sense that the cure was far worse than the disease and that other, less damaging, remedies should have been used to address the problem. Only after 9/11 was the public sufficiently aroused that it became possible to tear down this foolish wall.

But the public has a short attention span, and the lapse of seven years without a new attack has softened public support for measures needed to fight terrorism. Meanwhile, those who would unilaterally disarm us in the face of our enemies remain as vocal as ever. Ironically, the very success of the post-9/11 changes undermines the political support for them.