Once again, the Court includes the right of parents in the area of "child rearing and education" to be a liberty interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, requiring an application of the "compelling interest test."

You can see two Maryland kids walking happily home, stop them, throw them in a cruiser, hold them for five hours, and make their parents sign a "Safety Plan" before they're allowed to get 'em back.

Privacy is mostly an illusion. A useful illusion, no question about it, one that allows us to live without being paralyzed by self-consciousness. The illusion of privacy gives us room to be fully human, sharing intimacies and risking mistakes. But all the while, the line between private and public space is as porous as tissue paper.

Editor's note: This update replaces the June 2004 practice brief "Homeland Security Act and HIM." After the terrorist attacks in New York City, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC, on September 11, 2001, the United States Congress enacted the Patriot Act in 2001 and the Homeland Security Act in 2002.

If there's a debate that sums up post-9/11 politics, it's security versus privacy. Which is more important? How much privacy are you willing to give up for security? Can we even afford privacy in this age of insecurity? Security versus privacy: It's the battle of the century, or at least its first decade.

The revelations that Obama administration secretly collected phone records and accessed the internet activity of millions of Americans have raised new questions about the public's willingness to sacrifice civil liberties in the interests of national security. Since 9/11, Americans generally have valued protection from terrorism over civil liberties, yet they also have expressed concerns over government overreach and intrusions on their personal privacy.

Earlier this year, Edward J. Snowden, a government contractor, leaked classified documents to the news media that revealed the existence of top-secret government surveillance programs. We now know that the National Security Agency gathers phone logs and Internet data from millions of Americans as part of its mission to keep the United States safe.