I Love This Country, But The Union

The Main Problem With American Power Is Not That It Is American... No, The Main Problem With American Power Is The Power Itself. It Would Be Dangerous Even For An Archangel To Wield So Much Power.

Well, That's The Way Democracy Works. We Have To Build This Europe With The Material We Have At Our Disposal. And This Material Is National Democracy.

In A Democracy It Is Ultimately For Us, The Citizens, To Judge Where To Place The Balance Between Security And Privacy, Safety And Liberty. It's Our Lives And Liberties That Are Threatened, Not Only By Terrorism But Also By Massive Depredations Of Our Privacy In The Name Of Counter-terrorism. If Those Companies From Which Governments Actually Take Most Of Our Intimate Details Want To Show That They Are Still On The Side Of The Angels, They Had Better Join This Struggle For Transparency Too.

The First Job Of The Historian And Of The Journalist Is To Find Facts. Not The Only Job, Perhaps Not The Most Important, But The First. Facts Are The Cobblestones From Which We Build Roads Of Analysis, Mosaic Tiles That We Fit Together To Compose Pictures Of Past And Present. There Will Be Disagreement About Where The Road Leads And What Reality Or Truth Is Revealed By The Mosaic Picture. The Facts Themselves Must Be Checked Against All The Available Evidence. But Some Are Round And Hard--and The Most Powerful Leaders In The World Can Trip Over Them. So Can Writers, Dissidents And Saints.

The Trouble Is That Privacy Is At Once Essential To, And In Tension With, Both Freedom And Security. A Cabinet Minister Who Keeps His Mistress In Satin Sheets At The French Taxpayer's Expense Cannot Justly Object When The Press Exposes His Misuse Of Public Funds. Our Freedom To Scrutinise The Conduct Of Public Figures Trumps That Minister's Claim To Privacy. The Question Is: Where And How Do We Draw The Line Between A Genuine Public Interest And That Which Is Merely What Interests The Public?