In the first days and weeks after September 11, 2001, politicians throughout the land could be heard uttering some variation on the following theme: If we change our American way of life, the terrorists will have won.

These statements frequently were intended to prod U.S. citizens to continue traveling, shopping, and recreating as they had before the al-Qaida attacks. But the deeper message was clear: It was going to take more than 19 suicide-bent hijackers aboard four airliners to convince the proud inhabitants of the land of the free and the home of the brave to give up even one of their hard-fought freedoms.

Call me naïve, but I believed those oft-repeated sentiments. And it seemed that most Americans concurred. Unfortunately, our president did not. As we now know, a panic-stricken George W. Bush decided it was necessary to withhold due process rights—in violation of the fifth and sixth amendments of the U.S. Constitution—from American and Iraqi citizens deemed “enemy combatants.” Bush’s fear also led him to unilaterally decree parts of the Geneva Conventions as “quaint” and no longer applicable, a devastating act that paved the way for the humiliating torture of countless Iraqi prisoners. When prison photographs finally forced Americans to confront the fact that our cowardly commander-in-chief had forsaken some of this country’s most cherished ideals, most of us were rightfully ashamed. But too many of us remained shamefully silent.

Despite Bush’s demonstrated willingness to swap our rights for a false sense of security, I was stunned upon hearing just weeks ago that our president had secretly suspended even more of our constitutional freedoms in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. It turns out that even the Fourth Amendment was retractable given the right set of circumstances. Bush simply decided in 2002 that his so-called “war on terror” justified the use of secret wiretaps, which the Fourth Amendment and the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act explicitly prohibit.

Equally stunning was the collective shrug in response from some U.S. citizens, who by now should know better. Perhaps there is no alarm in some quarters because our government has not yet impinged (at least for now) upon our freedom to drive to the mall. But this is serious stuff. For those needing a refresher on that grand old document known as the Constitution of the United States, here’s what the Fourth Amendment guarantees:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

These are precious rights. And yet, the National Security Agency is even now hard at work carrying out Bush’s directives to undermine them. Government employees are intercepting the phone calls and e-mail messages of “suspicious” U.S. citizens Because we were not consulted in advance, there has been no national debate about the appropriateness of giving away these freedoms. No one has been allowed to ask whether our willingness to carve up the U.S. Constitution is an ominous sign that the terrorists have, indeed, won. In fact, were it not for a courageous whistleblower, we still might not know that the highest elected official in the land secretly encouraged domestic eavesdropping without court warrants for the past four years.

Since the disclosure of his secret surveillance program, President Bush has offered no apologies. Instead, he has audaciously condemned both the messenger (the New York Times) and the whistleblower for endangering national security. He also has continued to brazenly defend the necessity of spying on American citizens. “I think most Americans understand the need to find out what the enemy’s thinking, and that’s what we’re doing,” Bush told reporters on New Year’s Day. “They attacked us before; they’ll attack us again if they can. And we’re going to do everything we can to stop them.”

In effect, Bush is saying this to the American people: I need to take away some of your rights to ensure your safety. I’ll decide on my own which ones to take and when to take them. But I can’t tell you anything more about it, because the terrorists might be listening. Trust me. It’s for your own good.

The problem with this end-justifies-the-means power grab is that, once permitted, there is no freedom that cannot be sacrificed on the altar of national security. Indeed, one of the scariest notions to arise in the wake of Bush’s wiretapping scandal is the possibility (dare I say likelihood?) that the president is at this very moment violating even more of our rights without our consent or knowledge. How many additional constitutional amendments have been trampled by the Bush administration? And, given the unprecedented secrecy surrounding this presidency, how will we ever know?

What we do know about the Bush administration’s freedom-eroding tendencies is scary enough. We know that it attempted to gain a license from Congress for torture. We know that it bribed journalists to place its propaganda in Iraqi newspapers. And we know that it allows its “enemy combatants” to languish in prisons for years without access to due process.

Perhaps someday our president will come to realize what millions of Americans inherently understand: The willingness to give away our inalienable rights for a bit of perceived security is a sign of both weakness and fear.

Tim Leslie (tim@leslie.com) is a freelance writer and the editor of iCorvallis.com, a participatory journalism site in Corvallis, Oregon.

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