Many Americans support the new security measures because they claim to feel safer when the government issues terror alerts and fills the streets with militarized police forces. As one tourist interviewed this week said, "It makes me feel comfortable to know that everything is being checked." It is ironic that tourists coming to Washington to celebrate the freedoms embodied in the Declaration of Independence are so eager to give up those freedoms with no questions asked. Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens? lives. This doesn?t stop governments, including our own, from seeking more control over and intrusion into our lives. As one Member of Congress stated to the press last week, "people who don?t want to be searched don?t need to come on Capitol grounds." What an insult! The Capitol belongs to the American people who pay for it, not to Congress or the police.