After the events of September 11, 2001, which marked one of the largest terrorist attacks on United States soil in the country’s history, it took Congress a mere six weeks to muster a legislative response. The result was the PATRIOT Act, a bill that substantially expanded the government's authority to engage in surveillance activities over US citizens, particularly in regards to searches, wiretaps and other intelligence and law enforcement activities. This phenomenon was not limited to the United States, however; in 2012, the BBC announced that the UK government was also launching a new legislative response to crime and terrorism. The British initiative would take the fight to cyberspace and grant the government the authority to monitor the calls, emails, texts and website visits of UK citizens. In the United States, such legislation would arguably have to contend with the provisions of the the Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans from unreasonable searches and seizures. It not unfathomable, however, given the the broad expanse of the PATRIOT Act, that US citizens will one day have to grapple with a similar initiative. In the face of such a possibility, how can we as American citizens remain, as terrorism scholar Bruce Ackerman bids us, “secure and free”?