But one thing the Bill of Rights is not is just another layer of red tape.

For a public official to suggest that the protection of the basic rights of human beings in America is a bureaucratic annoyance, as Sen. Orrin Hatch did last week, suggests that the war on terror has gone further to muddle the thinking of our leaders than we may have realized.

The national 9-11 commission, whose members have been more immersed in the what-went-wrong details of the terrorist strikes than just about anyone else, have emerged from the process with jaws set but eyes clear. They know that, in our efforts to prevent the next horrific attack, the temptation to slice through the basic civil rights of Americans will be large, and the chances of doing so almost assured, unless there is some official commitment to guarding against it.

Thus did former Rep. Lee Hamilton, the 9-11 commission's vice chairman, tell Hatch's Senate Judiciary Committee last week that future versions of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act should create a permanent panel of experts to make sure that the rights of individuals are not crushed in the machinery.

But Hatch, whose affection for every clause and comma in the current Patriot Act is downright creepy, reacted with disdain. He said that the existing system includes enough of its own internal checks and balances that no further formal effort in that direction should be necessary.

What Hatch fails to see is that trusting the bureaucracy to take care of itself has been established as the key flaw in our national intelligence system. The organizational barriers and moats that apparently kept vital information in the possession of one bureau from getting onto the desk of another department were not due to heavy-handed management, but to no management.

Such a mess is only exacerbated by a culture of secrecy, the kind of secrecy that prevented Hamilton from citing examples of the sort of abuses that Hatch says don't exist because the details of those cases remain classified.

A panel of the sort suggested by Hamilton, with top security clearance and expertise in both civil liberties and intelligence gathering, is a good idea, even more so now that the 9-11 panel itself is, sadly, going out of business.

Defending America is frankly more difficult than defending some other places. If we succeed in defending buildings and soil, but sacrifice our principles in the process, the victory will be hollow indeed.