Civil liberties vs national security

This chilling note in today's New York Times:

  People . . . can be imprisoned [merely] for association with terrorists; a woman has been in jail for nearly a year awaiting trial on charges of knowing of a plot by her son, who is still under investigation.

Worried that you might be next?  You probably won't be if you don't live in France where the incident above took place and where such tactics are not only relatively routine but are also non-controversial, according to the Washington Post:

Armed with some of the strictest anti-terrorism laws and policies in Europe, the French government has aggressively targeted Islamic radicals and other people deemed a potential terrorist threat. While other Western countries debate the proper balance between security and individual rights, France has experienced scant public dissent over [its] tactics. . . .
  . . .
  France has embraced a law enforcement strategy that relies heavily on preemptive arrests, ethnic profiling and an efficient domestic intelligence-gathering network. French anti-terrorism prosecutors and investigators are among the most powerful in Europe, backed by laws that allow them to interrogate suspects for days without interference from defense attorneys.

Once a person is in the French judicial system there are fewer checks and balances because the judges work closely with the investigators putting the prosecution's case together.

You can read some discussion of this here.