Freedom inherently puts you at risk. If you don’t want the police watching your every movement, if you don’t want your phone calls tracked and your financial records audited for no reason without your knowledge, if you want a judge to get involved before the SWAT team knocks down your door, you have to accept the corollary: These actions really do help make people safer.

Of course, they also put innocent people in jail, and cause others to cower, and lead to brutality and conformity, and turn the government into a legal bully, and pretty much make it impossible for you to spend your days as you see fit. But you’ll be safer as you cower in your home.

I don’t want that. Neither, I would hope, do most Americans — and they’ll say so in the abstract. When asked about specifics, they have a tendency to get a little more mush-mouthed.

On this sixth anniversary of 9/11, it’s worth keeping in mind that freedom is messy. Freedom means you accept risk. Freedom means your government is less able to protect you — and repress you. And freedom is worth it.