UK anti-privacy activists seek to use the Paris attacks as an excuse to skip debate about new mass surveillance powers.

Each terrorist attack, anywhere in the world, provides an excuse for Big Brother to say we should surrender more freedom so he can "protect" us. Aside from the danger of tyranny, which exceeds that of terrorists, it's not even clear that increased surveillance would achieve its goal.

There is no limit to how many people a tyrannical state can kill, torture, or imprison. We need a state, for the many essential things that states can do, but we must make sure it remains under our control, and we can't do that if it knows everywhere we go and everyone we talk with.

Prohibiting expression of opinions, "advocating" this or that, is a form of tyranny. When "extremism" is prohibited, will plutocrats declare rejection of plutocracy "extreme"? We be prosecuted for advocating a return to democracy?