What is an acceptable level of risk?

Of course, that varies from person to person and issue to issue, but I think it's a relevant question to ask when it comes to the war on terrorism.

There is no question that terrorism makes life a bit more risky for all of us.

But just how much more risky and how far are we willing to go to eliminate all the risk?

Should we continue to work until we reach the point of zero terror risk?

I have heard politicians say that if just one life is lost to terrorism in this country, it's one too many.

On the face of it, I would tend to agree. But if that is the goal of the government, then I think we have to ask ourselves another question: What will be the cost?

I watched CNN all day Wednesday in the newsroom. I watched CBS in the evening. I was moved, almost to tears a couple times, by what I saw.

It stirred memories of last year's 9/11 attack. It made me remember how angry I was and how bad I felt for the victims.

I didn't like that feeling then and I don't like it now. And it is because of those victims that we can't let the terrorists win.

I've had a shift in attitude over the past year. In the weeks following 9/11, I thought it would be acceptable to feel a little less free to fight terrorism.

Now I think we must not let terrorism significantly alter our way of life or limit our freedoms.

If we do, the victims of 9/11 died in vain.

We must do all we can to fight terrorism. We must make sure there will never be another 9/11.

But at the same time, I think we must be careful not to overreact.

Let's get back to the question of acceptable risk.

We as Americans take risks every day. Take driving, for example.

In 2000, there were 41,821 traffic fatalities in the United States, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That's a fairly average year.

Yet almost every one of us, every day, gets into a car and drives. We deem it an acceptable risk.

What if we decided that dying in an automobile accident was an unacceptable risk and demanded action by the government?

Surely cars are safer today than ever before; the advent of safety restraints and air bags have saved countless lives. Traffic laws help save lives, too.

But despite the government's best efforts, traffic is still killing 40,000 people per year in this country.

The only way to reduce your risk of dying in a traffic accident to zero is to stop driving or riding in cars.

The only way the government could achieve a zero traffic death risk in America would be to ban driving.

Of course, either of those options is absurd. We like to drive. We must drive. So we readily, and without even really thinking about it, assume the risk of driving.

What about drinking alcohol? What about smoking? What about lack of exercise and eating fatty foods?

All that behavior is pretty risky and responsible for exponentially more deaths than terrorism.

The difference is, we assign a certain level of acceptability to those other risks because we don't want to give up our freedom to engage in those activities.

We find a balance between the damage caused by certain behaviors and the limits on freedom necessary to minimize that damage.

When it comes to terrorism, we want a zero level of acceptable risk.

Even if that is achievable, exactly how much freedom are we willing to give up and how many tax dollars are we willing to spend to drag that terror risk down to near zero?

There are some pretty scary proposals out there. Proposals to have neighbors spying on each other. Or have the mailman spy on the people on his route.

Flying has become an arduous exercise. Every airline in the country is teetering on bankruptcy.

We're confiscating nail clippers from old ladies.

You can't take a backpack to a ballgame.

We're considering changing laws on things like wiretaps and search and seizure.

We're holding people without being charged and considering changes in evidence admissibility.

We're spending billions and billions of dollars on homeland security and the war on terror.

That money has to come from somewhere. The government isn't cutting programs elsewhere.

The likely effect is deficit spending or tax increases, both of which threaten the economy.

All this despite the fact that the average American is thousands and thousands of times more likely to die in a car wreck than they are to be killed by a terrorist.

Medical mistakes kill an estimated 90,000 to 100,000 people per year.

Every year 27,000 people die in some type of household accident, 15,000 die in falls, 8,600 people accidentally poison themselves and 4,000 die in fires.

There are fewer victims of terrorists attacks on American soil in the history of our country than there are people who choke to death in an average year.

Please don't misunderstand. I am not minimizing the tragedy of 9/11.

But the simple truth is that the risk of terrorism to the average American is very small. And it's smaller now than it was before 9/11.

We must continue to work to protect ourselves against the threat of terrorism. There always will be people who hate America.

But I'm concerned that if we give up a certain level of freedom to fight terrorists ...

If we divert resources to the war on terror to the point that it drags down our economy ...

If we fail to even consider that maybe we will never be able to completely eliminate the risk of terrorism ...

If we allow the threat of terrorism to alter or impair our lives, liberty and pursuit of happiness ...

The terrorists win. [[In-content Ad]]