1. a slippery question -- i vote for the loss of constitutional rights combined with the increased power in the hands of the executive branch; we are all far, far more likely to be killed in an automobile accident than to be killed by terrorists. i can understand, to an extent, a loss of certain kinds of privacy and increased surveillance, but i cannot understand the executive looking for the right to torture and to determine who is, in his own personal judgement, who is and who is not worthy of being detained and then, by extention, tortured. the caveat is, were another terrorist attack to happen on US soil, what that might drive this particular administration to do (since their actions have definitively made us less safe, according to the current NIE) and if that might necessitate the further erosion of civil liberties, the invasion of yet another country, fiscal disaster since there's no money left to pay for said invasion, and the reinstatement of the draft so that we have enough soldiers.
2. it depends on who's in charge -- far, far, far more Iraqis have died than Americans died on 9-11, and soon the number of American troops who have died in Iraq will supass the number on 9-11.