What price democracy?

I've been listening to The Media Report (ABC Radio National via podcast) lately and the question was posed: "Do we need to curtail democracy in order to save it and spread it?" The question relates to the increasing restrictions on personal freedoms in order to monitor for terrorist activities, eg there is talk of the U.S. recording all phone conversations there -although it's not clear how they would be able to analyse them in a timely manner to detect suspicious conversations. But it's not just there. and not necessarily about monitoring for terrorist plots. There are moves (again!) here in Australia for the introduction of an identification Smartcard- on the pretext that this will help stamp out rorting of the welfare system. It may well do, but it would also provide a window into people's lives that could be abused and which could probably not be adequately safe-guarded in terms of privacy, civil liberties and personal freedom. And before the arguments of "If you've nothing to hide, why would you be concerned" surface, that's not the issue. The issue is that more and more governments are intruding on peoples lives without giving adequate justification for their actions. If we are to be co-opted into giving up freedoms to become foot soldiers in the War against Terror, at least come clean about the real level of threat, and the forms this takes. And for goodness sake, give some credible reasons for turning attention (and attack fronts) to Iran.