by Lamar Smith

About the author: Lamar Smith is a Republican congressional representative from Texas. He is chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and serves on the House Science Committee and the Joint Economic Committee.

Politics makes strange bedfellows, but so, too, do national tragedies. In the wake of the events of Sept. 11, 2001, we have seen new alignments in the ideological constellations. Congressional Democrats and Republicans literally have sung together and political-action groups whose differences once were deemed intractable now are laboring side by side. If the wolf and the lamb were to lie down together, it scarcely could be more surreal.

Why are Republicans and Democrats supporting the need for expanded police powers? Are they trying to give away, as some would suggest, our personal freedoms to...