In the years after Sept. 11, 2001, national security hawks were fond of the phrase “the Constitution is not a suicide pact.” That warning was always a canard. History teems with great states destroyed by autocrats and dictators. The threat to free societies has never been too much freedom. It has always been authoritarianism — and always will be.

An attorney from that office, John Yoo, infamously suggested that executive branch employees could have the power to crush a child’s testicles if doing so could extract national security intelligence from the child’s parent. The Justice Department later found that Mr. Yoo had committed “intentional professional misconduct,” but the courts granted him and other policymakers broad protection from civil liability.

After Watergate, Congress exposed how the F.B.I. had surveilled, blackmailed and intimidated activists, celebrities and politicians. To prevent such abuse, President Gerald Ford’s administration prohibited the agency from opening investigations without reasonable suspicion of a crime. In 2008, Attorney General Michael Mukasey and his Justice Department worked around that reform by creating a new category of F.B.I. investigations called “assessments.” Under the new policy, agents could use physical surveillance and interview acquaintances, as well as informants, to gather information, even in the absence of a demonstrably high level of suspicion.

The “sneak and peek” provision was used more sporadically at first — just 23 times in 2002. It soared in the years that followed and was used 5,601 times in 2012 alone. Almost eight in 10 of those were for drug investigations. Just 34, or 0.6 percent, were related to terrorism.

War, financial crises and traumatic events such as the Sept. 11 attacks tend to create a ratchet effect on civil liberties in the United States.

In September 2017, Pompeo sought authority for the CIA to make covert drone strikes without the Pentagon's involvement, including inside Afghanistan.

Mike Pompeo, of Kansas, to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, vice John Owen Brennan.

Jeff Sessions, of Alabama, to be Attorney General.