Robyn Blumner
Privacy is just so suspicious
There is one phrase that has crept into the American vernacular that I wish I could banish from the hearts and minds of my countrymen: "If you're not guilty, then what have you got to hide?"

Martin Dyckman
The guns of terror
TALLAHASSEE -- My wife asked the other day why I bother to take my cell phone almost everywhere we go. Why not leave it at home when I'm not at work? The reason, simply, is that it has become a habit. But I couldn't miss the chance to make a topical joke.

Philip Gailey
Specter of terrorism brings some uneasy changes
I'm not afraid to fly -- I was on an airplane four days after the Sept. 11 hijackings. I'm not in an anthrax panic, although I am on alert for any suspicious letters that come my way. I'm not asking my doctor to prescribe Cipro or any other antibiotic just in case, and I'm not shopping for gas masks. I refuse to allow Osama bin Laden and his murderous band of misfits to rule my life. But that doesn't mean I have not been affected by what is going on, sometimes in ways I'm ashamed to admit. My problem is not fear; it is anger and confusion.

Letters
A free press is essential to democracy
Re: letters, Oct. 14.

Editorials
Legislative calculations
Despite the prospect of having to make brutal cuts to deal with the state's budget deficit, some of our leaders inTallahassee strangely continue to cling to other priorities.

FAA's flaws need fixing
The Sept. 11 attacks showed the need to federalize airport security. But that response assumes the Federal Aviation Administration has its act together, which, five weeks after the attacks, the record calls into serious question. What good does it do to give the FAA broader powers and new security tools when the agency can't handle the more limited job it already has. The goal here should be to fix the institutional flaws in airport security, not to trade one flawed system for another.