The Nunes Memo and Katie Roiphe Article Show How Concerns for Due Process and Civil Liberties Are Highly Selective and Self-Centered

In 2010, civil libertarians encountered a surreal moment: After years of trying, largely without success, to get Americans to care about the assaults on basic rights carried out in the name of the war on terror, these issues suddenly exploded with great prominence to the forefront of our national debate. Suddenly, everywhere one turned, one heard paeans to the importance of privacy rights and the need to balance security concerns with respect for core liberties.

What caused this outburst of c...