Control Orders, Terrorism and Guilty til Proven Innocent

I've been reading the BBC news "Have your say" discussion board and have shouted at the screen at least twice.

The story is that terrorism suspects have broken their control orders. They've been charged with nothing, they've not been to court and are effectively innocent. They are "suspected of wanting to kill UK troops" (BBC news) and John Reid, that bastion of national security has asked for greater powers to stop terror suspects. The 3 who've escaped aren't even suspected of planning terrorism, they're suspected of wanting to travel abroad "for terrorism-related purposes".

Now I'm not going to create a big thread on terrorism, its causes or how to stop it, I want to discuss the views of the people on the BBC thread here. They're so willing to drop out of the Human rights act, make terrorism suspects guilty til proven innocent, and effectively give up all their freedoms for security. I don't know about anyone else, but I couldn't help thinking of the poem: When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Because surely if you're giving a government more and more power, you're going to end up losing everything, security and freedom. My question to you fine people is this: Why is terrorism so different from any other crime that people are so willing to give up their hard-earned freedoms?

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