Targets collects essays about the relationship between free institutions and perceived threats to state security. An excerpt from the first chapter follows:
"The issue of domestic surveillance is not principally about safety versus privacy, much as our national security state would like to define it that way. It is about a government that violates the Constitution in secret, then lies about it when challenged. Also remember that the federal government regards the person who revealed its chicanery as a criminal, even a traitor, to be sent to prison for espionage and treason. Government officials who spy on their own masters charge citizens who call attention to their crimes with espionage. These same officials betray their country and its Constitution, then charge those who reveal their crimes with treason."
