ANGELO CODEVILLA: America’s New Security State: Salus populi suprema lex: In the name of the people’s safety, the dictator’s will is law.

While the Obama administration ceased to use its predecessor’s term “war on terror” to describe its actions abroad, it redoubled commitment to “homeland security,” reorienting it to home-grown “extremism” defined ad hoc. The result seems less compatible with words such as “peace,” than with “Oceania,” the country in which George Orwell’s novel, 1984, is set.

As mottoes go, I prefer Nemo me impune lacessit.