VIGILANCE IS WHAT WE NEED, NOT VIGILANTES " The price of liberty is eternal vigilance " is a famous phrase, often attributed to Thomas Jefferson – though it seems doubtful that he actually said it. But a similar sentiment has been repeated by many others since – perhaps no more powerfully than by the abolitionist Wendell Phillips, who gave the proper context for the expression in a speech to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in 1852 : "(because) power is ever stealing from the many to the few ." And that is the story of human civilisation, right there. If all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, then the only way to free ourselves from the atavistic law of the jungle – that "might is right" – is to enact laws that restrict what those in power can do. Why does that matter? Because societies can only grow effectively through the open exchange of ideas in an environment free from fea...