> security versus freedom, and I don't know what the right trade off is
That is not a trade off at all, if you believe that you have already fallen for the propaganda. Security in and of itself has no value that you could trade off against freedom, only the freedom part of that pair is valuable. Security is a means to the end of freedom: You may need a certain kind and/or amount of security to gain and maintain freedom. But security is also a means to authoritarianism if you do it wrong. Which means: Security is only valuable in so far as it causes a net increase in freedom. If you are actually giving up freedom to make space for more security, that is, you are trading off freedom against security, you have failed.
That is not a trade off at all, if you believe that you have already fallen for the propaganda. Security in and of itself has no value that you could trade off against freedom, only the freedom part of that pair is valuable. Security is a means to the end of freedom: You may need a certain kind and/or amount of security to gain and maintain freedom. But security is also a means to authoritarianism if you do it wrong. Which means: Security is only valuable in so far as it causes a net increase in freedom. If you are actually giving up freedom to make space for more security, that is, you are trading off freedom against security, you have failed.