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Until Ann Coulter came along and cheapened the whole concept. L.A.-based blogs Hit and Run (Matt Welch) and the Volokh Conspiracy (Eugene Volokh) both smack her for this twisted bit of rhetoric:
What are we to make of people who promote the idea that America is in the grip of a civil-liberties emergency based on 100 hazy stories of scowls and bumps and one-week detentions? Manifestly, there is no civil-liberties crisis in this country. Consequently, people who claim there is must have a different goal in mind. What else can you say of such people but that they are traitors?
Volokh suggests "I disagree with them" or "they are mistaken." But he adds, Coulter would probably say he's a traitor too.