comment-questions on liberties/terrorism

Two clear consensus' remain in the four+ years since the 9/11 attacks: we were very unprepared for those attacks, and more attacks on a similar or larger magnititude are being planned.

How are we to fight Al Queda terrorists currently plotting these attacks without violating their civil liberties (being that due process of law is entirely circumvented by the bullet of a Force Recon sniper)? Clearly everyone agrees that no such liberties should be respected absent the title of American citizenship. How then do we act upon these liberty-less terrorists engaged in phone conversations with domestic, constitutionally protected terrorists? Not listen to half of the conversation?

Some naysayers of the Patriot Act, particularly those who frequently quote Ben Franklin, resign to allowing X amount of terrorist attacks so long as they have Y amount of liberty (I doubt any of them work in a downtown metropolitan skyscraper). To you I ask, what if entirely credible evidence surfaced, along with the open declaration by Al Queda, that Al Queda had possession of dozens of nuclear bombs and was fully committed to detonating them in American cities? Now how much of that X amount of terrorist attacks are you willing to tolerate from your suburban nests?

To those naysayers of the Patriot Act who have any sense and reject the notion that large scale terrorist attacks are acceptable but rather must be prevented, in what ways do you make America safer following the attacks on 9/11 without scaling up government power in any way?