A Tribune-Herald editorial board member talking with Wacoans just before the Fourth of July heard many repeat the same sentiment: “Freedom is not free.” Cliché? Sure. Yet most were talking to us about the ongoing wars on terror in perilous, faraway locales in an increasingly violent, no-holds-barred world — and not our own government.

Yet, we wonder, especially in the wake of a disturbing Washington Post series about the gargantuan layers of federal government now coagulating, charged with national security and involving agencies even our leaders know little about, engaging in responsibilities with enormous consequences, costly overlap and little scrutiny.

The series, written by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, chronicles the quiet but steady growth of various agencies charged with national security and protecting Americans, yet allowed to assume new duties and missions with virtually no broad leadership, growing into a federal behemoth that few, if any, really know how to harness.

The threat is evident: If few in elected positions are aware of the potential for shadowy misdeeds and state-sanctioned wrongdoing by these agencies, how are the rights of ordinary Americans to be protected in matters of property and identity? Do any of us really need convincing that governmental arms can move in malevolent ways?

This shouldn’t boil down to any partisan bickering. The growth of these agencies came in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, likely with the best of intentions. But typical of so much in Washington, little oversight and insight have reportedly been invested in them.

Consider this fact: Some 854,000 individuals now have top-secret clearance. That doesn’t count others with some sort of special clearance. Just what are these people entitled to do? How much power have they been granted, in the name of national security, over our personal and professional lives? How can this impact our rights?

The Post identified 45 government agencies involved in top-secret work and broke these down into 1,271 sub-groups such as, for example, the Terrorist Screening Center of the FBI. One of the 45 is simply listed as “unknown,” a catchall for those companies doing work for governmental organizations that cannot be identified.

We also wonder how capable these agencies are. The Post series describes them as “ubiquitous, often inefficient.” That’s interesting, especially when you recall that the Times Square bomber’s plot last spring was undone by two T-shirt vendors who happened to notice a parked Nissan Pathfinder filling with smoke. The so-called “underwear bomber” last Christmas was detected when fellow passengers on a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit noticed a loud pop and then smoke issuing from the bomber’s britches.

We’re not the sorts who see black helicopters in the sky at any given moment. Yet, for those who cherish the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, the Post series raises grave concerns about the gradual formation of a national security state that slowly, almost imperceptibly, ignores our rights and intrudes into our lives, even as it answers to no one.

Are we willing to give up our rights to the unseen, scuttling freedoms earned by prior generations through blood and sacrifice? The question will certainly arise while reading this series, which we fervently recommend to all Americans.

And if in our mad rush to protect ourselves and embrace the cause of national security we slowly surrender our rights, we may one day come to grips with a hard-earned and ugly truth: The terrorists behind 9/11, passionately dedicated to our demise and the destruction of our constitutional freedoms, will have won the war.