In face of such measures, citizens start more and more to lose faith not only in the Government but also in its policy implicantors: ministries, police, health system, etc. Paul Wilkinson in "Terrorism vs. Democracy: The Liberal State Response" touches on sensitive issues for the UK society like over-reaction to terrorism, using too much military and less intelligence to prevent terrorism and especially the unpopular measures of surveillance, human rights abuses or control over citizens personal life -- all in the name of preventing terrorist attacks. (Wilkinson, 2006) As pointed out before, terrorism in the UK has been treated, from the point-of-view of privacy, with over-reaction and with low proportionality, both in preventing and reacting to terrorist attacks. In the 2011 Review of Counter-Terrorism and Security Powers, the Secretary for the Home Department states that "in some areas our counter-terrorism and security powers are neither proportionate nor necessary" (HM Government, Review of Counter-Terrorism and security powers, 2011). As in any other democracy, the support of the public for a certain policy creates its sustainability. If the overall anti-terrorism UK policy doesn't...

As Lord Macdonald, former director of public prosecutions argues in at the beginning of 2011, "It's always been of critical importance that we don't, in trying to respond to these threats, give up the things that the terrorists would like to take from us." (BBC News, 2011). This reaction, alongside with many others from public figures, come as a result of the launch by the UK Government of the newest changes to the anti-terrorist powers of the state, as it tries to fill the gap between providing security and also liberty for its citizens.
In any situation of this sort, the social contract between the state and its citizens is of high importance. If such a contract is solid enough, and if the people's arguments are incorporated as much as possible in the decision making process, than this offers sustainability to such a contract, to such a public policy. Obviously, national protection is not one of the main points that is to be negotiated between a state and its citizens, as any other public policy, as it deals with an impressive number of classified information.

Bibliography

BBC News UK. Lord Macdonald: UK 'over-reacted after 9/11 attacks'. January 2011, viewed on 31st January 2011,

House of Lords. Surveillance: Citizens and the State, 2009 viewed on 31st January http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldselect/ldconst/18/18.pdf

HM Government, Review of Counter-Terrorism and security powers, viewed on 31st January 2011