Enemy of The State

When we're having the age old debate regarding state's rights verses individual rights--or the state vs individual liberties--it is clear that the courts must always err on the side or the individual. 

Who needs protecting from whom?  Who is the more powerful?  The state or Jane Citizen?  Who is most likely to be victimized?

Many abuses can be justified with Utilitarian ethics, doing the most good for the greatest number.

The argument may sometimes be made that the state is justified in taking whatever action it needs to take in order to protect the state.  That way, the state--a bastion of freedom in an otherwise totalitarian world--will ensure its survival, thereby doing the greatest good for the most people by virtue of its perpetuation.  But at what cost?

If the state oppresses the citizens it professes to aid in order to protect the state, in order that the state is supreme or paramount, then has not freedom disappeared from the world including from the state?  Is the cure worse than the disease?

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