A cyber attack thought to emanate from North Korea recently took down Web sites operated by the Treasury Department, the Federal Trade Commission, and the New York Stock Exchange, among others. Federal investigators bearing bomb components recently were able to waltz into federal buildings and assemble the bombs inside. Both episodes serve as reminders that much work remains to be done shoring up the nation’s sieve-like security infrastructure. But Americans should not expect an unattainable perfection—particularly when the nation can’t even keep drugs out of prisons.

What a difference a year makes. President Barack Obama is embracing the Bush-era counterterrorism measures that, as a candidate, he repeatedly denounced. Now that he’s nominated Judge Sonia Soto mayor to the Supreme Court, the Senate should make sure the new justice won’t hamstring lawful efforts to keep our nation secure. At times it seems President Obama is cribbing from George W. Bush’s playbook. The policy of trying suspected terrorists before military commissions—which candidate Obama once called “a legal black hole”—is back, with a few cosmetic changes. “Military commissions have a history in the United States dating back to George Washington and the Revolutionary War,“ the president now assures us.

“I really thought Obama meant it.“ Such is the lament of Tina Foster, a lawyer with the International Justice Network. She is disappointed that the Obama administration has decided to adopt, at least for the time being, the Bush administration’s policy on foreign detainees.

The news that hackers possibly tied to the Russian and Chinese governments infiltrated the computer systems running the U.S. power grid presents a sobering reminder of the scope of America’s national-security challenges. Once upon a time, the country’s leaders could take comfort in the fact that the nation was insulated by a vast ocean on each side and friendly, or at least unhostile, countries to the north and south.

With the Obama administration’s plans to shut down the Camp Delta detention facility at Guantanamo Bay presumably moving forward apace, some detainees might end up in the commonwealth—perhaps in a detention facility in Northern Virginia to await trial there. Last week Virginia Reps. Eric Cantor, Frank Wolf, and Randy Forbes called on Gov. Tim Kaine to join them in opposing the idea of moving any detainees to any facility in Virginia.

“You are driving home, exhausted from work, lugging groceries and carrying your child in the back seat. Lights, police, and roadblocks await you. Your car is stopped, an armed officer comes over, and you must roll down your window. Your child begins crying. You must now prove to the police officer’s satisfaction that you have the right to drive down your own block.“