Olbermann: Our freedoms in peril

On Tuesday, President Bush signed legislation authorizing tough interrogation of terror suspects and paving the way for trials before military commissions.

Tonight, "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann addresses the legislation in a special comment entitled "The Beginning of the End of America."

You can read an excerpt of Olbermann's comment below.

We have lived as if in a trance.

We have lived as people in fear.

And now – our rights and our freedoms in peril – we slowly awake to learn that we have been afraid of the wrong thing.

Therefore, tonight, we have become the true inheritors of our American legacy.

For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:

A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.

Tune in to MSNBC at 8 p.m. ET to see Olbermann's full comment.

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