It is a political purpose, because "terrorist" is a politically charged definition whose application changes with the political climate.

The definition of 'criminal' changes over time too but that doesn't prevent us from prosecuting those who we determine to be criminals today.

Regardless of how the subtleties of politics shift over time, someone who enters a country seeking to kill and destroy should not be a allowed inside regardless of what they're called.

The percentage of 'terrorists' we are talking about is so small, it's hardly worth considering. It's a waste of everyone's time, and privacy to spend looking through anyone's phone at an airport

The major crimes we still recognize haven’t changed since humans started scratching on clay tablets. Murder, theft, rape, assault/battery, etc. Who was counted as a person and who the manner of gaining justice has changed, but not the crimes.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi

You could say the same thing about the word "murderer". While technically correct, that doesn't make it any less a matter of life and death.

Then let's stop talking about finding "terrorists" and call it finding "murderers" or "criminals."

"Terrorist" is a just word governments use to scare their citizens into giving up their civil liberties in exchange for security theater and authoritarianism.

Agreed. "Mass murderer" would be more to the point, albeit still somewhat subjective. The point is, the conversation should be about effective tactics/policies for saving lives. Disputes over terminology are mostly a distraction from that.

There are a number of abortion deniers whoop would disagree with you on "murder" and "death."

> finding terrorists isn't a "political purpose" it's a matter of life and death

If you believe that these actions are necessary to meaningfully reduce harm from terrorists, then the government's claim about life and death holds up.

The concern is that these actions do not meet those conditions (necessary, meaningful reduction), and that the government is using the argument to cover for actions it wants to take for other reasons, including political ones.

Also, even those conditions are not sufficient to justify it. The actions must be lawful, of course, and the loss of liberty must be worth the gains in security; the U.S. (generally) has valued liberty very highly.