Foreword--Freedom and Security after September 11
![handle is hein.journals/hjlpp25 and id is 427 raw text is: FOREWORD
FREEDOM AND SECURITY AFTER
SEPTEMBER 11
VIET D. DINH*
An oft-repeated refrain since the September 11 terrorist
attacks is that Americans must now choose between a robust
national defense and their vital civil liberties. Security versus
freedom: the underlying assumption is that the two can coexist
only uneasily in times of national crisis. The loss of certain
freedoms, so goes the prevailing wisdom, is the price that must
be paid for additional security. Some are eager to make that
exchange, while others consider the price too dear. Both sides,
however, seem to agree that freedom and security are
competing virtues, and that the expansion of one necessarily
entails the contraction of the other.
This is not a new dichotomy. In 1759, Benjamin Franklin
reminded his fellow colonists that they that can give up
essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve
neither liberty nor safety.' For Franklin, liberty is the supreme
good, and a people capable of surrendering its freedoms in
exchange for security is not fit for self-governance, or even
safety. A centuty later, Abraham Lincoln appeared before
Congress to justify his unilateral decision to suspend the writ
of habeas corpus. [A]re all the laws, but one, the president
asked, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to
pieces, lest that one be violated?2 For Lincoln, the Great
* Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Policy, United States Department
of Justice; Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center (on leave). A.B.,
Harvard College 1990; J.D., Harvard Law School 1993. Many thanks to Jennifer
Newstead, Nathan Sales, and Wendy Keefer for their contributions and
comments.
1. Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania (1759), quoted in THE
OXFORD DICTIONARY OF PoLIuCAL QUOTATIONS 141 (Anthony Jay ed., 1996).
2. Abraham Lincoln, Message to Congress in Special Session (July 4, 1861),
reprinted in 4 COLLECrED WORKS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 421, 430 (Roy P. Basler
ed., 1953).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/hjlpp25&div=25&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
What Is HeinOnline?
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
Foreword--Freedom and Security after September 11
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most