Law and Policy Efforts to Balance Security, Privacy and Civil Liberties in Post-9/11 America
![handle is hein.journals/stanlp17 and id is 337 raw text is: LAW AND POLICY EFFORTS TO BALANCE
SECURITY, PRIVACY AND CIVIL
LIBERTIES IN POST-9/1 1 AMERICA
U.S. Senator Ron Wyden
with Carol Guthrie, John Dickas, and Alexander Perkins
INTRODUCTION: THE FIGHT BETWEEN SECURITY AND CIVIL LIBERTIES
Of the many hard realizations Americans were forced to absorb after
September 11, 2001, one of the most maddening was this: that the treasured
openness of our society, with its rights to privacy and its freedom to move and
assemble at will, had helped terrorists to strike on our own soil and claim
thousands of innocent victims.1 Since 9/11 violently catapulted domestic
security to the fore of the federal government's priorities,2 one of the chief
battles of the war on terrorism has been with ourselves, determining to what
extent rights and freedoms will be curbed in an effort to save lives.
Properly navigating security and civil liberties in the post-9/11 world with
any success requires abandonment of the prevailing either-or paradigm in
which security can be enhanced or privacy preserved, but not both. The new
reality thrust upon the United States must not be met simply with heightened
vigilance on both sides of a stark equation. Those who bear the responsibility
to put security first must understand that if civil liberties are not prominent
among their concerns, their efforts may diminish the uniquely American
freedoms they seek to protect. But in the same way, those who prize and
vigorously defend civil liberties must do so with the recognition that a
proliferation of security failures and terrorist success would diminish
Americans' true freedom to a degree beyond any law. To ensure the safety and
liberty of all Americans, advocates and policymakers must agree to a basic
premise: the security of the nation and the protection of individual freedoms are
not, and must not be drawn as, mutually exclusive.
1. NAT'L COMM'N ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES, THE 9/11
COMMISSION REPORT 383-398 (2004) [hereinafter 9/11 REPORT].
2. Id. at 361- 65.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/stanlp17&div=21&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
What Is HeinOnline?
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
Law and Policy Efforts to Balance Security, Privacy and Civil Liberties in Post-9/11 America
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most