Homeland Security vs. Citizen Rights and Privacy

Introduction

Following the attacks of 9/11, the notion that civil liberties must be reduced to a certain extent to enhance the homeland security surface with intense vitality. A lot of professionals have observed the absurdity that security measures that are aimed at protecting a liberal democracy have ended up grinding down the civil liberties at the core of that liberal egalitarianism. Frequently this issue has been viewed as the one striking the appropriate trade off or balance between civil liberties and national security. This document focuses on the aspect of this issue which is the trade-off or balance between national security and civil rights and privacy.

Discussion

National Security Versus Privacy

9/11 happened to be an ideal opportunity to inculcate fear and make the security tighter to the extent of probable foreign invasion. That invasion was seen in the light of the tragic events that unfolded on that day with the collapse of the World Trade Center and the loss of more than 3,000 lives. A good deal of controversies have arisen due to that incident and not everybody views it as the consequence of a terrorist episode so much as a false flag operation which was developed especially to trigger an explicit massive response. They emphasize a significant level of inconsistencies that advocate much more thorough explanation and investigation. However, the notion of a terrorist approach continues in the perception of the majority of the population and so this is exactly what is being utilized to sell security at the expense of civil privacy and liberty. A lot of people still support to the notion of a foreign terrorist strike.

Security and safety are precisely described as the “nonexistence of threats to acquired values or a “low likelihood of harm to acquired values.” Protection continues to be identified as the trump of trumps, out-weighing political and civil privileges. If the protection vs. civilian privacy and rights tradeoff is one-sided in favor of homeland security, especially in cases of public in-security, there exists a good reason to dread that we might very readily compromise on civil rights and freedoms like privacy.

The intent behind this paper is to take into account the reason why security is indeed so powerful, as well as exactly why it appears pretty easily to trump compared to values like liberty and privacy. There exist several reasons as to why security is so important and enjoys such rhetoric power. Firstly “safety” is the bedrock of happy life, when it comes to physical survival; safety is pre-requisite in sense that without safety people cannot enjoy other dynamics of life such as privacy and liberty. If one does not feel safe then liberty and freedom are of no use. Furthermore, human risk perception is usually susceptible to mental predispositions that might instigate us to overrate the risk of terror campaign and to have a problem recognizing the harm of decreased privacy. Thirdly people perhaps have this believe that it is a lot better to ensure ...