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Defending Liberty and Security in Wartime
Ericka AndersenDecember 22, 2011 at 9:28 am(7)
The official end of U.S. operations in Iraq last week calls to mind controversial issues from the past decade. One of the most important intellectual and policy battles, which remains relevant today, is over how to defend both civil liberties and security in time of war. In other words, how should America defend itself from enemies at home and abroad while also preserving the freedoms that we enjoy and that make our country great?
People often say that we need to balance liberty and security. This implies that the two are opposed and that the more we have of one, the less we will have of the other. That’s an understandable way of talking, but it’s wrong. The truth is that neither liberty nor security can exist without the other. They are equally important to the United States and, indeed, are the twin reasons why this nation was founded.
Protecting individual liberty does not invariably hobble the nation’s defenses. Rather, as the Constitution recognizes, security and liberty are reinforcing: We “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” Thus, we do not want, or need, to trade off freedom to achieve security. Nor should we assume that security, the first duty of government, is the enemy of liberty. As Cully Stimson and Andrew Grossman write in the latest installment of Heritage’s Understanding America series, “A threat to America’s security is also a threat to Americans’ liberties.”