Free Protecting Civil Liberties Essay Example

Protecting civil rights

The whole in security system has been threatened worldwide due to terrorists’ target as the United States and all her allies. Terrorism is the use of violence or threat of use of violence to instill fear in the publican force a political change. However, deferent states react to terrorist acts differently depending on their political systems.
Since 11th day of September 2001the, United States has pointed the homeland security key features that the government can prioritize on in order to counter terrorist activities, which has led to the enactment of a new legislation. The law resulted in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the Act was enacted on the 24th day of October 2001. However, the authors of the bill maintain that the Patriotic Act is relevant as far as national security is concerned. In addition, in the public has caught a debate as to what procedures a government should apply to fight terrorism. The debate poses, a question of whether national security, should take precedence over civil liberties (Musch, 2003).
It is important that countries should balance their response targeting terrorist attacks in regards to the civil rights and freedoms. An efficient security system is supposed to consider protecting America from terror at the same time protecting the freedom that the protection is aimed to secure. However, it is impossible to balance both securities with civil liberty entirely because the security system needs emergency powers, which will override civil liberties by all means. Emergency privileges are used by various countries to reduce terrorist attacks, which increases power of the government in many other organs of the government. Emergency powers include approving security agencies carry out arrest and searches without a warrant, jailing without trial, arrests without charging among others (Cohen et al., 2006).
However, on the other hand civil liberties are the essentials of the government and cannot be altered because of mere terrorist threats. Unlike the Patriotic Act, the civil rights are created by the constitution of the republic of the United States of America. The term liberal democracy is defined as the government of the people by the people for the people. It can sometimes refer to as the rule by the people. It means a government where people elect their representatives and their way to be governed. In this case violating the constitution or going against the constitution for the sake of countering terrorism the same as being an enemy the people who own power. In addition, this fulfills the objectives of the terrorist because the government would fail to protect the liberty of the citizens, and instead the state violates them its self. In this regard, it would be significant if the security of the nation tightened without interfering with the civil liberty (Farber, 2008).
In conclusion, the paper liberates on a long-standing debate trying to determine measures that a state should be willing to adapt to save its citizens from terrorism. The question that the paper has examined is whether the security should take precedence over civil liberties. The civil rights are derived from the Constitution of the Republic of the United States of American, which is the law of the land. However, it is practically impossible to balance security with civil liberties; easy to enhance the security if some civil rights are reduced. For this reason, in the interest of the wellbeing of the American citizens security should take precedence over civil liberties

References

Cohen, D. B., & Wells, J. W. (2006). American National Security and Civil Liberties in an Era of Terrorism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Farber, D. A. (2008).Security v. liberty: Conflicts between civil liberties and national security in American history. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Musch, D. J. (2003).Balancing civil rights and security: American judicial responses since 9-11. New York: Oceana publications.