freedom [free-duh m]
noun
the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint: He won his freedom after a retrial.
exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.
the power to determine action without restraint.
political or national independence.
personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery: a slave who bought his freedom.
I’ve included the dictionary.com definition of freedom (and after the jump, liberty) just in case anyone seems to have forgotten what they actually are. In both cases, freedom from unnecessary blanket government surveillance would seem to be part and parcel of both freedom and liberty. Unfortunately, it seems some in our government, among them Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), have lost sight of who and what they were elected to represent. Burr, who’s arguing that 9/11 might have been preventable had the government been allowed to collect bulk phone records as it does now, appears to have fallen on the authoritarian side of the divide.
I’m reminded of the words of Benjamin Franklin, who once said, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” The question, at least from where I sit, becomes one of how much we’re willing to give up in the trade-off for feeling safer. And does feeling safer equate to actually BEING safer? It doesn’t, of course, but that distinction too often tends to get lost in this discussion.
There is no such thing as absolute safety, and those who demand it inhabit a dream world. There are threats all around us, or not, and while we may be able to know with a reasonable degree of certainty what awaits us, there’s no way to discern threats without any ambiguity. The truth is that we very often don’t know what we don’t know. This is what leads those like Sen. Burr, who would quite happily curtail even more of our freedom and liberty in order to demonstrate that he’s tough on terrorism…and provide the illusion of security.
liberty [lib-er-tee]
noun, plural liberties
freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.
freedom from external or foreign rule; independence.
freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice.
freedom from captivity, confinement, or physical restraint: The prisoner soon regained his liberty.
Could 9/11 have been prevented? Sure, in the same way the attack on Pearl Harbor could have been prevented. Hindsight will always provide examples of things that should have been noticed, things that should have been taken more seriously, and/or or things that should have been differently. The point is that none of these things happened, and the attacks occurred. It’s terrible, unfortunate, and beyond tragic, but sometimes things happen despite our best efforts. Does that mean that once an attack happens, we must ipso facto continue chipping away at the freedoms guaranteed to us by the Constitution in order to once again safe?
The PATRIOT Act was passed as a knee-jerk reaction to 9/11. Few Congressmen and women actually read the legislation they were voting on due to the pressure to do something yesterday in the wake of the attacks. The result was a law that made it possible for government agencies to use all manner of methods and techniques for prying into the private affairs of Americans. Now there’s a push on to extend the PATRIOT Act without revisiting it to amend and/or review some of the abuses present in the original version of the law.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) has promised a filibuster of the renewal of the PATRIOT Act unless significant changes and reforms are made in the law. While I’ve not always been a big fan of the senior senator from Oregon, in this case he’s spot on. There’s an opportunity available to correct mistakes and right wrongs that were present in the law’s original version. It’s time to stop the blanket surveillance of our own citizens until a program can be put in place that has some hope of effectiveness without trampling our rights and freedom.
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
