Are discriminatory practices tolerable if they guarantee national security? According to a study by Darren W. Davis; Brian D. Silver of the Midwest Political Science Association, “a majority of people are willing to concede some civil liberties and freedoms [in exchange for national security]...” (Davis et al., 10). Many consider national security a more basic right than civil liberties; to these people, discriminatory practices would be tolerable if national security is guaranteed. Many use the idea of national security prioritization to support ethnic profiling. This support for ethnic profiling is exemplified in the words of political author Bruce Terris, who writes, “The evidence is strong that future terrorist attacks are likely to be committed by Arabs… All nineteen of the hijackers who crashed the four planes on September 11th were Arabs… One has to be politically correct to the point of blindness not to believe that future attacks are likely to be carried out by Arabs” (Terris). There’s some common sense in this notion; with the lives of millions at stake, there’s an idea that ethnic profiling is an effective, necessary evil. Bruce Terris continues, noting, “
However, even if society values national security over civil rights, there’s no reason to employ ethnic profiling, simply because Bruce Terris is wrong. Ethnic profiling has been proven ineffective, in Spain and elsewhere. On a theoretical level, such counter-terrorism strategies are nonsensical. Countless terrorist groups The Strategies for Effective Police Stop and Search project (STEPPS) forced Spanish law enforcement to use behavior, rather than ethnicity, to check people at an airport site. According to the study, “the rate at which officers conducted stops fell well under half, while the percentage of their stops that produced positive outcomes increased by nearly three times…” (Open Society Initiative, 16). Governments have a duty to protect their people. Morality aside, ethnic profiling doesn’t do this. Thousands of lives are at stake, and endangering national security by wasting precious resources isn’t the way to counter-terrorism. A simple facade -- the facade of ethnic profiling comes toppling down. If it isn’t effective if it doesn’t catch terrorists, then why does it exist? The answer; its sole purpose is to perpetrate discrimination, to make societies feel safe, and to maintain a culture of prejudice that has existed for centuries. 9.6 to 1. The quintessence of ineffective ethnic profiling. Morrocan was investigated at disproportionate rates, no more likely to have ties to terrorism than any Spanish person. Any statistic will prove -- it’s simple discrimination. It’s simple prejudice. It’s wholly ineffective.
In today's technology age and the world that one lives in today, there is a question that one is thinking about, which is more crucial to individuals today, civil liberties, or feeling secure in one surroundings? The debate on this issue goes far more than one cellphone or computer, but exactly how to create a sense of balance between one liberty and one security. Surveillance cameras, airport screening, free speech, gun ownership, and more are some of the issues that the government and society need to work on to find a balance that protects one liberty while at the same time keeping the communities secure.
Our founders knew that power, along with greed can lead to corruption and that there was a need for a structure of checks and balances to keep that power and greed under control. Nevertheless, when a branch of the government keeps secrets from the other branches, the system does not work. The Patriot Act approved the means to improve the abilities of various agencies to detect and prevent terrorism; however, when the NSA commenced eavesdropping on millions of people's phone records and conversations they were going too far which the federal courts agreed, which result in the creations of the USA Freedom Act that restored and modified several provision of the Patriot Act, especially imposing of limits on the bulk collections of metadata from telecommunication devices owned by U.S. citizens by the various intelligence agencies.
Technology, power, greed, terrorism, and hate are some of the factors that U.S. citizens are dealing with daily, which brings one to the question, how much of our rights are we willing to give up to be safe in today's world? How much power should one give the government to keep one safe from a terrorist attack? How much information about oneself should we allow the government to know? These questions and more are yet to be answered by society and, most likely, will not because of the continuing changes in the world of technology and social media.
Civil Liberties Versus Security
When one talks about liberty versus security, one is also talking about how much power should we allow the government to use surveillance on the American people. The creation of new technology, smartphones, and encryption software, and so for bringing one to a new era of security and surveillance. This brings one to what this paper is about, how much liberty is one willing to give up to the government to keep one safe in today's world,
Liberty versus Security
As we know that power and greed lead to the possibility of corruption that one can find in any business or government office. Our foundering fathers knew that this could be a problem even before our Constitution was ever written, which was why they included a system of checks and balances so the branches of our government can police each other. Nevertheless, when one branch of the government keeps secrets from another branch, that system of checks and balances does not always work (David D. Hayes, 2015).
The date 9/11 was the day America realize that the United States was not safe from the possibility of a terrorist attack on American soil. That thinking leads to the results in the indication that Americans’ commitment to keeping one democratic principle is highly dependent on other concerns and that the continuing of a significant scale threat to national or personal security can convince a substantial willingness to give up one liberty in order to feel secure in one environment, but, how much liberty is the question. In ordinary times, citizens' concerns about civil liberties issues are likely to be remote from everyday experience, but in specific contexts, civil liberties issues, like in times after 9/11, can have immediate consequences for people’s sense of freedom and well-being. This is why Americans in some cases have accepted that at certain times there can be specific restrictions on one freedom, however, it does not give the government unlimited power over Americans, like the NAS existence of a massive eavesdropping program within the Patriot Act, which the federal courts agree was a violation of the law (David D. Hayes, 2015), which in turn spearhead the creation of the U.S Freedom Act to curb those abuses of powers. Even know that there was an abuse of power, America still found a balance between liberty and security.
Liberty versus PRISM Surveillance
PRISM is an intelligence-gathering program that involves the collection of emails, instant message chats, and videos from major tech companies such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, and Apple for possible communication by foreign intelligence operatives, by NSA and shares with other agencies such as the CIA or the FBI (Ellen Nakashima, 2016)There were concerns raised about how the program rules allow the FBI to query that data from Americans for any unlawful purpose including those not related to foreign intelligence. There was so much concern that a public advocate asks the court to look into this since there were no requirements that it has any relation to national security and does not comply with the fourth amendment, nevertheless under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act it does expressly requires that the government permit to the retention of data that is evidence of a crime, even if it has nothing to do with foreign intelligence or national security (Ellen Nakashima, 2016). What one is talking about here is that Big Brother is listening to one communication.
Liberty versus the New Culture of Security and Surveillance.
We no longer live in the cold war era, where one knew who the enemy was. 9/11 changed how one defines the nature of security, and with the creation of new technology comes a new way of surveillance. The redefinition of security as the protection against one enemy is by preemption, deterrence, and retaliation by the use of regulation, legal, and judicial means, which gave more power to law enforcement and intelligence at the same time taking away one privacy the intrusion into a social contract that is based upon transparency into private lives by means of technology surveillance (Hille Haker 2015). Here one talking about what one does in everyday practice, such as communication to shopping, internet surfing, health-related issues, religious expression, or political activism can be watched over by those in law enforcement or intelligence fields. Even one walking down the street is being surveillance by cameras on homes in stores, in public places, on street corners, or by other people taking pictures of themselves on their phones in what is known as a surveillance society. The problem here is that this type of surveillance does not discriminate between those who may threaten security and those who live with the fact that no matter where they go, being are surveilled.
The trade-off between liberty and the new culture of security and surveillance needs to be ethically sound; unfortunately, today, that is not so, which is why the need for ethical surveillance practices. Meaning they need to analyze the connection between security and surveillance technologies as a reflection of a particular concept of security based on liberty and security. Rather than trading off liberty and freedom for security, one needs to understand that security inevitably demands and promotes the liberty of those whose lives are secured, meaning ethics surveillance must confront the new culture with its normative principles but also with the principle of protecting liberty (Hille Haker 2015).
Conclusion
While it is true that 9/11 does change how one sees the changes in how security and surveillance measures are being used today by the government, one still needs to have some form of self-security, meaning protection from the prying eyes of others into one personal information. This brings the need for security ethics that is grounded in the mutual concept of liberty and the need to be protected by the government. Unfortunately, social media and technology used by people every day for lawful purposes are also used by various terrorist groups and the criminal element for unlawful purposes or for government employees to gather dirt on a political opponent like what is done today, which is why there the need for transparency and ethical surveillance.
Coming back to the question, how much liberty or rights is one willing to give up to the government to keep one safe in today's world? The answer can be more straightforward if one realizes that security and surveillance cannot be secure by just any means but through ethical transparency and supervision that protect the liberty, rights, and freedom of people. Meaning, yes, government agencies, from Homeland Security, CIA, FBI, or any other letter agencies, should work together to share information gathered by the use of utilizing technology means or any means for that matter that protects one from possible terrorist attacks, or from the criminal elements, while at the same time protects one civil liberty from misuse by employing transparency and ethical surveillance.