Civil liberties should be sacrificed for the greater good.
The events of September 11th 2001 resulted in governments all over the world taking extraordinary measures to enhance the security of their citizens. Whether this was justified or not is yet another flashpoint in the age old battle of liberty versus security.
In the US, new security measures included unparalleled airport checkpoint procedures, face recognition devices in public places, tracking, monitoring and identification through thumb printing of certain categories of visitors, random searches of Internet content by intelligence officers, the ability to demand records on somebody from any business or organisation, the use of wiretaps and the ability to intercept and read email, and eavesdropping on conversations between a lawyer and their client. The possible use of racial profiling to target “suspicious individuals” for more thorough searches and questioning is also being seriously discussed, although allegedly not in operation. Most of these measures are associated with loss of privacy; liberty has also been directly infringed through the detention without charge or trial of non-citizens, on the grounds they do not enjoy the same rights as citizens, the designation of US citizens as enemy combatants and their indefinite detention, and by trying suspects through military tribunals rather than in a normal court with judge and jury.
On the one hand, extraordinary security measures are required to counteract the imminent threats of terrorism that has become much more cunning and resourceful over the last decade. On the other hand, the introduction of these measures comes at the expense of sacrificing some of our most cherished civil liberties and rights as citizens. No doubt, there is a trade-off between security and liberty, but what is the ideal balance between them?
Yes they should
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Not necessarily
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No it isn't. The more power you give the government and the more control over your life you give the government the more at risk you are to suffer abuses of power at the governments hands. Not to mention most of the so called "safety" measures we have taken have backfired. Did you know during the "wild west" our murder rate was lower than it is now but the number of justifiable homicides (killing in self defense) was astronomically higher than it is now. It wasn't until the first gun control laws came into effect that we saw murder rates clime dramatically. Side: Not necessarily
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Incase you were wondering how Prodigee managed to write somthing that was more than an irrelevant insult: http://idebate.org/debatabase/debates/ Side: Not necessarily
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I bet you would change your mind if they eliminated all airport security checks in the name of liberty and planes were blown out of the sky on a regular basis. Of course Franklin never anticipated Muslims being in this country blowing up buildings and people when he made that statement. If Muslims were here at that time killing innocent people, he never would have made that comment, I can assure you that. Side: Yes they should
Actually, he made that comment for this exact reason. You just wait, somethings going to happen one of these days and every street corner in America is going to look like Boston did after that bombing, only difference is people will be drug out of their homes and executed, just like the British did to anyone supporting the American cause for liberty. Side: Not necessarily
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