1 - The Perilous Dichotomy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 June 2009
Summary
“In times of danger, the weight of concerns for public safety increases relative to that of liberty concerns, and civil liberties are narrowed. In safer times, the balance shifts the other way and civil liberties are broadened.”
Judge Richard Posner, US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, 2006“Civil liberties are a vital part of our country, and of our world. But the most basic liberty of all is the right of the ordinary citizen to go about their business free from fear or terror.”
Prime Minister Tony Blair, 2001“I think that the [1974] Terrorism Act helped to both steady opinion and to provide some additional protection. I do not regret having introduced it. But I would have been horrified to have been told at the time that it would still be law nearly two decades later … It should teach one to be careful about justifying something on the ground that it is only for a short time.”
Baron Jenkins of Hillhead, former UK Home Secretary, 1991Six days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Representative James Sensenbrenner, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, stepped out of the shower in his home in Wisconsin and overheard a familiar voice on television: Attorney General John Ashcroft was calling on Congress to pass the administration's antiterrorism legislation within a week. Sensenbrenner, for whom this bill came as something of a surprise, immediately got on the telephone to demand a copy of it.
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- Information
- The Cost of CounterterrorismPower, Politics, and Liberty, pp. 1 - 32Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008