SECURITY VS LIBERTY?
January 26, 2011 Comments Off
So, the Coalition government is abolishing Control Orders only to retain them in a modified form and by another name. The argument for constraining liberty is that security requires such constraints. Without Control Orders, or Control Orders Lite, so the argument goes, our ability to combat terrorism is compromised. It is a false argument because security vs liberty is a false dichotomy. Liberties are part of our security. They help define what kind of society we want, what we’re trying to secure, why we should fight terrorism. The more the government undermines liberties, the more it undermines the reasons to fight terrorism, the more it undermines security.
The greatest success of terrorists has not been 9/11 or 7/7. It has been the willingness of Western governments to trash basic liberal and democratic freedoms in the name of security.
