Are liberty and security inconciliable?

Résumé du document

The striking and massive waves of harms that are threatening the society explain and justify a radical change in our scheme of civil liberties. Generally speaking, people are ready to sacrify a part of their rights and liberties in order to improve their physical security. The main issue is that this diminution in liberty often doesn't work out that way. Indeed, the new balance between security and liberty often only affects a specific part of the population. Consequently, is it accurate to sacrify the civil liberties of the minority in order to preserve the security of the majority?

Extraits

[...] Are liberty and security inconciliable? Are we really balancing one thing we value (liberty) as against another (security)? Or are we balancing the well-being of the majority at the expense of members of minority groups? Is rethinking the “balance” between security and liberty an appropriate metaphor for the increase in security as a response to an increase in particularly Muslim terrorism, e.g. 9-11 or terror bombing in Israel? The striking and massive waves of harms that are threatening the society explain and justify a radical change in our scheme of civil liberties. [...]

[...] Without security, citizen doesn't enjoy liberties that he has at his disposal. Nonetheless, we have to wonder if the limitation of the minority's liberty doesn't mean a victory for terrorists who accuse the state of being an oppressive machine hidden over a democratic mask. We can focus on the recent French experience with its huge Arab community. The daily life was so disrupted during the striking 2005 riots in the suburbs that the President Chirac decreed the state of emergency on november 8th. [...]

[...] After 09/11, the United States lived in an “ontologic threat” accentuated by the anthrax's psychosis and the Arab citizens and foreigners were regarded with a lot of suspicion like potential terrorist[4]. Althougt generally their rights was respected, the FBI and other agencies undeniably kept an eye on this specific ethnic group because the security of the whole community prevails over the liberties of a minority group. A democracy is defined like a political system where the rule of the majority prevails. This rule must prevail when the topic is about security issue too. [...]

[...] Nonetheless, nobody, especially a state, can act with impunity in a globalized world where the news go through the world in few minutes. In a democratic state, a system of check and balances prevents illegal measures, especially discriminatory measures. The recent invocation of the 1955 Act in France must be compared with the invocation of the Article 16 by the powerful and charismatic General De Gaulle after the Generals putsch in Algeria in 1961[6]. The abuses which happened in 1961, since the General abusively prolonged the state of emergency in Algeria during 5 months in order to create courts of exception against his enemies whereas the Republican institutions were restored in one week, were impossible in 2005. [...]

[...] A similar but most striking suspicion against the Arab community is perceptible in Israel. Defense regulations have been applied almost exclusively to the Arab minority since 1948 and raise serious problems from a civil liberties perspective for Human Rights organizations. From 1948 to 1966, many border areas, corresponding to Arab-populated areas, were placed under a military government whose legal basis was the 1945 Defense Regulations. The most serious continuing controversy has been probably the matter of admnistrative detention (Regulation 111) which allows indefinite imprisonment without trial. [...]