Terrorism v. Freedom

This article has given me enough frame of focus to try to post on a topic which will probably be a reoccuring topic of discussion around here: freedom. Freedom is kinda like Time, everyone knows the concept but no one really "knows" what either is. Today's war on terror is a paradigm example.

The idea behind the constitution is exactly that, an idea. The difference b/w a piece of paper and a constitution is the principle which underly the words transfixed on that piece of paper. As any good law student will tell you, words mean jack shit; but, at the same time mean everything. Good lawyers can take a word that everyone would think they fully comprehend and mutate it to his or her advantage. My old roommate would recognize this as the Bill Clinton "It depends on what the definition of Is, is" principle. Thus, the document that is the consitution is only a constitution to the extent that the insitution it mothered embodies its underlying ideals.

So what are the principles proscribed within Consitution? Well most of us think we have a good idea what those are. Freedom of the Press, Freedom of Speech, Right to Bear Arms...well those are rights, but don't they say something about the principles proscribed in the constitution? What about seperation of powers? Checks and Balances, are those principles too? What about raising money to fund the government or to protect the citizens? Well all of these rights or systems center around one idea: Freedom. Some are directly related to freedom, others are structural systems designed to ensure freedom.

If we can equate freedoms to rights for a moment we can better understand how our rights are designed to ensure our freedom. First, our right to express ourselves (as in speech or press) is designed to prohibit "hypothetical tyrant" from dicating who gets to hear what. Using England circa 1700 as an apt illustation, King don't like guy who disagree, King cuts off his tounge. So our right to free expresion is designed to allow us to let everyone know about injustices all over this great land (there are obvious limitations to this, but we'll save that for later). Second, the right to bear arms: designed to make sure that when the shit its the fan, Joe Average can blow the shit out of those commie bastards. Illustration not needed.

Now, the consitution was ratified partly, if not mostly, becuase Colonial America needed a way to make sure that we were all safe from those European bastards. Thus our very bright forefathers knew that in times of war, we would need to be able to curtail rights in order to protect everyones freedom. This makes perfect sense. When there is a war, everything is different. There are "outsiders" trying to take over or infringe on our freedom. As such, it is important to protect the institution and its goals to the utmost extent so as to ensure freedoms for future generations. Still with me? Unbelievable. Of course the ideal government body would try to limit the least amount of rights possible while still effectively protecting The Republic. In economics we'd call that the equilibrium point. In med school it'd easily be illustrated as taking out the appendix so the patient doesn't die (the patient being our collective freedoms, or our constitution; the appendix would be someone like Hitler, or [insert your favorite freedom killer here]).

Everytime, in the history of this country, that we have been unfortunate enough to have to go to war we have had a clear and distinct enemy. This makes the search for that perfect equilbrium b/w fighting and freedom much easier than in the present context. Today we fight a war that has no clear enemy, no clear boundary, and as defined, no clear context; making the search for that equilibrium point very difficult to find, especially where case law and legislative sentiment provides more complexity than efficiency when it comes to defining the scope of our rights.

The National Security Letter that was issued JoeDoe ISP is a perfect example of the conflict b/w the war on terrorism and our freedom. In an attempt to capture terrorists and secure our cyber-borders, the CIA/FBI/NSA felt the need to force an ISP to produce information. This production of information does not require a search warrant or even the review or consent of a neutral party (like a 'liberal' judge?). Lets assume that the government is bestowed with the power to force the turnover of private material at their will and leisure. How long do they get this power? 'Til the war is over? Or forever?

This issue is important becuase of lag. Any good Halo2-live player has heard of lag, but in practical application its consequences are much more significant (unless you are a 12 year old boy who, for all intensive purposes, lives on his xbox). Essentialy, changes made to our freedoms now will have significant consequences on our freedoms later. You can kinda think of this as the exponential effect of change over time. Like ripples on a pond where each ring equals 5 years, the farther from center (i.e. rock thrown into pond), the bigger the ring. So 15 years out from the point where the rock hit the pond (or the 3rd rings for those counting) the ring is 3 times as large as it originally was. If the size of each susbsequent ring represents the change that the rock has created, then we need to be very astute in ascertaining whether throwing the rock is the right thing to do in the first place. This is where context comes into play, but we'll save that for another day.

Sorry for the ranting (and typos), baseball was on, so the thoughts flow only as well as the Astros permitted.

[note: the original linked article was reported dead, the currently linked article is a stand in]