Richard Dickens

Negotiable Collateral Damage: Civil Liberties Versus National Security in Times of Threat Richard Dickens

The United States, by virtue of its democratic system, finds itself torn at times between the defense of its physical security on one hand and the defense of civil liberties on the other. Through the democratic political process, the US government has developed a pattern of behavior for responding to threats to national security. This pattern of behavior includes six typical phases. The author labels these phases as threat or crisis, othering, response, normalcy, restoration, and remorse. After detecting a threat to national security, the primary national identity shrinks to identify "others" against which action can be taken. Those "others" in the history of the United States include aliens and French loyalists in the 1790's, Southern secessionists in the 1860's, Japanese descendants in the 1940's, American communists during the Second Red Scare, and radical Islamic terrorists after 9/11. Once the threat passes and normalcy resumes, the national identity expands again to encompass the previous "others" and the government restores civil liberties to all. Often, the process includes remorse over the action taken during the crisis.