Major Matt Hallgarth
This paper addresses one of the issues proposed by
the 2002
The first point I would make about this question is that this is a complicated issue and ‘freedom’ and ‘security’ are vague terms. Security considerations are diverse, including such things as economic security, political security, personnel security, and national security. These different security considerations can clearly conflict, affecting, for example, the way whole governments are established. The generally capitalist systems of the west and the communist systems of the east differed fundamentally over the issue of whether governments should prioritize economic security over political security or vice versa. All governments are interested naturally in national security. The war on terrorism seems framed in terms of national security, although it seems that the other forms of security I mentioned are instrumental to national security generally.
Secondly, I point out that, generally,
the concept ‘freedom’ can concern two very different things: “freedom from” and
“freedom to”. It is one thing to be free
from being acted upon in a certain way, and it is quite another to be free to
act the way you want.
I will make the following points in the
next few minutes.
1.
Conceptually,
security and privacy are a type of ‘freedom from’. What we normally call ‘‘freedom’ in normal
talk is freedom to act as one chooses.
Freedom from (security) and freedom to (of action) are related in a
dynamic way.
2.
From
a policy standpoint, freedom to (act) ought to have priority over freedom
from. Taking away people’s freedom to in
order to provide them with freedom from is something that must be
justified. On the other hand, people do
not have to defend keeping their freedom unless they have done something that
merits having that freedom restricted.
3.
Moral
disagreement is ubiquitous and permanent in many areas of life. This includes decisions about how much freedom
to act may be sacrificed to provide security.
Two sets of parents can be good and well intentioned yet take very
different views on how to balance security with freedom in their children’s
lives. These differences do not
necessarily reveal that one set of parents is guilty of erroneous moral
reasoning. People personally rank the
harms and benefits of freedom from and freedom to differently. This difference in ranking is not an issue
that moral theory can solve.
4.
The
issue of gun control is analog to the problem of assessing considerations of
providing freedom from by taking away freedom to. It is possible the some security can be
gained without taking away freedom.
These alternatives are strongly justified. These points are listed in a bit more detail
below.
To be secure is to be free from some harm, or most likely, free from an increased probability of some harm. To be free in the sense in which this question “How should authorities balance the need for security with rights of privacy and freedom of movement?” is phrased refers to having freedom of action. Or one can call the first passive freedom and the second one active freedom. To me, the right to privacy becomes absorbed into the broader concept of ‘freedom from’ since privacy is freedom from a specific sort of personal invasion.
Every rational person wants to be free
from harm and they want to be free to do what they want. They want to be free from death,
sickness, pain, etc…. All impartial rational
persons also want to be free, i.e., free to plan and order there lives
the way they want. It seems intuitively
obvious that a core function of any government is to provide for the security,
i.e., freedom from external and internal threats in order to provide citizens
with freedom to conduct their lives as they want, given certain
restrictions.
Our government has a core
constitutional responsibility to protect its citizens from internal and
external threats, threats that impede freedom to create and implement their own
plans of life, to engage in commerce, to be safe on the roads and in the
stores, and to express themselves in the public arena. While the government’s responsibility is
clear with respect to stopping an invader, catching terrorists in the planning
phase and providing police to keep violent criminals off the streets, their job
is more complicated when it comes to setting and enforcing limits on “freedom
of action” in order to keep some peoples freedom to act from substantially
increasing the probability that harm will be caused to other people in the
community. These people want freedom of
action too. Freedom to act does not,
from a moral standpoint, include freedom to cause or substantially increase the
risk of causing harm to other people unless an adequate reason is
provided. The freedom that is sacrosanct
is freedom that is tempered by moral limitations that would create a secure
environment for people to exercise a maximum amount of freedom commensurate
with maximum security for others.
An argument that limits the
government’s right to take away “freedom to” in order to provide “freedom from”
is provided by the way both types of freedom seem to naturally interact. That relationship is roughly described as
follows. A lack of security retards
freedom of action and prompts a desire for more security to regain freedom of
action. However, too much security impedes freedom of action and creates a
desire for less security. In other
words, freedom to act is maximized when security is high enough but not too
high. Freedom of action is minimized
when there is both too much security and not enough of it. Everyone rational person wants their “freedom
to” act maximized. Maximized freedom
requires some guarantees of security.
These two are in a chaotic relationship as the current terrorism focus
illustrates. The current interest in
balancing security and freedom is a response to the loss of homeostasis caused
by current events. My father would
rather endure great risk to preserve his civil liberties. Other people would live in a quasi police
state to feel safer. Most of us are
somewhere in between.
When the government makes decisions
involving security, the goal of providing that security should be to maximize
total freedom to act. The goal of
providing security is to protect people from being preyed upon by others who
want to cause them harm. People need to
be freed from certain harms in order to increase their freedom to carry out
their life plans commensurate with their ability and motivation, with minimum
interference. If the government decides
that some security measure is a prudent policy during this war on terrorism,
then the burden of proof to justify those changes belongs with the government. The government has to show that heightened
security measures will restore a maximization of freedom to act that was
somehow lost when terrorist attacks, and the threat of more terrorists attacks,
caused enough fear in the public that they felt less freedom to act. The goal of government security policy should
be to optimize the balance of freedom from and freedom to, to use security only
so far as it produces the most freedom possible with the least
interference. They have the burden of
proof. Since most of us are not in a
position to know what terrorist attacks are averted from heightened security
measures, it is not easy for us to verify if restriction on freedom to act are
effective. Some word from the government
showing some successes would help to justify heightened security measures. We do not seem to be getting that information
right now, but are being asked to trust the authorities.
There is another reason why the
government has the burden of proof.
Governments are not different from individuals in a key respect. When governments act to prevent harm but
cause harm in the process, then they owe the citizenry a reason. Acts of preventing normally have to be
justified when those acts cause harm. A
doctor who wants to cut off your arm as a treatment has to give you a reason
why he is going to harm you in this way.
If it is to cure a tennis elbow, the reason is poor. If it is to stop an aggressive melanoma, it
may be reasonable. Some of these reasons
are already conventional. A child who
scraps a knee will have the wound cleansed by her parent. This will hurt, and there is a good reason
for it. Drill instructors cause a lot of
temporary harm in the form of physical and psychological pain in order to
prevent graver harms when the battle is afoot.
If the government wants cause harm by taking away something precious
like personal freedom such as put disruptive checkpoints on all the highways,
then the government owes the society a reason that at least some significant
group of rational people are willing to accept as a policy. One of the problems with current security
measures at airports, like the practice of confiscating nail clippers and other
seemingly insignificant metallic items is that the government has not shown
that causing the harm of taking these personal items prevents enough harm to
justify the practice. When harm is
caused to prevent some other harm, the harm causers have to justify their harm
preventing.
Enacting policies that attempt to
balance freedom and security, i.e, taking away freedom to in order to provide
freedom from, will cause disagreements, some of which are not resolvable using
moral theoretical tools. Most disagreements usually concern disputes
over facts. You might see a terrorist on
every street corner where I see none.
You might think airport X-ray machines work better than I do at finding
bombs. But even if there is agreement
over the facts of a specific case, there can be disagreement over other issues
such as the ranking of various harms and benefits. Even if you and I agree as to the terrorist
threat in the nation right now, we can disagree about what actions should be
done. We can value security and freedom
differently. You may be willing to tolerate
the increased probability of occasional terrorist attacks in order to live in a
country that respects a high level of personal freedom. I might prefer bringing terrorist attack
probabilities closer to zero and be willing to surrender a lot of personal
freedom to get it. Moral theory cannot
solve these disagreements. These preferences
would show up in polls; rational people would accept different measures based
on these priorities.
A reason to be cautious with the government taking away freedom to act in order to provide security is that it is usually difficult to undo government policies when they are instigated. The presumption is that ‘freedom to’ is sacrosanct and should be defended vigorously against promulgating fear that encourages excessive measures to provide security. When people accept risks and put their freedom to act ahead of their desire for security, then those who want to take freedom to provide security are encouraged to vigorously argue for new security measures. I preach on this point. Defend freedom first and the security providers will feel more pressure to provide sound arguments for taking freedom away. The ubiquitous nature of disagreement indicates that these decisions are casuistic and not deductive; they will continue to generate ongoing debate. Better to have freedom to with acceptable risk than a higher level of freedom from with marginally lower risk. The pay off has to be significant. No one wants all the automobiles in this country to have governors that keep the speed at 45 miles per hour or less in order to prevent traffic fatalities. The rewards of rapid mobility are worth the marginally increased risk of injury or death.
Use the issue of gun control as an
issue illustrating a case where the question of ‘freedom to’ and ‘freedom from’
is the dominant consideration, and I think it confirms everything that I have
said thus far. Disagreements over
proposed solutions to this issue remain even when there is significant
agreement on the morally relevant features, and even the facts. People on both sides of the issue disagree
over the facts, i.e., what would the results of more gun control be. Would people be more secure or less? Would criminals get guns anyway and prey on a
more defenseless public? What are the
constitutional issues? Some people think
the right to own guns is not for protection from each other, but for protection
from government that gets to powerful.
However, assume for a moment that there was total
agreement on the facts and that increased gun control would prevent more gun
related harms. Even if we knew exactly
what the results of more gun control laws would be, rational people would still
disagree on how they ranked these harms and benefits. Some people, like a few of my agrarian hunter
cousins in the
What conclusions do I draw? First, it seems that any policy that produces
increased freedom from harm that does not take away ‘freedom of action” is
strongly justified. Where the war on
terrorist is concerned, these alternatives should be investigated and
implemented right away. Second, when
government wants to take away some freedom to act to provide freedom from some
harm, then theirs is the burden of proof.
Third, security and freedom are in a dynamic relationship. No security and too much security squelch
freedom to act, the first from fear, and the second from external
constraints. Freedom to act is maximized
when moderate amounts of security are ensured.
I cannot comment on the details of how this relationship works. That is an empirical question. A good rule of thumb is to employ policies
that maximize freedom from terrorist harms commensurate with preserving a
maximum of freedom to.
One final thought about moral disagreement. When I say that disagreement is ubiquitous
and permanent, I am assuming cases with a sufficient level of moral
complexity. Every rational person wants
‘freedom of action’ and ‘freedom from harm’ in some idiosyncratic balance. But in 99% of the cases I would argue that
there is moral agreement on how to balance these two considerations in specific
cases.