Weighing The Right To Privacy Against The Threat Of Terrorism
...my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,--
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.
-- “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” Sir Walter Scott
The excerpt from Scott’s poem above describes a traitor and it conveyed the concerns of the Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in 1949. After World War II, Russia’s strength and the fear of communism gripped the nation. The land of the free did not embrace socialism or communism and any political view outside of democracy threatened the stability of our country. The HUAC felt so strongly about the matter that they included the quote on the final page of a report titled, “Review of the Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace, arranged by the National Council of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions.” Patriotism and nationalism are strong emotions that stir a society into action, both appropriate and inappropriate.
The concept of civil liberty often runs counter to the interests of national defense. The normal American has an understanding that the Constitution guarantees the right to certain freedoms, privacy being one of them. Contrary to that belief is the fact that the Constitution guarantees certain rights as long as those rights do not adversely affect the country’s interests or safety. Joe Public may have the freedom to have a shotgun but he does not have the right to own a bomb.
Throughout history, our...
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