David Redington

May 9, y

Safety vs. Security

Benjamin Franklin was famously quoted saying Those who surrender freedom for
security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one. These words are very powerful in
America when you consider what our founding fathers went through to establish a free country.
Wars have been fought and countless numbers of soldiers and civilians have paid the ultimate
price in the name of a free country. Freedom is something that is highly touted her in the United
States. If you ask many Americans, they will tell you that it is a point of pride or even who we
are as a nation. But what does it mean to be free? Are we actually free? What are they costs
associated with our freedom? Even, what liberties are we sacrificing to preserve the safety of our
country?
Ever since America was established as a nation, the laws governing us are constantly
being reinterpreted or even being flat our changed; with the politicians claiming the changes are
for our own good. Specifically, over the past one-hundred years, a number of policies have been
implemented that directly contradict the fundamental purpose of the United States, and remove
many of our freedoms and liberties. Is seems as if we are becoming more controlled by our
government with each new piece of legislation that is passed. Throughout this paper, I will
highlight many events throughout our history where Americans have been forced to make
sacrifices in the name of safety, in an attempt to emphasize the importance of remaining
involved in our political system.
Firsts off, the espionage and sedition acts of 1917/1918 show a particularly extreme case
of Congress infringing on basic rights of American citizens. According to the Immigration in
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American organization the Espionage Act prohibited individuals from expressing or publishing
opinions that would interfere with the US militarys efforts to defeat Germany and its allies. A
year later, the US Congress amended the law with the Sedition Act of 1918, which made it illegal
to write or speak anything critical of American involvement in the war. According to the first
amendment we should have the right to express ourselves over things that we are upset about or
we feel need particular attention. This act is in direct conflict with our first amendment rights.
The acts were enforced through the prosecution of those who wrote and spoke out against
the government and war. Eugene Debs was one notable individual who was tried and convicted
under the Sedition Act. He was jailed for making statements during speeches that were
considered to incite and create mutiny. Debs was encouraging people not to join the army or
support war. The case went all the way to the supreme court. Debs V. United States upheld the
constitutionality of the Espionage Act, even though Debs had argued that it violated his right to
free speech. Your honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made
up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now,
that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while
there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
Charles T. Schenck was another citizen who was impacted by the Acts. Schenck was
convicted and his sentence upheld by the supreme court in Schenck v. United States. The court
unanimously decided that mailing leaflets to soldiers and would-be recruits urging them not to go
to war, posed a clear and present. Schenck's pamphlets were intended to weaken the loyalty
of soldiers and to obstruct military recruiting. Justice Holmes compared the action to yelling
fire in a crowded movie theater. He stated that it was likely that upon reading the leaflets, the
soldiers would follow the advice.

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Less than two decades later, on April 5th, 1933 - executive order 6102 was signed and
implemented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was known as the Great Gold Confiscation.
The order required americans who had any amount of gold to turn it into the local government
officials for $27 an ounce, as they considered the possession of the gold hoarding during the
hard times America was in. They also made it a criminal offense to own any amount of gold and
would charge you up to a $15,000 fine, or up to ten years in jail if you were caught with any. The
executive order seemed to cause more harm than good to the people it was supposed to be
helping. It is widely believed that the gold was confiscated because the government had insider
information that the value of gold was going to increase to $35 an ounce; netting them $8 an
ounce. That is a prime example of exploiting their ability to control our civil rights. How it is
okay for them to take citizens money by executive order.
Another incident occurred in 1971 during the Nixon administration. We are lucky to live
when we do because Modern supreme courts tend to be more careful about infringing on basic
amendments. In New York Times v. United States the court ruled that the president could not
stop, through executive order, the New York Times from publishing an embarrassing report that
had been leaked to them. The report laid out, among other things, the lack of planning and
controversial actions in the Vietnam War. President Nixon argued that prior restraint, or stopping
the publication before it was published, was necessary to protect American national security.
Justice Brennan reasoned that since publication would not cause an inevitable, direct, and
immediate event imperiling the safety of American forces, prior restraint was unjustified.
After the shock of the of September, 11th 2001, terrorist attacks began to fade, strict
policies swiftly came by way of the Patriot Act, in regard to our ability to travel. The Patriot Act

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is a collaboration of laws that the us department created and designed to protect americans, but at
the cost of many of the freedoms we have become accustomed to.
Since, as we all know, the attacks were by air, our government decided the need to beefup the security at our airports. They did this by creating the Transportation Security
Administration, or T.S.A. as we will call them from here on out, on December 5th, 2001. The
new security system is managed in such a way that people are funneled through mazes like
cattle, are required to prove their identity multiple times, and take their cloths off, all just to go
visit their grandparents across the country.
Having complete control over the average american traveler does not necessarily stave
off terrorist attacks. This is proven by the fact that, although the T.S.A confiscates several
harmless, yet banned substances a day, they have not been able to prove that their efforts have
directly thwarted a terrorist attack. It would seem that with an annual budget of $7.9 Billion
dollars, their efforts could be made more effective, or the money could be spent reducing our
outrageous deficit. They manage to spend every penny of our tax dollars every year.
The TSA is one of the more obvious examples of sacrificing freedom for security. Body
scanners, pat-downs, and no fly lists are just some of the practices that have the TSA embroiled
in controversy. Many argue that the TSA has gone too far in attempting to secure transportation
hubs. TSA's opponents say that the practices of the organization outweigh the benefits of the
supposed security. It has also been suggested that many of the inconvenient and intrusive
practices and machines used to conduct searches of people don't actually do anything to curb
terrorism or can be easily tricked. Researchers have found that ...they could pull off a
disturbing list of other possible tricks, such as using teflon tape to conceal weapons against
someones spine, installing malware on the scanners console that spoofed scans, or simply

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molding plastic explosives around a persons body to make it nearly indistinguishable from flesh
in the machines images.
As asked at the beginning of this paper the question was asked what is the cost of
freedom. I think we can fairly say that the cost of our freedom is security - at least thats what
our government wants to think. It becomes hard to believe that the freedoms we are sacrificing
are honest. By that I mean, our intelligence is constantly undermined by the US government by
way of deceit. Are we supposed to continuing to accept all of the intrusions into our personal life
in the name of security? I personally dont think so.

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