Preface

The word liberty has long been a mainstay of discussions about U.S. history and identity. Stamped on every U.S. coin, it is uttered daily by schoolchildren taught to sing of their country as a "sweet land of liberty" and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, which promises "liberty and justice for all." It is the name of Philadelphia’s famous Liberty Bell, which rang in several landmark events during the colonial period, including the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence. In 1775 Patrick Henry gave memorable voice to American colonists’ desire for freedom from British rule when he exclaimed, "Give me liberty or give me death!" Fourteen years later, the framers of the U.S. Constitution wrote of their wish to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."

During the 19th century, liberty took on new connotations as it became a catchword among antislavery activists. In 1837 the New York Anti-Slavery Society used an image of the Liberty Bell as a frontispiece for a publication titled—what else?—Liberty, and a poem about the Bell appeared some time later in an antislavery newsletter called the Liberator. During his Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln described the United States as a nation "conceived in liberty." Some two decades later, the Statue of Liberty (officially titled Liberty Enlightening the World) was installed in New York Harbor, where it quickly became a symbol of American freedom to immigrants from around the world.

In 1961, during his inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy cited liberty as one of the most important features of American society, proclaiming that the citizens of the United States would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty." Yet by the time this speech was delivered, the word liberty had already become a source of widespread confusion and disagreement among Americans. More and more, people were coming to realize that the monolithic promise of "liberty and justice for all" did not, in fact, apply equally to all U.S. citizens: Although slavery no longer existed, social, economic, and educational inequalities continued to divide Americans along racial lines. In 1964 Malcolm X appropriated Patrick Henry’s famous dictum to protest the disenfranchisement of black Americans in U.S. politics, declaring, "It’ll be ballots, or it’ll be bullets. It’ll be liberty, or it will be death." Reclaimed by people who had never received its full benefits, the word liberty became both an indictment of and an expression of hope for the United States. As the Civil War historian Eric Foner once remarked, "Freedom is so often defined by its opposite rather than as an idea."

Recent discussions about liberty in the United States have focused on the relationship between the federal government and individual citizens, and in particular on the implications for civil liberties of security policies implemented by the Bush administration in response to the events of 9/11. It is with these new worries and tensions in mind that the articles in this anthology were assembled. The first section of this book presents an overview of the relationship between personal freedom and national security, weighing the federal government’s responsibility to protect its citizens from harm against its obligation to respect their individual rights. Readers are introduced to various arguments surrounding the USA PATRIOT (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act, a controversial piece of legislation whose implications for civil liberties have been hotly debated since its passage in October 2001. The second section addresses the subject of racial profiling, presenting cases both for and against the use of ethnic criteria by government officials in their attempts to find and arrest enemies of the state. The third section, which begins with several accounts of instances in which individuals were detained without charge by the federal government, explores the implications of heightened security measures for those suspected, but not explicitly accused, of wrongful activity. In the fourth section, the focus of the book shifts from the public to the private sphere, raising questions about the extent to which the government should be involved in regulating the morality of its citizens, particularly on the subjects of same-sex marriage and abortion. The fifth and final section of the book discusses government surveillance of civilian activities, outlining the tension between the individual’s right to privacy and the government’s responsibility to investigate and disclose potential security threats.

A belief in the value and necessity of personal freedom looms large in the American imagination. Yet because definitions of liberty change frequently, no single book, let alone one as short as this, could capture the full range of outlooks that together would constitute a peculiarly American view of the subject. Therefore, in assembling this collection, I have tried to present a balanced sampling of contemporary opinions on civil liberties, offsetting politically moderate articles with essays from both left- and right-wing sources. Taken together, these writings are meant to introduce the reader to a series of complex and interrelated issues, with the expectation and understanding that they will raise more questions than they answer.

In closing, I would like to express my gratitude to the authors and original publishers who gave permission to have their articles reprinted here. I would also like to thank my colleagues Lynn Messina, Sandra Watson, and Jennifer Curry for their kind assistance during the planning stages of this book, as well as Isaac-Davy Aronson, Danielle Frank, Daniel Immerwahr, Sam Means, and Ariana Reines for their advice and support.

Lara Weibgen

June 2005