For Readers of The Times, a Preference for Keeping Liberties in Days of Terror

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/25/world/europe/paris-attacks-civil-liberties-security.html

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As France reacts to the recent terrorist attacks in Paris with a show of force — the police have been breaking down doors to raid homes, conducting searches without warrants and hauling suspects to police stations — the debate over how societies should balance civil liberties and national security takes on even greater relevance.

We asked readers of The New York Times to weigh in on this issue and received an enthusiastic response. Nearly 1,000 joined the discussion, offering their views on what steps societies should or should not take to prevent future acts of terrorism in their communities.

The comments represented a wide range of views and political philosophies, but the ones that seemed to resonate the most with readers of The Times overwhelmingly supported protecting civil liberties.

“My bias leads to me to think that the greatest shame would be to attempt to secure ourselves to the point where the beauty and wonder of life cannot reach us,” wrote Lyle F. Bogart in Tacoma, Wash.

Several commenters wrote that our response to acts of terrorism should be proportionate to the risk. There are greater risks in the United States, they wrote — like traffic accidents, mass shootings, cars, guns and cigarettes — than being killed in a terrorist act.

“The problem with trading liberty for security is the fact that security is an illusion,” wrote Matt in Seattle. “Humans have never, in recorded history, had security from external threats, and that’s no different today than in the past.”

There were, however, some commenters who saw an obligation to swing the pendulum in the other direction, arguing for the need to prioritize security and make compromises in the face of the unique threat of extremism now.

A reader in Weston, Conn., who used the name Pragmatist, wrote that there was a “religious war being perpetrated by radical Islam.” This reader argued that countries facing threats from their own residents “have every right and responsibility to infiltrate neighborhoods, monitor activities, tap phones and emails, close mosques and arrest imams when inciting, arrest instigators, etc.”

Others too, like Ravi in Tokyo, wrote that actions like those being taken in France are appropriate during times of national crisis. “There is no other option left other than to focus on Muslim communities to identify potential terrorists,” he wrote.

On The Times’s platform, readers have the opportunity to note which comments they want to “recommend” to others to read. The security-first philosophy did not seem to resonate with as many readers of The Times as those comments received far fewer “recommends” than the ones arguing for the safeguarding of civil liberties.

Many commenters wrote about the general need to protect liberties in society at large, while others expressed just how intimate this issue can be. Those readers expressed a feeling of being personally threatened by government infringements on one’s privacy and rights.

“Under no circumstances I want any government agent to infringe upon one nanometer of my space without a properly executed warrant authorized by a court; after that I want to see a judicial official immediately, or as soon as possible in the presence of a lawyer representing me, and the government agent cannot coerce or torture me to answer any question s/he may have,” wrote F&M in Houston. “I want this protection even if there is a threat of an atom bomb out there and they ‘think’ I know something about it. Period.”

Numerous readers quoted the founding fathers as well as 18th century political philosophers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Edmund Burke on the issue. A quote by Benjamin Franklin, posted by Alan Singer of Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn — “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety,” — was recommended by other readers more than 150 times.

That same quote appeared multiple times in the debate. Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington and the editor of the blog Lawfare, told NPR earlier this year that while the quotation is often used in the context of concern over government surveillance, it actually was related to a tax dispute. The quotation, according to Mr. Wittes, “defends the authority of a legislature to govern in the interests of collective security.”

In the middle of the anxiety in much of the West over security and the fear of terrorism, some readers cautioned against labeling all Muslims as terrorists and pointed out that most groups had extremists among them.

“Blaming an entire group composing of millions of people for the actions of a few individuals has never been a morally decent, or even practical, policy,” wrote CityBumpkin. “It has always been a foolish idea, born of fear and anger.”

Some readers suggested that the debate was actually a false argument and that civil liberties and national security were not mutually exclusive.

Alamac in Beaumont, Tex., wrote that what was needed most was effective police work.

“Roll back the Orwellian state,” the reader wrote. “Re-establish the Bill of Rights. Hire competent police who know how to do real police work. And we’ll be both safer and freer.”

And just because governments should protect individuals’ rights, doesn’t mean they need to stop the fight against the militant group the Islamic State, wrote John Lentini Big of Pine Key, Fla.

“We should continue to destroy ISIS by all means available, but if we cannot retain our freedom in the fight, we have lost, even if we manage to kill them all.”