NATIONAL SECURITY VS. PRIVACY 12/11/06

Ralph Mroz wrote an interesting column on distinguishing between criminal threats vs. terrorism threats; and the obligation of any government to keep its' citizens physically safe. His article included several interesting ideas in relationship to the fourth amendment. The lectures which Mroz attended at the police academy where he trained made some important distinctions and outlined the operating premises based upon those distinctions:

"I realized that these lectures were about what constitutes a free society...and what constitutes a totalitarian one. I realized that the limits on what the state-that is, a police officer-is allowed to do on the street every day determines whether we live in a free society or an oppressive one.

If the state can stop you from freely going about your business whimsically, it is a short line from there to dictatorship. If the state can search your person or belongings at will, we are well down the road to an totalitarian government."

The lectures discussed the differences between probable cause, reasonable suspicions, and getting a "hunch" or feeling that something is hinky. The role and oversight of courts in how a police officer can reasonably respond was also presented.

Mroz went on to contribute his own gems of wisdom to the present debate over how much power the government has in terms of detaining suspected terrorists vs. the expectations of privacy that the common citizen has. Our government has to consider how to uphold the standards of safety that we have become used to as a society. The real question should not be: Is the government empowered to act in certain intrusive fashions considering the serious level of harm that several individuals can now cause to an average group of citizens? The average citizen can take some measures to keep safe from the average criminal via burglar alarms, guns, pepper spray, neighborhood watch programs etc. The average citizen or even a large group of average citizens can not do much to protect themselves from suicide bombings. Thus the government, mandated by its duty to protect average citizens, has to take extraordinary measures in these extraordinary times. Because the terrorists have weapons at their disposal that we cannot defend against with our guns nor with even the average standard-issue police officer's gun, we then become responsible to ensure that our government continues to use its' power to keep us safe and alive.

radical sapphoq