Homeland Security or Securitization?
When people discuss situations where laws have been broken, emotions tend to come into play and some demand outrageous punishments. This is especially true when a horrible crime has been committed and it subsequently all over the news. Then a level headed person will speak up and say “Let the punishment fit the crime.”
Similarly, in physics, people often quote Newton’s third law “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
But what do we say about responding to threats? Or more importantly, what do we say about responding to perceived threats, especially when the media and politicians are creating the narrative that defines the threat for us?
There has been much discussion in the US about whether it is ethical for the NSA to record our phone calls. On one end of the spectrum, we have those who are vehemently against an invasion of their privacy. On the other end, there are those who say they don’t care if the NSA records their calls if it helps the war on terror. Any anyway, they typically argue, I’ve got nothing to hide. I would argue that it is not about whether we have anything to hide, but rather does the threat (or perceived threat) justify the response? Is there a point at which we can all agree it is ok to skirt the US Constitution? What would this look like? Would we measure in terms of past threats thwarted, whether there is an imminent threat or threats? What about maintaining the program that violates our right to privacy? Should there be an expectation that the US is stopping X amount of attacks per year?
I believe these questions get even trickier when we cannot judge the true nature of the threat or threats to the US homeland. Barry Buzan, Ole Waever, and Jaap De Wilde argue that some governments participate in political posturing in an attempt to implement measures not normally acceptable in a low or no threat environment. They elevate the nature of a threat to reduce pushback from its affected population. It is hard to tell whether that is the case with the implementation of the Patriot Act. Was the threat severe enough to justify its creation? Or what the threat embellished in order for the US government to justify the recording of our phone calls?
There are additional considerations in this particular ethical debate. For example, what about the slippery slope involved here, or is there one? In other words, if the US government was able to justify the Patriot Act, what other programs could they implement in the name of “security?” In Israel, it is an accepted practice to use profiling at the airports at part of the security protocol. At what threat level (or perceived threat level) would that become an accepted practice in US airports?
Is there also a possibility that there is no turning back, once a program has been implemented to help secure the homeland? In theory, what would happen if the terrorist threat was one day minimal or nonexistent? Would the NSA stop recording our phone calls? I don’t believe so. If US politicians expertly craft the narrative long enough, the phone call recording will go from a security measure intended to fight terrorism to an accepted practice. Another possibility is that people will just become apathetic to it, since it has been that way for many years.
As citizens, we have a moral obligation to continue these ethical debates, and question the legitimacy of government programs that infringe on our constitutional rights. Otherwise, we will live in a world where privacy takes a backseat to homeland security.
