Civil Liberties And Public Emergencies Issues

Alfreda Fitzgerald

Civil Liberties and Public Emergencies Issues

Homeland Security issues with Privacies and Civil Liberties

March 30, 2019

Introduction

The problem of ensuring homeland security causes today serious concern of public and state leaders, scientists and all citizens of United States. The multidimensionality and complexity of this problem have made it the subject of research for specialists of almost all branches of scientific knowledge: philosophy, sociology, law, psychology, economics, mathematics, ecology, biology and health care, etc (Heymann, 2001).

From the middle of the 20th century the concept of “security” in its most diverse manifestations and interpretations has become widespread throughout the world, including in United States. The concepts of global, international, regional, national, public, economic, environmental, informational, etc., up to and including space security, have been used in official documents, scientific circulation, and mass media (Davis et al., 2004). Of particular interest this problem has caused in connection with the intensification of terrorist and extremist activities throughout the world.

Safety is a state or condition where there is no danger. But, as history shows, such a state could not be reached either by an individual or by various forms of his community. Full safety is impossible in principle. This is a category that lies outside the collective notion of life. In fact, we can only talk about relative security. Fundamental to the consideration of security issues are the concepts of objects and subjects of security (Perusco et al., 2007). Any social community functions in an environment of internal and external threats that are different in nature and in subjects - these can be "threats to the life, well-being and aspirations of a person or the whole people”. At the state level, under the threat of security, it seems expedient to understand a factor whose presence infringes upon the interests of the state, society or citizens. Ensuring internal and global security thus requires the authorities to follow a certain strategy.

Meanwhile, this concept is far from fully reflecting the essence of the object of the study of national security. State security here is only a condition that, according to liberal approaches to security, provides the best conditions for the realization of the vital interests of the individual and society.

Research Question

What are the problems of individual freedom and human rights in dealing with the tasks of ensuring national security by homeland security agencies and the assessment of the impact of terrorist activities on the lives and well-being of citizens are considered?

Research Hypothesis

H0 : Homeland security intrudes the privacy of public while safeguarding the national interest against threats to security.

H1 : Security measures, spying, monitoring, eavesdropping by homeland security outfits is only associated with the elements radiating threat to security.

Literature review

Organization

In the present study, an effort will be made to differentiate between the global and national studies and it would emphasize on each one of them disjointedly. By making such a distinction it will be easier to indicate the areas in which research has been done before.

Homeland security Threats

(According to Baker, 2003), homeland security is a socio-philosophical category which from the point of view of scientists should be based on sustainable social development that ensures a decent life for a person. It should be borne in mind that security threats arise, first of all, not from factors affecting the state, i.e. political battles of parties, interaction of branches of government, and change of government, etc. To a greater extent they depend on factors affecting civil society, such as declining quality and standard of living, economic and financial crises, crime rates, ethnic conflicts. It is the imbalance in the social practice of the interests of society, the state, various social groups and a particular person is one of the most serious problems of modern Russia, on whose solution stability of the situation depends to a decisive extent.

Factors

The most important factor determining the level of development of society as a whole, as well as the population of an individual state, is a combination of such characteristics as “security”, “freedom of the individual”, “human development” and, as a result, ensuring “human rights”. This means that ensuring human rights is a guarantee of human security and freedoms in the modern sense of these words (Regan, 2004). A number of scientific works, including American authors, are devoted to the problems of ensuring human rights. An analysis of the literature shows that scientists have different views on this problem and have not yet developed a common understanding of freedom and human rights (Sanquist, Mahy and Morris, 2008).

Observance of human rights in any state is significantly limited by the actions of the authorities to ensure the homeland security of the human being, humanity and the state, limits freedom of choice, and can also lead to extreme consequences such as a crisis or social catastrophe. A warning of this risk allows you to take proactive measures to prevent a crisis or mitigate its effects.

Approaches

In order to receive timely information about threats, an early warning system is being created - monitoring homeland security. At the same time, two approaches are possible - strategic and tactical. A strategic warning is the identification of emerging threats and the potential for their realization in the future. Tactical warning is the identification of threats already being realized. The strategic warning system determines the possibility of influencing threats to human security until the moment when they can finally form and be realized. Accordingly, it allows you to expand the range of policy options and the choice of its funds (Monahan, 2010).

Silent disasters

At the same time, homeland security is determined not only by the risks of large-scale accidents and disasters, but also by the risks of everyday life. In addition, there may be so-called subtle, "silent disasters." According to the modern UN classification, ensuring human rights in any country should be carried out in the following areas of its security such as financial safety, foodstuff safety; physical condition security, ecological protection, individual security and community security (Caidi and Ross, 2005). According to analysts, this classification is based on the nature of global threats to security and human rights, which can also be detailed. It should be borne in mind that the interests of the individual and the state in any type of political regime are in conflict with each other, since the state seeks to control everything and everyone in order to ensure its security, the nature of every person has a desire for independence, freedom of development for all its natural abilities.

(According to Heymann, 2001), It is abundantly clear that today the power over society can allow any manifestations of individual freedom only to the extent that they do not entail a threat to its very existence. Therefore, it cannot do without clearly fixed principles and ideas; it needs a certain apparatus and public institutions and organizations on which it can rely.

At the same time, for obvious reasons, the authorities are interested in the idea that within the framework of public opinion that society is constantly moving to the left - towards greater freedom and democracy. Under these conditions, society instinctively seeks to lie down in every citizen a code of behavior that predetermines the priority of positive moral and social values. Public fear of independent people, ignoring the general structure of behavior, is not accidental. Individual following only his personal aspirations, his will, is able to lead to the death of the whole community, to sacrifice it to himself (Davis et al., 2004). Adherence to established general norms, however, also entails difficult problems. General norms, although relatively constant, form the type of behavior of peoples, ambivalent in its content and meaning.

Improvement of the individual, society and the state

Declaratively power structures are an institution designed to provide the greatest circumstances for the improvement of the individual, society and the state itself. In reality, any state institution, by definition, primarily ensures the security of the state (Westin, 2003). The safety of the human being state structures is engaged as much as is necessary to ensure the safety of the state itself. Assessing the current situation in the country, it can be argued that the current US leadership is struggling to solve the country's socio-economic problems that have accumulated over many years. Against the background of loud statements about the improvement of macroeconomic indicators, the situation of ordinary citizens, ensuring their basic rights has deteriorated significantly even over the past five years.

(According to Stough and McBride, 2014), In United States there are two main forces acting simultaneously as engines of freedom and its limiters. The first force is power structures and bureaucracy, from whom the inhibiting role for progress proceeds and the second is businessmen and businessmen who are able and willing to transform the individual and group freedom of people into their own selfish self-will. Without distinguishing between violence and freedom of people, one cannot explain the reason for the stability of power or the transition from one form of government to another and the logic of their evolution. While man did not realize himself as a free being, he was out of politics, perceived the power existing above him as something natural and necessary, having the power of divine or natural law.

Bibliography

Heymann, P. B. (2001). Civil liberties and human rights in the aftermath of September 11. Harv. JL & Pub. Pol'y, 25, 441.

Davis, D. W., & Silver, B. D. (2004). Civil liberties vs. security: Public opinion in the context of the terrorist attacks on America. American Journal of Political Science, 48(1), 28-46.

Perusco, L., & Michael, K. (2007). Control, trust, privacy, and security: evaluating location-based services. IEEE Technology and society magazine, 26(1), 4-16.

Stough, R., & McBride, D. (2014). Big data and US public policy. Review of Policy Research, 31(4), 339-342.

Baker, N. V. (2003). National security versus civil liberties. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 33(3), 547-567.

Regan, P. M. (2004). Old issues, new context: Privacy, information collection, and homeland security. Government Information Quarterly, 21(4), 481-497.

Sanquist, T. F., Mahy, H., & Morris, F. (2008). An exploratory risk perception study of attitudes toward homeland security systems. Risk Analysis: An International Journal, 28(4), 1125-1133.

Westin, A. F. (2003). Social and political dimensions of privacy. Journal of social issues, 59(2), 431-453.

Caidi, N., & Ross, A. (2005). Information rights and national security. Government Information Quarterly, 22(4), 663-684.

Monahan, T. (2010). The future of security? Surveillance operations at homeland security fusion centers. Social Justice, 37(2/3 (120-121), 84-98.

Posner, R. A. (2001). Security versus civil liberties. The Atlantic Monthly, 288(5), 46-48.