The issue at hand - Brief Article - Editorial

Humanist, March-April, 2002 by Fred Edwords

Trading liberty for security is a bad bargain when you end up with less of both. Yet that's the likely outcome when your trading partner is a government you've gradually been losing control of. For if the mechanisms of security are later turned against you, causing you to seek security from the government, you won't be able to call up the liberties which once would have rescued you.

This is the underlying concept behind the two articles that make up this issue's cover story. In "Halt and Show Your Papers!" Barbara Dority explains what a bad idea it is to give up some privacy and freedom of movement in order to establish a standardized and centralized national ID card system. Although it is claimed that use of such a card would render alien terrorists easier to spot, domestic criminals easier to catch, and one's own identity easier to prove, the most likely effects would be increased racial profiling, the inability of people to overcome even small blemishes in their life histories, and the likelihood of bureaucratic errors compromising one's identity or the accuracy of personal data.

Going hand in hand with the above is the practice of video surveillance of public places, including the use of facial recognition technology to provide ID matches. Jay Stanley and Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union review in their special report, "Drawing a Blank," the actual results of a high-profile deployment of this kind of surveillance system. And they report that, not only does the technology fail to provide the promised security but it can increase harassment of the innocent and discrimination against certain groups.

It is from concerns such as these that humanists have long upheld those civil liberties spelled out or implied in such documents as the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution. Today, however, there is a new concern. The international terrorism that threatens our security has also been calculated to threaten our liberty. In October 2001, Osama bin Laden gloated in a videotaped interview: "I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in--and the West in general--into an unbearable hell and a choking life."

Liberty, then, remains a humanist byword. But so also does skepticism. For the habit of skepticism inclines one to look beneath and beyond the claims of those who would promise security at the expense of liberty. Skepticism helps one, as well, to question various theories about the terrorist attacks of 9/11 (page 18), ask if the Islam practiced in the United States is really comparable to the Islam practiced elsewhere (page 22), investigate the anti-abortionist claim that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer (page 7), and challenge "the myth that making profits and protecting the public interest are mutually exclusive goals" (page 26). Humanists apply skeptical thinking in a variety of ways. And, as this issue of the Humanist demonstrates, it can result in provocative discoveries and insights of wide interest.