Fanning the Flames: The Freedom Project Blog

5.18.2007

War and Liberty

By Shawn Healy
War and Liberty, the title of Geoffrey Stone's recent book describing the tendency for civil liberties to be scaled back during times of war throughout American history, accurately depicts a series of recent developments pertaining to this precarious balance during the war on terrorism. On Monday, the Pentagon announced that it was restricting access to 13 web sites for soldiers using its server, including those stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. MySpace and YouTube lead the list of sites devoted to social networking and file sharing. The rationale centered solely on bandwidth issues, but skeptics suggested that military commanders are trying to reign in unencumbered access to pictures, videos, and written descriptions of battle scenes and the daily life of a soldier.

On Wednesday I was asked to join a panel discussion of this development on WTTW's Chicago Tonight program. I was flanked by an editor of a political blog and a national security expert. Despite a substantive dialogue, we all seemed to agree that this decision isn't all that controversial given the fact that we are at war.

The Pentagon relies extensively on the Internet (its own creation, mind you) for precision bombing, and excessive bandwidth usage could compromise its integrity, undermine military missions, and place our troops in harm's way. Moreover, it is well known that soldiers sacrifice some of their liberties as a condition of their service (the Ehren Watada case is exploring the limits of this balance). Finally, the Supreme Court last year, in a 5-4 decision, curtailed the workplace free speech rights of government employees, making a distinction between rights of a citizen vs. those of an employee.

This liberty-security balance also has implications on the home front. Four states have either enacted laws or are in the process of considering legislation restricting the use of images of fallen soldiers on t-shirts or other items for commercial use without the permission the appropriate family. Commercial speech rights, while more restricted than those pertaining to political speech, could be undermined if these laws are applied.

Another issue concerns aerial imagery available through Internet servers like Yahoo and Google that selectively obscures certain locations deemed vulnerable to terrorist attacks. The San Francisco Chronicle found disparities in censorship across sites, and no legal requirement for such limitations. In this age of terrorist threats, it strikes me as a bit alarming that imagery of nuclear power plants and the like is available for public surveillance worldwide.

Regardless of where one stands on the ideological spectrum, we are without doubt in the process of finding our bearings in a new era. The liberty-security continuum is enduring expected shifts, and as citizens it is important to track these developments and to voice our opinions about an appropriate balance. MySpace, t-shirts, and Google Earth are but a few battlefields in this uncharted war.

SHAWN HEALY

Managing Director

McCormick Freedom Project

Shawn is responsible for overseeing and managing the operations associated with the McCormick Freedom Project. Additionally, he serves as the in house content expert and voice of museum through public speaking and original scholarship. Before joining the Freedom Project, he taught American Government, Economics, American History, and Chicago History at Community High School in West Chicago, IL and Sheboygan North High School in Wisconsin.

Shawn is a doctoral candidate within the Political Science Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he received his MA in Political Science. He is a 2001 James Madison Fellow from the State of Wisconsin and holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science, History, and Secondary Education from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Subscribe to
Posts [Atom]



About Fanning the Flames and the McCormick Freedom Project


Fanning the Flames is a blog of the McCormick Freedom Project, which was started in 2006 by museum managing director Shawn Healy. The blog highlights the news of the day, in hopes of engaging readers in dialogue about freedom issues. Any views or opinions expressed on this blog represent those of the writers alone and do not represent an official opinion of the McCormick Freedom Project.



Founded in 2005, the McCormick Freedom Project is part of the McCormick Foundation. The Freedom Project’s mission is to enable informed and engaged participation in our democracy by demonstrating the relevance of the First Amendment and the role it plays in the ongoing struggle to define and defend freedom. The museum offers programs and resources for teachers, students, and the general public.


First Amendment journalism initiative


The Freedom Project recently launched a new reporting initiative with professional journalists Tim McNulty and Jamie Loo. The goal is to expand and promote the benefits of lifelong civic engagement among citizens of all ages, through original reporting, commentary and news aggregation on First Amendment and freedom issues. Please visit the McCormick Freedom Project's news Web site, The Post-Exchange at