IP: Cohen again threatens privacy and freedom for security

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Date: Fri, 05 Feb 1999 12:02:37 -0500
From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>



********

From: "Greg Nojeim" <gnojeim () aclu org> 
To: "'Declan McCullagh'"
<declan () well com> 
Subject: Cohen Again Threatens Privacy and Freedom for
Security 
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 10:33:25 -0500 

In response to a question by Senator Sessions about weapons of mass
destruction and domestic terrorism, Secretary Cohen at a hearing on 2/3/99
before the Senate Armed Services Committee again signaled that Americans may
have to sacrifice privacy  and freedom for security:

He said,

[snip]

With respect to how do we deal with that, I talked about this before. We
need greater intelligence and that means not only foreign gathered
intelligence but here at home. That is going to put us on a collision course
with rights of privacy.

         And it's something that democracies have got to come to grips
with -- how much are we going to demand of our intelligence agencies and how
much are we willing to give up in the way of intrusion into our lives?

         That is a trade off that is going to have to come and we have to
yet really seriously debate the constitutional issues and whether or not
we're willing to give up more freedom in order to have more security.

         That's a matter for another time.

[snip]

And at another time, it was Ben Franklin who said, and I'm paraphrasing
here, "He who would sacrifice essential liberties for a temporary increase
in security deserves neither."

--Greg Nojeim