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Balancing Security and Liberty
Stuart Macdonald 
Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of Terrorism Law
Swansea University Author:
Stuart Macdonald
Abstract
This entry examines the notion that the central task in counter-terrorism law and policy is to balance the competing demands of security and liberty. It begins by detailing two attempts to conceptualize this notion of balance: Richard Posner’s metaphorical set of scales; and, the security-liberty fr...
| Published in: | Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of Terrorism Law |
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| Published: |
Edward Elgar Publishing
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa71763 |
| Abstract: |
This entry examines the notion that the central task in counter-terrorism law and policy is to balance the competing demands of security and liberty. It begins by detailing two attempts to conceptualize this notion of balance: Richard Posner’s metaphorical set of scales; and, the security-liberty frontier advanced by Eric Posner and Adrian Vermeule. The entry then outlines various criticisms of the balancing discourse, including: its oversimplification of the relationship between security and liberty; its relativistic, consequentialist approach; and its failure to engage with questions regarding resource allocation, the distribution of proposed changes in security and liberty and the meaning and demands of each of these values. |
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| Keywords: |
counter-terrorism; security; liberty; human rights; balance; policy |
| College: |
Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law |