The Future of National Security Letters

摘要

Benjamin Franklin once wrote, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Unfortunately, history establishes that when national safety is threatened, the country seems willing to give up some amount of liberty. From Abraham Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War to the Sedition Act of 1918 during World War I to the internment of Japanese-American citizens during World War II, the U.S. has regularly restricted civil liberties during times of the greatest national crisis.