Benjamin Franklin once quipped, “[t]hose who would give up…

Benjamin Franklin once quipped, “[t]hose who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”1. Is this a fair comment in today’s context? 9/11 fundamentally changed how the United States addresses issues of national security. The federal government, as a result, is much more deliberative in the methods that it uses to assure national security.

With law and policy in mind, what would be the answer to these two questions?

-With the initiation of FISA, PATRIOT, FREEDOM, PRISM, and other intelligence-gathering “tools,” has the government gone too far in the name of assuring national security?
-How much power should the federal government have to assure national security?