Event Weighs Security, Liberty

The Pro-Israel Progressives and the Columbia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union hosted an event on Monday night to discuss how to protect civil liberties while preserving national security.

Brendan Charney, CC '08 and president of Columbia's chapter of the ACLU, said that the idea of the event was to encourage "intercultural discussion on how to promote security without sacrificing civil liberties."

The speakers, Bar Ilan University Law Professor Abraham Bell and New York Civil Liberties Union attorney Udi Ofer, conducted a question and answer session and spoke about their often similar approaches to civil liberties. Both emphasized the importance of striking a balance between safeguarding the fundamental rights of humans and looking after national security.

"Civil liberties and national security do not conflict," Ofer said in his opening remarks. "It is never okay to sacrifice rights and freedoms for civil liberties."

Ofer discussed the national security changes prompted by the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, citing racial profiling, abuse of detainees, prolonged detention without council or charges and an "unprecedented grant of power to the executive branch" among the "many policies that are coming close to rescinding our civil liberties."

Bell stressed the differences between America and Israel's policies on issuing legislation to deal with national security threats.

"In the U.S. a particular event provokes certain draconian legislation, and then [that period] ends and the draconian legislation is revoked," he said.

Bell emphasized the importance of looking at the context in which certain laws are passed, saying that in America "maybe there is not enough time to take in the context before there is all this wild legislation."

"There is a balancing act going on," Bell said. "If the state doesn't provide you protection from those who wish to harm you, then they are not protecting your right to life."

Bell and Ofer disagreed on certain specifics of how to effectively protect national security while upholding civil liberties.

Ofer said that "what we've seen since 9/11 is that the president had basically legalized torture" of detainees and people considered to be threats to national security.

Bell, on the other hand, said that "if we know for certain that the only way to get information to save one thousand [people] was by torturing the one person, I think many would say that it's okay to torture the one." He later added that this situation was unrealistic.

Andrew Avorn, CC '08 and President of the Pro-Israel Progressives, a liberal group that supports the state of Israel, called the event "an important step in reaching out to other left-leaning groups."