Privacy in the War Without End

Author: 
Coverage Type: 

How should we think about balancing civil liberties and national security? It may depend on what a speech later this year tells us about how a modern war really ends.

At the end of 2014, most of the United States military forces should be out of Afghanistan (some may remain, depending on a number of Afghan and American factors). When they do, according to a former American diplomat, President Barack Obama is likely to make a speech that marks the closing of a military conflict that began soon after the Sept 11 attacks in 2001. What he says may set a future context for what propelled both the Afghanistan conflict and the legal justifications for widespread data-gathering.

“In the legislative framework, are we still a nation at war? Is that conflict temporary or permanent? What tools do we want the government to have?” said Philip Crowley, the former United States assistant secretary of state for public affairs, and currently a professor at George Washington University. “If the Authorization to Use Military Force does still hold, you’re in permanent conflict. If it doesn’t, you go to an old or a new ‘normal.’”


Privacy in the War Without End