The Interplay of Modern U.S. National Security and Constitutional Rights

A Disregard for Domestic Security in Exchange for… Chaotic International Relationships

The previous and current administrations have taken strong stances to push national security agendas forward. The actualities of global interfacing have been top of mind, from export controls to data privacy, to even trade and ridiculously enforced tariffs. Both Biden and Trump have created enforcement regimes that have required the outside world to frequently adjust and listen to Washington’s version of the boy who cried wolf. The increase in these enforcements would make one think that the United States is currently pro-national security. That the moves of today and yesterday have, while complicated our relationships with our allies and adversaries, have created a safer America. Of course, this might be true if other current policies didn’t counteract the security of the Nation’s individuals and the constitutional demands that govern them.

The national security of the United States has been weaponized to implement policies that posture the Nation in very isolationist and adversarial way, while completely disregarding the need to utilize its powers to safeguard the values the country has held for centuries. Dissent, honest expression, and freedom of movement have all been attacked over the past months. The disregard for such rights is anti-American and therefore anti-security. However, instead of the private sector utilizing its wealth to challenge such attacks in the courts, the powerful and wealthy have decided to attempt to safeguard its pockets. Ironically, the regimes it once supported in the fall is directly hurting its international business and efforts.

A Rethinking of Security Priorities

National security analysts, lawyers, policy writers, and thinkers alike should take a step back and remember their desires and purposes. Partisanship has snuck its way into important constitutional questions that represent the Nation and its presenting/wishful identity. It might be time for security professionals to not only rebut the current occurrences, but to also require that attention be focused on such issues.

Freedom of speech and the right to privacy and becoming more and more narrow. From the Trump Administration restricting the rights of citizens, visa holders, and non-citizens to protest the government and war, to Customs and Border Patrol increasing their searches on returning travelers, the surveillance of individuals is pushing the boundaries of executive power and limiting due process.

However, the idea of looking within to protect the Nation’s security is not new. With the exception of terrorizing foreigners and a front to decrease the drugs on streets, it’s simply been forgotten. Reaching back to 1871, legislation was utilized to break up the KKK's efforts to terrorize Black people. The finding was substantially earlier than the League of Nations and WW2, where the US ultimately turned its security efforts outwards looking, but the sentiment and desire to label the organization a risk to society remains pertinent. We are experiencing a moment where redirection and protections does not necessarily require innovation. The executive powers currently being utilized are not innovative in the sense that they require creation opposition. The answers found yesterday are indeed the answers of today. Thought leaders, specifically its legal and national security experts, need to grow backbones. Once they are lined up, prepared to demonstrate and create a hostile environment, it is up to the private sector to back them and ensure sustainability.

A Job for Reagan Republicans

Ironically, this framework is brought forth by a liberal law student obsessed with rational security. However, this concept of protecting individual rights as a national security right would likely fall under the old guard of the Republican Party. Limiting government to ensure individual protections is a current flavor of the liberal caucus attempting to push back against the Trump era. Seemingly, we are both little and big government, everywhere, all at once. It is important for grassroots organizers to pull from whichever framework will suit them best. However, it is even more important for individuals to stand by what they actually deem as rights versus policy priorities. If the McConnells? and Cruzs of the world review their own values, they might find an honest issue with how the current administration is utilizing its powers to achieve the right’s agendas. This is not to say that they would disregard currency policy wishes (I do not have faith in this), but they might reconsider how to achieve such goals.

And if those with the most political pressures and most questionable incentives can articulate the protections that they should constitutionally seek, it can be foreseen that the national security experts across the nation, hidden and not, will consider to do the same.

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