US National Security and Civil Liberties: Article Collection

The legal and constitutional struggle between the interests of national security and the need to preserve individual civil liberties has had a long and difficult history in the United States. Debate today continues as much now as at any time in the country’s past. This collection provides a resource for an enduring problem discussed and debated in law, history, political science, international relations and American studies departments. From the vast literature on the subject, articles and historical documents are gathered together clarifying the perplexing term ‘national security’, when and why it may restrict guaranteed civil liberties, its uses and abuses, legally argued and politically manipulated. It provides the strong arguments and historical commentaries made about the meaning of the constitution in times of real and perceived crisis; it addresses the many embattled issues surrounding the restriction of civil liberties for the protection of the nation: the xenophobia, racism, isolationism, demagoguery, and political paranoia that have played important roles in American history.