Rights of Citizen vs Rights of the State

It's one of the greatest questions in Law and Politics- do the rights of a citizen take precedence over those of society or can an individual's rights be suspended in order to protect the state.

For example:

In the lead up to the 9/11 terrorist attacks the FBI suspected an Arab-American of having terrorist connections and being involved in a plot to harm thousands of Americans. They wanted to seize his laptop which they believed contained detailed plans of an impending attack. However they were denied a warrant because there was not enough evidence to prove the man was a terrorist- the FBI could not search the laptop. Three weeks later two planes went into the World Trade Center- the Arab-American was arrested and it was found that his laptop did have the plans...9/11 could have been averted.

In cases of terrorism and other emergencies should State Officials be able to ignore normal legal procedure in order to protect the interests of the majority or must the Laws always be protected no matter what?

You can protect society without endangering people's rights.

Well, the state doesn't really have "rights", he just takes what he wants, and whatever we citizens are left with are our "rights".

It seems more like you are wondering about security vs. freedom, really.

By state I should have said society.

Rights of One versus the Many.

the many do not have rights, aside from the accumulated rights of the individuals who comprise the many

the right to safety is an individual right that all people in given democracies have.

also, given the intelligence that the German, Israeli and South East asian intelligence agencies gave the American government, 911 could have been averted with no need of comprimising an individual's rights.

Individual rights are not the cause of, at the very least, the 9-11 attacks

Its a tight balancing act, and that is the problem.

If you want total freedom then theres going to be a price to pay, there will always be some nutters who don´t want you to be free, who want to force their beliefs and ideals on you.

They will use your freedom against you by killing folk and doing nasty things.

is there more violence in a free society or a controlled one?

violence is not caused by personal freedom, in fact, it is negatively correlated with it. People will always be violent.

Originally posted by Grand-Moff-Gav

For example:

In the lead up to the 9/11 terrorist attacks the FBI suspected an Arab-American of having terrorist connections and being involved in a plot to harm thousands of Americans. They wanted to seize his laptop which they believed contained detailed plans of an impending attack. However they were denied a warrant because there was not enough evidence to prove the man was a terrorist- the FBI could not search the laptop. Three weeks later two planes went into the World Trade Center- the Arab-American was arrested and it was found that his laptop did have the plans...9/11 could have been averted.

Link?

1st person to bring up the Ben Franklin quote gets a virtual pie in their virtual face

aw fvck

Originally posted by chithappens
Link?

its a hypothetical

Originally posted by Grand-Moff-Gav
its a hypothetical

Ah, you phrased that confusingly.

Originally posted by inimalist
People will always be violent.

Thus we should let them do as they wish?

As someone who is not embarrassed by people seeing my hobbies (porn.), and I haven't done anything wrong... I personally feel that giving up some of my securities is a worthwhile trade-off if it serve to protect me in the long run.

*shrug*

Originally posted by NonSensi-Klown
As someone who is not embarrassed by people seeing my hobbies (porn.), and I haven't done anything wrong... I personally feel that giving up some of my securities is a worthwhile trade-off [b]if it serve to protect me in the long run.

*shrug* [/B]

Originally posted by inimalist
is there more violence in a free society or a controlled one?

violence is not caused by personal freedom, in fact, it is negatively correlated with it. People will always be violent.

You never need a reason not to fight, but you always need a reason to fight. Eliminate the reasons and there won't be violence. Scarcity is usually the main one.

Originally posted by lord xyz
Wrong.

You never need a reason not to fight, but you always need a reason to fight. Eliminate the reasons and there won't be violence. Scarcity is usually the main one.

Yeah, you do have a point there.

Originally posted by Bardock42
Like, scarcity of land, scarcity of the one girl two guys want, etc.

Yeah, you do have a point there.

Now I know, it's hard to eliminate scarcity, but understanding that is the first step.

Originally posted by lord xyz
Yeah.

Now I know, it's hard to eliminate scarcity, but understanding that is the first step.

Well, it's just a different view of things, I'd say. I understand inimalist though, there is violence for not scarcity sake...and just violence sake, which would be hard to abolish, even if you had abundance of everything.

Originally posted by lord xyz
Wrong.

what am I wrong about?

is there more violence in free societies than in controlled ones?

is violence caused by personal freedom?

is violence positively correlated with personal freedom? is there no correlation?

is violence not a part of the human condition?

I didn't think any of those statements were very controversial...

Originally posted by lord xyz
You never need a reason not to fight, but you always need a reason to fight. Eliminate the reasons and there won't be violence. Scarcity is usually the main one.

so, the argument I am to refute is the idea that all human violence is caused by a material scarcity?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Thus we should let them do as they wish?

I don't think it is a matter of letting them

that line really only makes sense in light of my other point

personal freedom and violence in a society are not positively correlated, and violence in a free society cannot be attributed to it being free. People will be violent is simply recognizing that there is no form of government that will eliminate violence, even the most oppressive of personal freedom (that Saudi Arabia and other middle eastern nations have more terrorist activities than North America is a fairly good indicator of this).

I would need to see considerable evidence that personal freedoms do actually prevent criminals from being prosecuted. From my experience, police officers usually do first and make excuses for violating rights later.