Sep 9, 2006 1:35:00 PM cite

Audrey Kitagawa: I don't believe that we've offered our liberty for our security. I think our liberties have been taken away from us under the guise of security, under the rationale of security. But there is a danger of the loss of personal liberty under the guise of security that we must be on guard of. And we must understand that it becomes very dangerous when we create reasons for taking away personal freedoms and security. So for example, during World War II when the Japanese in the United States were interned in camps, and they didn't offer their liberty, their personal freedom for the security of the country. These were executive orders that were entered to move this class of people from Japanese ancestry into relocation camps as they were called. So the people who have been imprisoned, whether in secret prisons that President Bush has admitted to within the last few days or whether in Guantanamo Bay or -- and have not been charged, I don't think that they offered their liberty for security. Their rights have been violated, have not been honored, have not been respected. So this is a danger that we have to be aware of, the taking away of personal freedoms and liberty under the guise of security interests and concerns. We must be able to utilize and uphold the rule of law, especially at times when we are faced with grave challenges as a testament to our commitment to uphold the rule of law.

by Audrey Kitagawa

Sep 9, 2006 1:35:00 PM cite

Avi Primor: I do believe that apart from people who love adventures, that most people will do everything necessary to have security. And that they are going to do a lot, to sacrifice a lot for it. It is hard to say how much they would do for it. But I think that in the end the need for security will win. And we will always say that yes, for our security, we will give up our comfort and convenience, maybe even parts of our freedom, give up travelling and pleasures, give up a lot. I believe that this is an instinct, that people do need security and fight for their security. For people their security is of utmost importance. Thus we will give up or sacrifice a lot for our security, even if we do it unconsciously or unknowingly and would never admit it.

by Avi Primor

Sep 9, 2006 1:35:00 PM cite

Benjamin Fahrer: Our liberty. Liberty and justice for all. How much of this are we going to sacrifice for security. Department of Homeland Security in the states, and a different things that have been sacrificed in order for the security is huge, huge. We shouldn’t have to sacrifice. We shouldn’t have to offer this liberty for security. It’s more of a control of a culture of a people, taking away their liberty, controlling them for security. Now, I’m saying supposed security has the good one, that’s the crux of it, because it is not a true security. Why we offering up our liberty for something that is not for certain? When our liberties are for certain? To know how to grow your own food; to grow your own food that should be something that shouldn’t be a security issue and yet the Homeland Security comes in, in a midnight raid against a direct action to save the oldest community garden in California in Sacramento. They come in and arrest the gardeners. Why? Because they doing a demonstration instead of a protest against agribusiness. We need to reclaim our commons, liberty. Thank you Florian.

by Benjamin Fahrer

Sep 9, 2006 1:35:00 PM cite

Benson Venegas: I think that we shouldn't give up our liberty for our supposed security. But on the other hand, there are certain consideration where I think my liberty ends where my nose ends. So, my liberty cannot affect other people. So in that sense I think liberty is - has a strong dimensional responsibility, and we need to be responsible with our own liberty. The problem is when under the idea of supposed securities, the leaders, or certain sectors of our societies, start to restrict the freedom or the basic liberty of the collective, of the majority. But this is also something dangerous. Example shows us that when we give up our liberty this can become to be a problem. Right now, there are cases where people that give their information, that open [or] intimacy, that really open, that they don't have anything to hide, we don't have anything to hide, we share everything, now all that information has been used for strange purposes. I know the case sometimes of companies that take private people information, and turn it into business, or getting your intimacy to really knows what is your preferences as a consumer, to be able to target you with products. So there is a line there where we should be very strong advocates of taking care of liberty, but with a strong sense of responsibility. That this liberty, this freedom, my personal freedom is a shared freedom in a collective, in our society.

by Benson Venegas

Sep 9, 2006 1:35:00 PM cite

Bianca Jagger: Answertext will be available soon.

by Bianca Jagger

Sep 9, 2006 1:35:00 PM cite

Bill Joy: Probably unfortunately more than anyone would have considered possible before the September 11th and the behavior of the American government in propagandizing and using what went on there. Benjamin Franklin I think said people who trade freedom for a little bit of security deserve neither. We live in a world where people are making a very very cynical use of fear. Hopefully the next generation of leaders and leaders that will come along soon will turn us towards hope rather than fear. We can’t solve the problems with fear. We have to solve the problems with hope. We have to dream of educating people. We have to dream of innovations that we can make that will solve the world’s problems. Not that there’s a short list of such problems, but just one at a time. Each of us can contribute in our own way. Until we change our dialogue and our attitudes to focus on the good, to focus on the hope rather than the fear, the fear is driving us, I think we’ll give up a lot of our liberty and get very little security and get what we deserve, which is neither.

by Bill Joy

Sep 9, 2006 1:35:00 PM cite

Bora Cosic: You have answered the question negatively, since you called our security "supposed security". Should we at all offer our liberty for something which is foggy, unsure and supposed? Big part of oppressive régimes specially so called socialistic regimes in near past used paroles of outside danger and threaded by unknown enemy, to increase oppression towards the population. By doing so they made lives of population to the living in the armed camps.

by Bora Cosic

Sep 9, 2006 1:35:00 PM cite

Brian J. Weller: I think, unfortunately, too much, particularly if we buy into this so-called War on Terror. I think with this kind propaganda and manipulation, I think unscrupulous governments justify greater controls over their own people, and they do it manipulating fear; often making it happen through psychological, black psychological operations, state-sponsored terrorism, media manipulation. I think real security can only lie in creating peace and that really requires that we build true consensual relationships between our cultures and our peoples. I think collective peace is going to become more and more the requirement, particularly as our resources get more depleted. I think Dennis Kucinich, an American politician, is right when he says we need a Department of Peace. I’d like to see a Department of Peace in every national government. There’s an old saying that “whatever you put your attention on grows” and if we put our attention on this idea of protecting ourselves against “the fear,” I think that’s where our – that’s what’s going to grow, so. We should never really give up our own liberty, I don’t think.

by Brian J. Weller

Sep 9, 2006 1:35:00 PM cite

Catherine David: As less as possible. And we have to be very observant as our so called security is used more and more to obtrude us systems of control which are opposite to the individual freedom. So we have to be very resolute, we have to avoid going where it is too complicated, too impossible, too humiliating, we have to avoid travelling in the United States. And I am very resolute concerning not to travel to countries which annoy us with the demand of visa - there are so many other beautiful countries in the world. We have to try to keep a stiff upper lip and to keep a common sense. And we have to tell to the customs officials that a little pair of nail scissors to cut your nails if you travel a lot is less dangerous than the american foreign policy. Unfortunately, I realise that a great majority of the people is totally unable to react, or they completely agree to what's happening, and I don't know why as I am not a pschoanalyst or a psychiatrist, but I realise how the people accept that enormous safety measures are imposed on them, which are totally oversized, and that happens above all in countries where there were no seriouis accidents or impacts at all. So I have to repeat it once again: you have to avoid getting treated like a minor, you have to avoid that they pollute your life for alleged, unproved and imaginary terrorist threats.

by Catherine David

Sep 9, 2006 1:35:00 PM cite

China Keitetsi: I think it should be on individuals, but we shouldn't also hide behind these liberties. What about those who don't have liberty? I think we should rather not worry of losing our liberty. It is better if we even have this liberty. What about those who have none?

by China Keitetsi

Sep 9, 2006 1:35:00 PM cite

Constantin von Barloewen: This question arises naturally for the moment first of all in the United States, in addition, in Western Europe in struggles with terroristic attacks. If one considers that already Kennedy let spy out Martin Luther King by installing secret listening devices in his hotel rooms, if one considers, that Roosevelt had detained hundredthousands American citizens of Japanese origin after the assault in Pearl Harbor, the same from Churchill in Europe of detainment of foreigners, which just never are publicly. If one keeps all this in memory, it seems peculiar that today in percents many Americans justify or depreciating facts that for instance the American government does eavesdropping on all international calls under the excuse to go against terrorism, civilian citizen right liberties, which are constitutionally justified and at all the ideas and spirit-historical background of the American condition in the sense of John Locke, in the sense of the civil liberty, to which already Alexis Tocqueville referred. If one considers, like these citizen-legal liberties, those actually America, is a democracy, should distinguish and thus the west as superelevated liberty term, which one would like to carry allegedly into the world, democratically to legitimize, it seems doubtful that this restriction of civil liberties is to be justified by terrorism. In America one has the impression that citizen right liberties are scooped out and into partial McCarthy well-behaved form today against the civilian population are used. This is unfortunately not in time to turn away can.

by Constantin von Barloewen

Sep 9, 2006 1:35:00 PM cite

Cornel West: The complex relation between liberty and security is an interesting one. On the one hand, we must have substantive liberties so that we have something to protect in our security. On the other hand, one can lose one’s liberty when one in fact is so insecure that one is fearful of external force. The balance between liberty and security has to do with the presence of justice and it has to do with confidence in leadership and it has to do with international cooperation, international coagulation such that peoples around the world feel secure and feel as if they are being treated fairly and justly. No justice, no peace without justice, but also there’s no security without people feeling themselves being treated fairly. In the Western democratic experiments, now there is an escalating authoritarianism as more and more liberties, rights are being attenuated in the name of national security. This is dangerous as various crypto-fascist motifs appearing where presidents are outside of the accountability of Congress and parliaments, where executive branches are outside of the accountability of legislative branches. This is very dangerous. This creates an imbalance that generates even more fear and insecurity which itself becomes even more raw stuff for more crypto-fascist possibilities. This question is a relevant one and is one that we all need to wrestle with in a Socratic and subcritical way.

by Cornel West

Sep 9, 2006 1:35:00 PM cite

Dedi Baron: Answertext will be available soon.

by Dedi Baron

Sep 9, 2006 1:35:00 PM cite

Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas: In my point of view, it's not all so fair if you are going to give more than 20 percent for liberty in the name of security. For me, I would be willing to give the 18 percent of my liberty in the name of security; that's to make sure that it will lead actually to a liberty for all, a protection for all. So, in my personal point of view, I can offer that much, 18 percent of my liberty in the name of security. It's hard. You might be -- if you are giving more, it might be abused by those people who are asking it in the name of security. It's just like in our country, the government are requesting all the ID system -- in terms of ID system. They are actually asking for individuals for their use to take or to give part of their liberty in the name of the ID system for security purposes. But it's good if all the informations that they will get will really be used for the security. But the problem is who knows; they might use them to take personal informations which leads to violation of human rights of individuals like me. So, be careful; don't give too much of your liberty in the name of security.

by Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas

Sep 9, 2006 1:35:00 PM cite

Dritëro Kasapi: Hello, Florian. I don’t think we should offer any of our liberty for the supposed security. I think a part of why we feel secure is because we feel we have our liberties. So, I think we have a role to play to show that the reason of these threats stands somewhere else. It doesn’t help to fortify ourselves to build walls and build security systems. We need to invest that energy to address the real issues that create this supposed threat.

by Dritëro Kasapi

Sep 9, 2006 1:35:00 PM cite

Eliane Potiguara: Security. We do not only live within local powers, local drug trafficking or local violence. It’s also a worldwide power with, for instance, terrorists and the impact on war. Thus it is parallel powers, parallel powers and the community is in the center of it and the community suffers from the security problem. There is no more security, they cannot leave their houses with their children because they run into danger to be hit by a bullet or by a stray bullet as it happens in big urban centers like, for instance, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo or Recife. In this big urban centers there’s a lot of violence caused by those parallel powers which in turn are dominated by the worldwide drug trafficking. Many people and amongst them some indigenous live in the slums -the so-called favelas- because this is the place where they can live, they can afford and there they live after leaving their homes in which they were dominated by the great land owner. They leave and head for another type of community, so they go to the favelas and there again they suffer. So I keep wondering how can those people cope with the fact that they are not only berefted once, but twice, three times or even four times...There is no resistency to this deprivation, so diseases, new diseases which are contracted by new violence, more pressure, by the lack of liberty arise. So what happens next? People get feared and by this fear are hushed and this silence in turn causes pain, pain which will transform itself into a big cancer, and I’m talking about the real physical cancer. Thus, the problem with violence is a very big one, like the problem of lacking liberty and the opression. The opression is coming from everywhere...

by Eliane Potiguara

Sep 9, 2006 1:35:00 PM cite

Eliot Weinberger: I think that the threat of terrorism has mainly been used to consolidate power by, particularly in the United States, by the present administration. In a sense, I am not sure that one needs to sacrifice any of our liberty for our supposed security. Most of the security measures that are in force, in fact, do practically nothing against the threat of terrorism and mainly create a climate of a kind of police state. Where I live in New York City now, to go into the most anonymous building, you feel like you are going to the Pentagon to visit Donald Rumsfeld in terms of the kind of security that one needs to go through now. So, I don’t believe that any of our security measures are actually making us more secure. In fact, they are making us extremely insecure.

by Eliot Weinberger

Sep 9, 2006 1:35:00 PM cite

Elisabet Sahtouris: It’s interesting that this question is asked by someone from Germany because in the 1930s as Hitler was coming to power here and we are sitting in the place where he burned books, so it’s a very historic day and a very historic place for us to be in. We are thinking about questions of the past and about how German citizens gave up some of their liberty as Hitler came to power. Because of what happened in consequence to that I believe the German people have learned lessons that have not yet been learned in my own country, in the United States. We’re now going through the same thing. We have a government that has taken away some of the liberties we had. We have now a strong department of homeland security and I know that many Germans see parallels between the rise of Hitler and what has happening in the United States today. I don’t think it is completely inappropriate to point out such parallels. And this is therefore a question that’s very much alive in my country today. Unfortunately the media does more to report what’s going on on the one side in my country than on the other. But there are many of us, I assure you, who are looking deeply into this question, who are deeply concerned, and who are trying to find ways to do non-adversarial politics, to strengthen our communities, to raise the issues of inappropriate aggression against other countries in our own land, who want to stand on our Constitutional liberties and not see them eroded in this way. It’s a tough struggle at present and I hope you wish us luck.

by Elisabet Sahtouris

Sep 9, 2006 1:35:00 PM cite

Ervin Laszlo: You have just stated the problem, if our securities only 'supposed', it’s not worth offering any liberty towards it. If our security is really at stake, we have to pull together and create the system that ensures us of more security. But, we never should offer or should sacrifice more of our liberty, more of our freedom than we really need to have the security that is required for us to live in freedom and in well being.

by Ervin Laszlo