And the federal government's new ‘Draft Guidance on Allocating and Targeting Pandemic Influenza Vaccine', released in late October 2007, gives top priority to allocate vaccines in short supply, not to pregnant women, infants, children or the elderly, or even to front-line emergency medical care providers or outpatient health care providers, but to military personnel who have “an essential role in national and homeland security” ( ).Įuropeans might be tempted to think that the militarized national security model of public health is confined to the USA, but that would be a mistake. Bush, for example, reacted to the threat of a bird flu pandemic in 2005 by suggesting that the US military should be used to quarantine “parts of the country” experiencing an “outbreak” ( Annas, 2005a). If ‘extreme' and ‘ruthless' measures are seen as reasonable, no one should be surprised that the military is often immediately brought to mind. Or, if there is any chance to limit the geographical spread of the disease, officials must have in place the legal power to take extreme quarantine measures” in the case of a flu pandemic ( Barry, 2004). …officials might decide to order mandatory vaccination. Barry, the author of The Great Influenza, put it, “ublic health officials will need the authority to enforce decisions, including ruthless ones. Just as national leaders have argued that the public should barter its civil liberties for safety from terrorist attacks, so public health officials have argued that health is best protected by adopting the national security metaphor 2001 is the excuse, but 1918 is the model.Īs John M. Mon, Oct 29th 2012 10:29am - Mike Masnickīy now you’ve probably seen the paraphrase of a Ben Franklin quote that those who give up liberty for security, deserve neither (he said similar things a few different ways, but the standard actual quote is: “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”) Whatever the actual quote is, there is quite a lot of truth to it.After the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the myth emerged that public health should rely on the pre-First World War tactics of forced quarantine, mandatory physical examinations and vaccinations to be effective against a pandemic. Giving up liberty for the sake of security rarely works out as planned. Either way, it appears that the editorial board of the Washington Post is either wholly unfamiliar with the quote, or believes it to be untrue. It has come out with an editorial arguing in favor of extending the FISA Amendments Act (and against an ACLU/EFF challenge to the law, to be heard today at the Supreme Court, even with the crazy weather) saying that it is perfectly fine to “give up liberty” for security:ĭiscomfort with the government’s capacity, technical or legal, to collect and retain massive amounts of personal information is understandable. But the 2008 FISA amendments sought a compromise between two essential goals: preserving American liberty and robustly defending Americans’ lives and property. We favored the law and believe that it should be extended. After all, as we’ve noted over and over again, almost no one seems to understand what’s actually in the FISA Amendments Act, in part because there’s a secret interpretation of it that only the government knows. This means that many, many people, including those in Congress, are clearly misrepresenting what’s in the law. The fact that the NSA refuses to say how often it has used this secret interpretation to spy on Americans should be a pretty big warning sign - especially as politicians who are either clueless or ignorant claim that it can’t be used to spy on Americans.Īnd really, this is the root of the “don’t give up liberty for security” quote.
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