Civil Rights and Liberties Civil rights and liberties refer to the idea that people are free to pursue a lifestyle of their choice as long as it doesn't limit or infringe on another person's lifestyle. This notion of rights and liberties is centuries old. Despite such well-grounded principles, however, civil rights and liberties are a result of politics and policymaking, or more specifically the result of how society creates civil rights and liberties through politics and policymaking. They include whatever individual rights a citizen possesses, even if those rights seem very inconsequential to most other people. For instance, we all have a right to privacy during our phone conversations and, even though most of us never even think that someone might be listening to us, this right is guaranteed to every citizen.
Civil liberties refer to freedoms that every individual has a right to posses.
For instance, everybody, regardless of race, gender, or religious orientation, has the right to personal security, the right to own property, the right to have children, and the right to have all of these rights and others without fear of governmental interference. Major Supreme Court decisions have clarified and extended civil liberties. In Texas v. Johnson , a 1989 case, the Supreme Court said that desecrating the flag is a form of symbolic speech that cannot be punished just because some people find it offensive or disagreeable. Many of us take civil rights and liberties for granted, but large sections of the population have had to struggle for them. The first ten amendments to the Constitution, which are commonly known as the Bill of Rights , guarantee many of our civil rights and liberties.