Opinion ID: 370395
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: individual rights and national security

Text: 12 This case presents the conflict between the Government's need to act decisively to safeguard the nation's security and those individual rights that are implicated in any surveillance situation. 42 In such a case we must carefully consider any impact that our decision might have on the nation's ability to defend itself and its vital interests. Equally, as the Supreme Court has said, It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties    which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile. 43 Because of the significance of the competing interests at stake, we wish to consider their relationship before addressing the particular claims here. 13 Plaintiffs assert two intertwined constellations of personal rights: those revolving around privacy interests and those growing out of the First Amendment's guarantees of freedom of speech, press, association, and belief. The damage to privacy caused by Fourth Amendment violations was captured by Justice Brandeis' dissent in Olmstead v. United States : 44 14 (The Framers of the Constitution) conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment.    15 The First Amendment buttresses the individual's protection against indiscriminate or unreasonable wiretapping. Such surveillance invades the citizen's constitutionally protected right to free private discussion, 45 and must inevitably chill public speech. Either result is intolerable. 16 In recent years both the Supreme Court 46 and Congress 47 have recognized the substantial injury to personal rights caused by unreasonable electronic surveillance. Although the technology of investigation has developed dramatically in the last century, the dangers of unwarranted governmental intrusion into citizens' private lives have not changed since Justice Bradley wrote in Boyd v. United States : 48 17 It is not the breaking of (a man's) doors, and the rummaging of his drawers, that constitutes the essence of the offence; but it is the invasion of his indefeasible right of personal security, personal liberty and private property   .   18 Without vigilant protection of a private space in which each citizen is free to pursue his own ideas and aspirations, we would betray our vision of a society based on the dignity of the individual. 19 The question presented by this case is when may these constitutional rights be overborne by the Executive to protect the security of the entire nation. Unfortunately, the inherent vagueness of the term national security hampers careful analysis. 49 All would agree that the term includes situations where the very existence of the Government is in jeopardy, but consensus may break down beyond such clear instances. 20 The Supreme Court has taken an extremely narrow view of the circumstances in which the Executive may exercise extraordinary powers under the Constitution. In Mitchell v. Harmony 50 the Court restricted the military's power to convert to its own use private property in a theatre of war. 21 (T)he danger must be immediate and impending; or the necessity urgent for the public service, such as will not admit of delay, and where the action of the civil authority would be too late in providing the means which the occasion calls for   .    ( 51 22 This attitude was echoed in decisions striking down martial law in Indiana in 1864 52 and in Hawaii in 1943. 53 In both cases the Supreme Court ruled that normal judicial processes may be superseded only when foreign invasion or civil war physically close the courthouses. 54 Similarly, in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer 55 the Court found no basis in the Constitution for the President's seizure of steel mills during a wartime labor dispute, despite the President's claim that the war effort would be crippled if the mills were shut down. 56 Justice Jackson observed on that occasion that, because the drafters of the Constitution suspected that emergency powers would tend to kindle emergencies, they made no express provision for exercise of extraordinary authority because of a crisis. 57 23 The Supreme Court's steadfast refusal to expand its view of emergency powers reflects an appreciation of the consequences of any national security exception to the usual constitutional limits on Executive conduct. The Court has not denied the reality of dangers from foreign or internal conflicts. Rather, it has recognized the need to respect constitutional requirements even in troubled times. Security interests may be affected by fluctuations in international trade and the supply of natural resources, by social unrest at home and abroad, and by public disclosure of policy deliberations. But such events cannot routinely justify invasions of privacy or restrictions on expression without devaluing and eventually destroying those rights. 24 We believe, therefore, that whatever special powers the Executive may hold in national security situations must be limited to instances of immediate and grave peril to the nation. Absent such exigent circumstances, there can be no appeal to powers beyond those enumerated in the Constitution or provided by law. 58 Any security from one danger purchased with our individual rights would be but an illusion, for its price would be those protections against all other threats to our liberty.