Secrecy Vs. Rights by Wendell Berry
“Secrecy Vs. Rights” argues that the government’s secret detention of more than seven hundred people after the September 11 attacks violates the fundamental rights that define legitimate government. The Supreme Court’s refusal to require the Justice Department to identify the detainees is presented as support for a policy of secret imprisonment in the name of national security, though it leaves unresolved the conflict between public knowledge and governmental secrecy. Berry contends that secret imprisonment denies due process, since a person cannot be both secretly confined and publicly tried. More fundamentally, he contrasts rights, openly affirmed in the nation’s founding documents as arising from “the laws of nature and of nature’s God,” with the government’s claimed need for secrecy, which the government alone defines and conceals. Rights that exist above government cannot justly be revoked at governmental discretion. A government’s desire to rule secretly, however understandable as a human temptation, is inseparable from a desire to rule tyrannically. The essay recalls the long national debate over whether rights belonging equally to all may be withheld from particular groups. The lesson of the Civil Rights Movement is that rights denied to one group cannot be securely guaranteed to another: an injustice first used against a racial minority may later be used against immigrants, religious groups, or dissenters. Government has just powers only through the consent of the governed; if citizens accept arbitrary, self-authorized rule, they lose security in their own rights. Berry does not dismiss national security. People rightly seek safety from violence and expect collective protection against dangers they cannot meet alone. Yet the nation’s original purpose was to secure its inhabitants in their rights, and national security and personal security were understood as one. If national security no longer includes the protection of every inhabitant’s God-given rights, then the government has forfeited its legitimacy under the Declaration of Independence. The Bill of Rights was designed both to restrain government’s tendency to usurp individual rights and to protect those rights in periods of crisis. Although Article V permits an exception involving the land and naval forces or militia in actual service during war or public danger, it still speaks of “No person,” rather than “No citizen,” and reaffirms that no person may be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process. Thus, Berry maintains, secret imprisonment of any person—citizen, immigrant, alien, or enemy—cannot be reconciled with due process. Terrorism has created public danger, but Berry argues that fear has led the federal government and courts to sacrifice persons’ rights to governmental secrecy. He rejects the idea that rights and secrecy can be “balanced” fairly by the government or courts, because people can know their rights but cannot assess a secret need asserted by the government. The Constitution, he concludes, contains no provision allowing frightened authorities to suspend it in wartime or public danger.
By Wendell Berry · First published 2019 · Genre: Political Essay, Civil Liberties Essay, Constitutional Commentary · 1,561 words
First lines
ON JANUARY 12, 2004, according to David Stout of the New York Times, the Supreme Court refused to reconsider a lower court's ruling "that the Justice Department was within its rights in refusing to identify more than 700 people, most of those Arabs or Muslims, arrested for immigration violations in connection with the attacks" of September 11, 2001. Mr. Stout usefully reduced the case to its gist by writing that it "pitted two fundamental values against each other-the right of the public to know details of how its government operates and the government's need to keep some information secret to protect national security."
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Secrecy Vs. Rights is listed on Textopian as an essay by Wendell Berry, dated 2019 CE.
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- Work type: Essay
- Author: Wendell Berry
- Date: 2019 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Political Essay, Civil Liberties Essay, Constitutional Commentary, Political Philosophy, Social Criticism
- Length: 1,561 words
- Structure: 1 section, 14 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Difficult (College Level)
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- Work identity for Secrecy Vs. Rights by Wendell Berry
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Genres
- Political Essay — The work argues directly against government secrecy and secret detention, examining the conflict between national security claims and public rights.
- Civil Liberties Essay — Its central concern is the protection of due process, individual liberty, public accountability, and constitutional rights during a perceived national emergency.
- Constitutional Commentary — Berry closely interprets the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Fifth Amendment to contend that secret imprisonment violates constitutional principles.
- Political Philosophy — The essay considers the origins and limits of governmental authority, consent of the governed, natural rights, tyranny, and the legitimacy of state power.
Tags
political essays · civil liberties · government secrecy · privacy · democracy · constitutional rights · public accountability · freedom of information · state power · citizenship · ethical politics · social criticism