Freedom and Security

In recent years, the news has revived the issue of the boundary between freedom and security. Their relationship is one of the central themes of the political and ethical context of our days. It is a very complex coexistence, as it is contradictory in itself: we can, in fact, affirm that where security is guaranteed, there is necessarily a limitation of freedom; if freedom prevails, there is almost always a lack of security. We loudly demand security but, on the same level, we demand freedom.

Like when we accept fussy checks on our possessions and even on what we keep in our pockets when we cross the border line of an airport. And then, if we go online we demand maximum freedom with the motivation that the Web is neutral!! And so too, those who cry out for freedom of expression should remember that this does not coincide with the freedom to say everything, even falsehoods or insults.

The conflict between freedom and security is an original one living in society, even if it is always expressed in different ways. And in contemporary society can we talk about freedom in the form of privacy and security in the context of the Internet and social networks?

Nowadays it has become common to use these tools, but they are not sufficiently known. Many people have been violated because of social networks. Without knowing it, we are often controlled by these tools just by signing up or giving our email somewhere.

The Internet has become the most used means of communication because it is fast and simple, but in addition to being an information mediator, the Internet brings with it significant risks: violation of security related to the issue of privacy, or the right for individuals to have the power to externalize or not certain information about themselves. The Internet seriously puts our security at risk, even if today’s society is based on the web.

The solution, however, does not lie in opting for one or the other without mediation, but in seeking the balance that is most reasonable, most shared, least harmful to one or the other.

This is valid at a collective level, between citizens and the State, between the community and its members. But it is also valid in interpersonal relationships.

Nor can the solution be to contrast freedom with security, but rather to seek from time to time a balance that avoids damaging one of the two values ​​in play in a game of concessions and concessions that overcomes drastic oppositions and helps to review, correct, and renegotiate any restrictions. When you live in society, after all, you have to give up a share of your freedoms for the good of all, especially the most fragile.

Freedom is untouchable when it concerns private choices, which concern religion, political opinion, individual conduct, choices whose consequences affect one’s existence, but when it implies a “social act”, that is, when it has effects on others, then it requires precise limitations and if these limitations are recognized as essential to guarantee the health or even life of other people, State interference is not only legitimate but necessary.

So we can say that the relationship between freedom and security is sensitive to personal responsibility.

For years we have forgotten to say that with freedom, duties and responsibilities also increase. To the point that today we are no longer able to recognize any relationship between the degradation of freedom and the loss of security.

Unloading all our problems onto an external enemy is a way to escape our own responsibilities.

To reconcile freedom and security on a more advanced level there is no other way than to put everyone’s contribution back at the center.

If it does not want to destroy itself and what is around it, freedom must come to recognize that it lives fully and only in responsibility.