In The Name Of The Father Essay, Research Paper

In the Name of the father

Too what extent, if any, do repugnant acts of terrorism justify restrictions on civil liberties as counter measures to terrorism?

In my opinion, it is almost never justified to take away a persons civil liberties, even if they are a suspected of committing horrific terrorist acts. To begin, nobody can be trusted to perform the job of arresting and retaining the suspect. For the suspect may just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. If a country allows somebody the power to arrest a suspect and take away his civil liberties it may result in great corruption of the law. For example, in the true story In the Name of the Father, the British police arrest four young people who happened to be of Irish descent and in the area of an IRA bombing. Even though no evidence was found against them they were arrested and their civil liberties were taken away. This gave the police a chance to beat a confession out of all four of the suspects though they did not commit the crime. This is a prime example of what can happen when peoples civil liberties are taken away because of terrorist accusations. To continue, if peoples civil liberties are taken away because they are suspected to be involved in a repugnant act of terrorism, the group enforcing the loss of liberties will most likely want only the blood of the terrorist decent, not caring if the person or persons is guilty. This again happened when the “guilty four” were taken in and held for 7 days. The officers questioning the four suspects knew of what decent they were and all they wanted was for Irish souls to pay for the innocent English lives lost in an IRA bombing. This is yet another reason why civil liberties should not be taken away because a country suspects a person to be involved in a terrorist event. In summation, it is never justified to take away civil liberties of an accused terrorist because the bond to one country greater than a man’s will to carry out the law in a just and honest manner.