“Governments are justified in circumventing civil laws when doing so is vital to the protection of national security.” Write an essay in which you take a position on the statement above. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider

Government has long operated in multiple spheres, each with its own characteristic laws. These spheres include the well-known realms of federal law, dictated by legislative assemblies at the most supreme levels of government, the realms of state law, dictated by the state legislatures, and civil law, dictated by common practiced observed by tradition and formally codified in Greco-Roman times. Sometimes these various spheres of law may be at odds with one another. While it is critical for the government to uphold civil laws as much as possible, certain situations sometimes do arise in which the government is justified in circumventing civil laws to protect national security. These actions are especially critical when the safety of a government’s citizens, or crucial information vital to national security, are at stake.

It is conceded that civil law must not be disregarded under mundane circumstances, seeing as how the civil law system has been integral to protecting freedoms and societal organization since Antiquity. The famous Code of Hammurabi in ancient Mesopotamia, the first known instance of a codified civil law, has indeed wrought tremendous influence over the way societies have functioned even to this day. One critical aspect of civil law that must be honored whenever possible is the concept of right of property, where property is one’s right to save and use except under conditions of due process of law. If the federal government arbitrarily begins taking away citizens’ personal property, it oversteps certain bounds and becomes tantamount to totalitarianism. Indeed, many of the most infamous dictatorships have infringed on civil law without an excuse rooted in national security, and have faced universal backlash from the majority of free countries. Particularly Nazi Germany confiscating people’s personal weapons and the shops and livelihoods of the Jewish people, or Mao Zedong confiscating and redistributing the farmers’ lands in China have been ubiquitously condemned in modern society, seeing as there was no firm root in national security to justify these actions that violated the rights and humanity of many peoples. Yet at the same time, might there be certain conditions that do justify a breach of civil law by the federal government?

Further analysis indeed shows that certain circumstances do justify the government being able to circumvent civil law, especially when the lives and safety of its citizens are at stake. One of the most well known examples today is the threat of terrorism. Governments widely respond to terrorism as a military threat, acknowledging that certain freedoms protected under civil law must be dispensed with for the good of greater society. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, killing some thousands of innocent people, President Bush acknowledged this fact leading him to draft the sometimes controversial Patriot Act. The Patriot Act allows the federal government to sidestep conventional protections on one’s property and right to remain silent, allowing the government the military authority to search the property and persons of potential terrorists. While this does in need violate individual rights, the harms must be weighed against the benefits. Indeed, one person’s civil rights being violated cannot in the least be comparable to the number of lives that could be saved if another 9/11 attack were to be prevented. Hence, in certain circumstances it makes sense for the government to take drastic measures to circumvent civil law for the sake of protecting its citizens.

Finally, the government should be allowed a certain leeway in sidestepping civil laws and regulations when it comes to protecting information deemed vital to the stability of a nation. The U.S., for instance, must take care to protect its institution and information from various forms of attacks coming from competing governments. While many of these attacks may be military, and hence threatening the lives and safety of citizens, some of the attacks may be more insidious and yet equally necessary to protect against. As a prime example, consider the 2016 presidential election, where compromising information was stolen by Russian Intelligence officers to interfere in the democratic proceedings of the United States. Actions such as these infringe upon the democratic ideals of our nation, and can lead to our country being beholden to the interests of others. As a result, our country is taking steps to prevent such actions in the future in ways that may overstep civil laws. If a person is believed to have compromising information against the democratic institutions of a country, it makes sense for the federal government to take immediate emergency information to search that persona and confiscate that information. Once again, the needs of the many (the democratic viability of the government) outweigh the rights of the one, who may be violating the national security.

Altogether, we have seen how certain circumstances necessitate the federal government being able to overstep the bounds of federal government. Even though these powers must not be abused under arbitrary circumstances to transform the government into a totalitarian state, these powers may sometimes be wielded in order to protect the safety and critical information and institutions of a state.