Free Speech, Terrorism, and European Security: Defining and Defending the Political Community

Abstract

The United States and its European allies are engaged in a global struggle against terror. While world-wide criticism of America‘s leadership of the ―war on terror‖ has focused attention on America‘s human rights transgressions, the United States is not the only democratic state that, at times, has privileged national security over civil liberties. Just as images of the burning World Trade Center towers transformed America‘s domestic political dynamic and propelled thenPresident Bush to declare a war on terror, subsequent terrorist attacks in London2 and Madrid3 have raised the stakes, as well