The Freedom of Security—Governing Canada in the Age of Counter-Terrorism

From Guantanamo Bay to the war in Iraq, the implementation of
security measures since 9/11 has sparked fears that Western nations are
violating the very rights and freedoms they pledge to promote and
protect. The United States has been at the centre of debates, but how
have the politics of security influenced the commitment to freedom in
other liberal democracies?

In The Freedom of Security, Colleen Bell argues that
Canada’s counter-terrorism and national security practices should
not be framed as a departure from liberal governance – a
trade-off between security and freedom – but rather as a
restructuring of modalities of governance through the framework of
security. Through timely examples – security certificates and
border controls, the deployment of troops in Afghanistan, and the
detainment and torture of Abdullah Almalki in Syria – Bell
demonstrates that security measures are not simply eroding civil
liberties and respect for human rights, as their opponents argue. Nor
are these measures protecting freedom and liberty, as their adherents
claim: they are fundamentally reshaping ideas and practices of
freedom.

Engaging with the works of Foucault, Agamben, and Schmitt, this
critical study of Canada’s “war on terror” exposes
the pervasive ways in which the logic and practices of security are
coming to define our rights and freedoms.