The Interplay of Modern U.S. National Security and Constitutional Rights

-- ArielBenson - 07 Apr 2025

A Disregard for Domestic Security in Exchange for… Chaotic International Acts

The past two American administrations have taken strong, international positions to push national security agendas forward. The actualities of this global interfacing has resulted in a growing export controls regime, increased tariffs, and furthered strategic military posturing in the Middle East and Asia. But with a sleeping China, a pre-occupied Russia, and a wounded Houthi regime, it seems that the presidents are just loud, crying wolves. It is arguable that the American national security is nonetheless strengthened, however at what cost? Our allies are weary of us, our adversaries are confused by us, and our domestic policies are overwhelmingly unstable. Ultimately, the cost of probing a global landscape that is simply incapable of causing more-than-typical threats to the United States’ is too high, as the isolationism has disrupted the inherent national security objectives on home soil.

Dissent, honest expression, and freedom of movement have all been attacked over the past months. The disregard for such rights is anti-American and therefore anti-security. Ironically, the private sector has gone quiet vis-à-vis political and social commentary. The regimes it once supported in the fall are directly hurting its domestic and international business. Close to home, Columbia has denied its students the opportunity for protection in exchange for potential tax-reductions and already stripped research funds. At a further distance from university life, the neutrality of the Googles and Targets of the world initially created favor between them and the Trump Administration. Now, they’re stuck with redesigning supply chains (e.g. de minimis stripped), determining organizational planning for risks not there in the past (e.g. migrant status), and self-governing to ensure that they do not endanger government-contracting responsibilities. The climate has become so tedious and chaotic that the rule of law has either been disregarded or weaponized to cause instability. It is fair to call all of the uncertainty a national-security risk.

A Rethinking of Security Priorities

National security analysts, lawyers, policy writers, and thinkers alike should take a step back and remember their desires and purpose. Partisanship has snuck its way into important constitutional questions that represent the Nation and its wishful identity. It might be time for security professionals to not only rebut the current issues, but to also require that attention be paid to such concerns.

Freedom of speech and the right to privacy and becoming more and more qualified rights. From the Trump Administration restricting the rights of citizens/visa holders/non-citizens to protest the government and war, to Customs and Border Patrol increasing their searches on returning travelers, the surveillance of individuals is pushing the boundaries of executive power and eradicating due process.

This idea of looking within to protect the Nation’s security is however not new. With the exception of terrorizing foreigners (granted, too many times to count) and a front to decrease drugs on city streets, it’s simply been forgotten. Reaching back to 1871, a grand jury found the KKK to be a terrorist organization a grand jury found the KKK to be a terrorist organization. The finding was substantially earlier than the League of Nations and WW2, where the US ultimately turned its security efforts outwards looking. However, the purposivist desire to label the KKK organization a risk to society remains pertinent.

A Job for Reagan Republicans

The answers found yesterday are indeed the answers needed for today’s issues. Thought leaders, specifically legal and national security experts, need to grow backbones. Once they are lined up, prepared to demonstrate and create a hostile environment, it is then up to the private sector to back them and ensure sustainability.

This framework is identified by me, a law student obsessed with rational security. However, this concept of protecting individual rights as a national security principle would likely fall under the old guard of the Republican Party. Limiting government to ensure individual protections is a current flavor of the liberal caucus attempting to push back against the Trump era. Seemingly, we are both little and big government, everywhere, all at once. It is important for grassroot organizers to pull from whichever framework will suit them best. Indeed, WWJD? What would Justices do? If the McConnells? and Cruzs of the world review their own values, they might find an honest issue with how the current administration is utilizing its powers to achieve agendas. This is not to say that they would disregard currency policy goals (I do not have faith in this), but they might reconsider how the Party should achieve such aims. And if those who have substantive incentives to do the opposite, can articulate the protections that they should constitutionally seek, it can be foreseen that the national security experts across the nation, hidden and not, may consider doing the same.