More about Public Safety v. Individual Civil Liberties

becomes highly incensed. And rightly so, because there is nothing un-American about being a civil libertarian, even of the starry-eyed variety; and a person can be an avid civil libertarian without embracing Communism. But many civil libertarians are themselves subject to the same fallacious reasoning with which their critics are sometimes afflicted. They assume that when a person criticizes court decisions which he considers too restrictive of police functions, that critic must be in favor of a "police state"; he must be of a Fascist bent of mind; he must be interested in allowing the police to do anything they please; he must favor the use of the "third degree," illegal searches and seizures, and all other police practices that the courts have condemned.' It is high time that we shed ourselves of the kind of intolerance and misconceptions that prevail on both sides. The police will have to accept the fact that in any democratic society police efficiency must necessarily incur a considerable measure of sacrifice in deference to the rights and liberties of the individual. They must realize that the public at large has made that decision and the police have no right to change it. On the other hand, the civil libertarian must appreciate the fact that some sacrifice of individual rights and liberties has to be made in order to achieve and maintain a safe, stable society in which the individual may exercise those rights and liberties. They cannot be exercised in a vacuum. In the recent words of a