Freedom is not only inherited. Voters decide how much of it government gets to hold.
July 20, 2026
The Redemption Project Newsroom
Commentary / Civic Analysis
Americans rarely vote directly on “freedom.”
They vote for presidents, governors, lawmakers, judges, prosecutors, sheriffs, school boards and city councils. Those officials then decide what freedom means in practice: when police need warrants, when emergencies justify new powers, when schools can restrict speech, when agencies can collect data and when public safety outweighs personal liberty.
That is the part of civic life voters can miss.
Freedom is not only written in founding documents. It is expanded, limited, protected, narrowed and reinterpreted through legislation, courts, emergency powers, budgets, agency rules and elections.
The Constitution protects speech, religion, due process, privacy, arms, property, jury trials, voting rights and equal protection. But the practical boundaries of those rights are often set later, in places voters may not watch closely.
A legislature can protect liberty by requiring warrants, limiting executive power, protecting voting access, barring discrimination or strengthening due process. It can also narrow liberty by expanding surveillance, creating vague criminal offenses, limiting protest, increasing emergency authority or allowing government agencies to collect more information with less oversight.
That does not mean safety is unimportant.
Government exists, in part, to protect people. Schools, airports, courts, voting places, public buildings and critical infrastructure all need security. Police need tools to investigate real threats. Intelligence agencies need authority to monitor foreign adversaries. Emergency officials need room to act when lives are at risk.
But the better question is not simply “freedom or safety?”
The better question is: What power is being given, to whom, for how long, under what oversight, with what evidence, and what happens when the emergency is over?
That question became unavoidable after Sept. 11, 2001.
Before 9/11, the United States already had surveillance laws, intelligence agencies, airport screening, immigration enforcement and anti-terrorism tools. But the attacks exposed failures in intelligence sharing, aviation security, interagency coordination and threat detection.
After 9/11, the federal government changed quickly.
Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act. Airport security was federalized through the creation of the Transportation Security Administration. The Department of Homeland Security was created by combining all or part of 22 agencies. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence was later created to improve coordination across the intelligence community.
