<p>From Guantánamo Bay to the war in Iraq, the implementation of<br>security measures since 9/11 has sparked fears that Western nations are<br>violating the very rights and freedoms they pledge to promote and<br>protect. The United States has been at the centre of debates, but how<br>have the politics of security influenced the commitment to freedom in<br>other liberal democracies?</p><br><br><p>In <em>The Freedom of Security,</em> Colleen Bell argues that<br>Canada's counter-terrorism and national security practices should<br>not be framed as a departure from liberal governance – a<br>trade-off between security and freedom – but rather as a<br>restructuring of modalities of governance through the framework of<br>security. Through timely examples – security certificates and<br>border controls, the deployment of troops in Afghanistan, and the<br>detainment and torture of Abdullah Almalki in Syria – Bell<br>demonstrates that security measures are not simply eroding civil<br>liberties and respect for human rights, as their opponents argue. Nor<br>are these measures protecting freedom and liberty, as their adherents<br>claim: they are fundamentally reshaping ideas and practices of<br>freedom.</p><br><br><p>Engaging with the works of Foucault, Agamben, and Schmitt, this<br>critical study of Canada's “war on terror” exposes<br>the pervasive ways in which the logic and practices of security are<br>coming to define our rights and freedoms.</p><br></body><br></html>