I don't think the very basic constitutional standards of freedom and liberty should ever be traded for security. For example, that the government must not detain people without an accusal and a due legal process. Or fair and free elections. Or freedom of the media from censorship.
Of course there can be different interpretations when different rights are in conflict. For example when it comes to libel, slander or instigation of a crime: Where exactly do you draw the line to free speech? But the debate about that line is an entirely different animal than abandoning free speech.
I'm not sure about social crisis. But I think a free society can do well and is strong enough without too fundamental restrictions even in a crisis. At any rate, I don't think the US and the West were really fundamentally threatened after 9/11, unlike the US in the Civil War, for example.
So I guess I'd rather err on the side of freedom than on the side of security.
Excellent: I agree. I think that what is going on with the Patriot Act however, is that lines are being drawn for what will be considered "enimies of the state"; egregious acts, inciting social disruptions: public demonstrations, labor actions, etc, "conspiracy": where's the line on that going to be drawn?
I think that what's happening here in the US is that parameters are being drawn as the probablity of larger unrest draws closer and closer . . .
As you mentioned; "free speech zones". The college that I attened has one of those. While certainly on campus, it is a 12 x 12 benched area with a sign that says "free speech zone": one of my PS classes was held in that box to discuss it. In my view this is the following of the anti-union policy of teh "two gate system' for handling strikes. The "union gate" on the property is
legally assigned as a gate "over there some place", that pickets are religated to, while the "non union gate" is in front of the company where
all of the business goes on day in and day out and pickets, by legal decision, are not allowed there . . . it's a bit like a medieval siege wherein the "army" is religated to the back draw bridge and the front draw bridge is left open for daily business . . . I think also that our society is moving so fast; almost intentionally sometimes I think, that those (students) who should be studying what's going on are not and of course they come out of school rather illiterate to what was vs what is becoming.
nobody wants to be "interupted" ya'know? "I have to wait outside in the cold and rain for three days so that
I can be the first to enter the store on Black Friday . . . it's like watching the lake dry up and the fish are oblivious to what's going on, they just start feeling more and more cramped, but they don't know why . . .