Sacrificing civil liberties in exchange for security: the impact of age and sociopolitical attitudes

Abstract

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 had a considerable impact on the ways in which the United States government manages national security. One of the most prominent changes since these attacks is the increase in the government's ability to investigate security threats, which some argue has come at the expense of civil liberties. The Security-Civil Liberties (SCL) scale was developed as a means of measuring the degree to which individuals are willing to give up civil liberties in exchange for security. The SCL is a unifactorial scale with strong internal consistency. The SCL correlates positively with measures of right-wing authoritarianism, conservativism, and patriotism (Byrne, 2003). The present study investigated the psychometric properties of the SCL and explored the impact of age, sociopolitical variables, and threat perception on individuals' willingness to sacrifice civil liberties in exchange for security. Participants (252 students at a large university in the western United States and 196 of their parents) completed a demographic questionnaire, the SCL, and measures of right-wing authoritarianism, blind patriotism, constructive patriotism, nationalism, liberalism/conservativism, trust in the government, and perception of threat. Results supported the single factor structure and strong internal consistency of the SCL. A hierarchical regression analysis indicated that age, right-wing authoritarianism, blind patriotism, and trust in government were meaningful predictors of SCL scores, as these measures were significantly and positively associated with willingness to sacrifice civil liberties in exchange for security. Older individuals who were right-wing authoritarian, blindly patriotic, and had a high level of trust in the government were more likely to support the United States' new security policies.