Commentary

As an American, a mother, and a rancher, I have been reflecting on what it means when our country enters another war—and what history tells us often follows at home.

There will be endless debate about who is right and who is wrong. Some will praise our leaders, others will criticize them, and neighbors will disagree about how we got here and how events will unfold in the future. Those conversations are natural in a free society.

But there is another conversation that deserves just as much attention, one that history quietly asks every time the United States goes to war: What freedoms will Americans lose this time?

History suggests that wartime often reshapes the relationship between citizens and government.

The United States remains one of the last English-speaking countries where speech and thought are still broadly protected. That did not happen by accident. It is the inheritance of a constitutional republic built on the understanding that rights do not come from government; they come from God. The Constitution did not grant Americans their freedoms. It recognized them and placed limits on what government may do.

Yet when we look honestly at the past century, a pattern becomes difficult to ignore. Nearly every major war America has entered has been followed by some erosion of liberty at home.

During World War I, Congress passed the Espionage Act of 1917, followed by the Sedition Act of 1918. Under these laws, Americans could be arrested and imprisoned simply for criticizing the war or discouraging military enlistment. Speech that would normally fall under the protection of the First Amendment suddenly became criminal. One of the most famous cases involved Eugene V. Debs, a political leader who received a 10-year prison sentence for delivering a speech opposing the war and the draft.

The war eventually ended, but the Espionage Act remains on the books more than a century later.

World War II produced an even more direct violation of civil liberties. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the federal government issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing the forced relocation of Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. More than 120,000 people, mostly American citizens, were removed from their homes and placed in internment camps. Families lost farms, businesses, and property, and people were detained without criminal charges or trials. The Supreme Court upheld the policy at the time, though it is now widely regarded as one of the most troubling civil liberties failures in modern American history.

The war ended and the camps were eventually closed, but the lesson remained clear: in times of fear and national emergency, the rights of citizens can be pushed aside.

The Cold War era introduced another form of government intrusion into American life. Fear of communist infiltration led to sweeping investigations into the political beliefs of citizens. The House Un-American Activities Committee summoned Americans to testify about their associations and views, while the Smith Act allowed prosecutions for advocating certain political ideas. Teachers, actors, writers, and government employees were blacklisted or pressured into oaths of loyalty. Careers were destroyed not because someone had committed a crime, but because they held—or were suspected of holding—the wrong political beliefs.

The Vietnam War era expanded another category of government power: domestic surveillance. During this period, the FBI operated a secret program known as COINTELPRO, which monitored activists, journalists, and political organizations across the country. Civil rights groups, anti-war movements, student organizations, and political activists found themselves under federal surveillance. What began as intelligence gathering against perceived threats grew into widespread monitoring of American citizens engaged in political activism.

The pattern continued into the modern era. In response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the United States launched what became known as the War on Terror, a series of conflicts that included military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and later involvement in the war in Syria.

At home, these wars were accompanied by some of the most significant expansions of federal surveillance authority in modern American history. Congress passed the Patriot Act, granting intelligence agencies broader powers to monitor communications, access financial records, and collect data connected to national security investigations. The federal government also created the Department of Homeland Security, dramatically expanding the domestic security infrastructure of the United States.

Airport travel changed almost overnight with the creation of the Transportation Security Administration, bringing new searches, body scanners, and security databases that monitor millions of travelers. Years later, whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that intelligence agencies had been collecting vast amounts of digital information through programs designed to monitor global communications networks. Phone metadata, internet traffic, and other digital communications were gathered on a scale few Americans had previously imagined.

The technology had changed, but the pattern had not. Once again, a national crisis and the wars that followed led to an expansion of government authority over the lives and communications of ordinary citizens.

None of this history is meant to pass judgment on any particular war or moment in time. Every generation faces dangers that require difficult decisions, and national security is not an abstract concern. But history does reveal a pattern. War has often expanded the power of government while gradually narrowing the freedoms of citizens. Perhaps our generation can be the one that finally recognizes that pattern and refuses to let the erosion continue.

It is easy to succumb to the emotions of the moment. War brings grief, anger, fear, and uncertainty. Families pray for sons and daughters in uniform, and communities mourn the innocent lives lost in conflicts far from our shores. Those responses are deeply human.

But between the praying and the grieving, there must also be vigilance. Americans must stand shoulder to shoulder and guard the freedoms that define this country.

Foreign policy decisions are often far beyond the control of ordinary citizens. Individuals living in small towns and rural counties do not set global strategy, but we do have a voice when it comes to the preservation of liberty at home. Whether someone supports this war or opposes it should not matter when it comes to defending constitutional freedoms. Americans across the political spectrum should be able to agree that freedom of speech, privacy, and due process matter. Our disagreements about policy cannot become an excuse to surrender the principles that allow us to disagree in the first place.

History shows that government often expand their reach during wartime through censorship, surveillance, or emergency authority that remains long after the emergency has passed. Americans should make one thing clear: war must never become an excuse to erode the freedoms of citizens at home.

Do not use technological capabilities, border crises, or fears of instability to justify mass surveillance of the American people. Military intelligence tools and artificial intelligence designed for battlefield awareness do not belong in the daily lives of citizens. The American people are not subjects of the state. We are sovereign citizens, and sovereignty means something simple but powerful: government authority ultimately flows from the consent of the governed.

Many forces in the world are beyond the control of ordinary people. Wars between nations are often among them. But the preservation of liberty inside our own country has always depended on the vigilance of citizens, and that responsibility does not disappear in wartime. In fact, wartime is when it matters most.

If the past century teaches us anything, it is that freedom rarely disappears all at once. It erodes slowly, piece by piece, often justified by fear and the promise that restrictions will only be temporary.

Americans have heard that promise before.

This time we should respond that we will pray for peace, we will pray for our troops, and we will mourn innocent lives lost in war. But we will also stand together in sending a clear message:

Our freedoms are not negotiable.

Not this time. Not ever.

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