The opinion pieces that constitute this month’s ‘Talking Point’ address the old conflict between the enforcement of public health measures and the inevitable infringements of individual rights and liberties that are the result. The task of the ‘neutral commentator’ is made difficult by the fact that the authors are not particularly at odds with each other. George Annas argues that compulsory en...

The discontinuation of the Canadian long-form mandatory census presents a crisis for data users. Examined as a tension between the need to preserve individual civil liberties and the need to curtail those liberties for the public good, the census crisis presents an opportunity for a public discussion on the specifics of our national values, beliefs and expectations.

Skepticism prevails among a substantial number of economists over a possible connection between civil liberties and the level of economic activity. Until now, empirical research on economic growth has found mixed evidence on the influence of civil liberties. Disaggregation of the Freedom House Civil Liberties Index allows a fresh empirical look at the effect of human rights on long-term growth ...

This study investigates public resistance towards Muslims’ civil liberties, such as the wearing of headscarves, the provision of Islamic education and the building of mosques as well as the official recognition of Islam by creating a Islamic public holiday. Explanations were sought in negative perceptions and attitudes towards Muslims and individual value orientations. The main findings, based ...

Initiatives which are intended to reduce the risk of a terrorist attack may impact not only civil liberties including privacy, but civil rights or equality as well. In the present paper, we consider conceptual tradeoffs among attitudes towards security, civil liberties and civil rights, and examine the psychometric structure of these attitudes in both congressional ratings and survey data. An e...