Security as a determinant of limiting freedom and civil liberties

Abstract

The subject of the article is a discussion of the boundaries between freedom and security in the context of contemporary threats in Europe. The war in Ukraine, the coronavirus pandemic, and terrorist attacks are events that made us look again at what tools a democratic state and its services should have at their disposal. All of them resulted in the adoption of new solutions which, in the name of security, liquidated, suspended or limited the right to freedom. Extending the powers of the services at the expense of security, in some cases is accompanied by full social acceptance, and in others by strong opposition. On the basis of selected examples of legal solutions proposed or adopted in individual countries (with particular emphasis on Poland), the author tries to find answers to questions about the legitimacy of their implementation in a specific form, effects or finally sources of objection that determine the acceptable boundaries between the described values.