An important, highly critical study of Canada’s “war on terror.”

From Guantánamo Bay to the war in Iraq, post-9/11 security measures have sparked fears that the West is violating the very civil rights and freedoms it claims to protect. This debate is focused on the United States, but how have the politics of security influenced the commitment to freedom in other liberal democracies?

Colleen Bell argues that Canada’s counter-terrorism practices should not be framed as a departure from liberal governance in which freedom is traded for security but rather as a restructuring of modalities of governance through the framework of security. Addressing issues such as security certificates, the war in Afghanistan, and the detainment and torture of Abdullah Almalki in Syria, Bell demonstrates that security measures are not simply eroding civil liberties, they are also fundamentally reshaping ideas and practices of freedom. This trenchant examination of Canada’s “War on Terror” exposes how the logic and practices of security are increasingly coming to define our rights and freedoms.

"[Bell] pursues her thinking uncompromisingly and shares her research with an eloquence rare in academic treatises ... she invites us to think anew about an important aspect of contemporary political life. Security practices are now so imbedded in our ideas of freedom that we are unable to disengage from them. We are no longer able to fully appreciate how security intrudes in our lives as we travel, play, work or participate in the political process ... by forcing us to confront these unattractive facts and to recognize just how insidious security has become, Bell does her readers a considerable service." - Literary Review of Canada