The Right to Deprivation of Liberty, Property, Security, and Resistance to Oppression

     The Enlightenment saw several revolutions dedicated to taking power out of the hands of the privileged few and giving it to the majority. These revolutions, most notably those in France and America, saw the emergence of certain documents guaranteeing certain rights to citizens. In the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, the National Assembly stated that "The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression." Similar rights of the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness are outlined by Thomas ajefferson in the Declaration of Independence. These documents were created to provide an alternative to the grossly unjust systems in place in the late 18th century. Yet despite these rights embedded in the history of the United States, there have been some shocking infringements upon them by the U.S. government itself. 

     Recently, reports on the torture techniques of the Central Intelligence Angency were brought to light. People who were incarcerated without due process have been waterboarded, beaten, frozen, and kept wake for days on end. But it is not only the mere brutality of the methods that presents a problem, but also the fact that those being detained have not been have not been granted the legal rights garunteed to them by the constitution. This is a clear violation of liberty, property, and security. While the argument can certainly be made that most other branches of the government were mislead concerning the going-ons at Guantánamo Bay and other such detention facilities, it must be remembered that it is the government's responsibility to maintain proper oversight, transparency, and accountability. Given that the CIA is a government organization and that other branches failed to prevent this unlawful and unconstitutional violation of rights (whether or not this was due to misinformation is irrelevant), the government is directly ignoring the ideals of the Enlightenment which founded it. Yet the inhumane treatment of prisoners by the CIA is not the only way in which the government has failed to acknowledge these rights. The protests against police brutality sparked by the deaths of Mochael Brown and Eric Gardner have been met with, shockingly, police brutality. While some of the protests in which the police used violence were little more than thinly veiled excuses for looting, others were merely demonstrations of citizen's displeasure with the status quo. When demonstrating against police brutality is met with force, the right to resist oppression is no longer taken into account. 

     While the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen may not directly apply to the U.S., these rights should, looking at the issue from an idealistic standpoint rather than a realistic one, be universally maintained. In theory, these problems could be solved through more strict oversight, enforced regulation, and increased transparency and accountability for both the police and the CIA. While these were not necessarily guaranteed in the documents composed by revolutionaries, they were implied. For in order for these rights to be maintained, there must be a certain degree of regulation and accountability. 

Articles: http://www.alternet.org/activism/graphic-content-police-riot-violent-clash-protesters-berkeley-over-racist-police-actions

http://www.bordc.org/issues/military-detention

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/09/the-most-gruesome-moments-in-the-cia-torture-report.html