CATO INSTITUTE: Power and Liberty in Wartime

Power and Liberty in Wartime

Inter arma silent leges is a legal maxim that says when a country
is at war, the laws must be silent. It is a controversial legal concept
because it basically means that individual liberty must be subordinated
to state power in wartime. America’s political and legal institutions
have grappled with this doctrine in previous wars and are
grappling with it once again in the aftermath of the catastrophic
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. To protect the country from
additional attacks, President Bush made it clear that he wanted to
wield extraordinary powers. Many of the constitutional protections
that had been designed to safeguard individual liberty would have
to yield to those powers. To be sure, President Bush did not make
a dramatic announcement to that effect before a joint session of
Congress, but his position was clear enough from the official papers
that his legal representatives filed in federal court in terrorismrelated
litigation. Although the president did not explicitly invoke
the inter arma silent leges maxim, it was the essence of his plan to
combat terrorists.

This doctrine was never meant to abrogate the Constitution or the inherent rights of the people. Read the CATO Institute paper available at the above link.