This article aims to question the relationship between security and liberty that lies at the heart of the current debates on European counter-terrorism policies. It analyses the statements reported in the press made by defenders of the emergency rules thesis and their rivals in the UK and France from September 2001 to June 2003. The findings reveal that, in both cases, the legitimation of the emergency measures rests upon a set of sovereignty-related arguments that reframe the notion of freedom and the place of human rights in contemporary democracies. The defenders of the human rights thesis denounce the reframing of civil liberties but fail to address the freedom issue.P O L I T I C A L S T U D I E S : 2 0 0 6 VO L 5 4 , 6 0 7 -6 2 7
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.