From: Jason Goodman Date: August 4, 2004 1:19:49 PM EDT Statue of Security The Statue of Liberty, closed since 9/11, was reopened yesterday. To reach it, you take a ferry through a cordon of offshore patrol boats, and then pass by the attack dogs, past the dozens of black-clad cops carrying assault rifles, through the metal detectors, through the bomb-sniffing booth, and through another set of metal detectors, your every move being watched by security cameras. And then, once in the base of the statue, you can't climb to the top. All you can do is look up through a glass ceiling at the interior. The Statue was built as a powerful symbol of the United States and its values, and our relationship to the rest of the world. The reopened Statue is once again a powerful symbol of the values of the United States as it is today. We've walled away our Liberty, sealed it off, hidden it behind armed guards and attack dogs, and a glass barrier which allows us to see what Liberty looks like, but not to reach it for ourselves. Asked by an NPR reporter about the difficulty of protecting the Statue of Liberty without taking away liberties, National Park Service Chief Fran Mainella replied, "Liberty is being smart and making sure that you do everything in your way and capability to protect yourself, your family and the resource around you. That's what we're doing here. That is liberty, making those decisions." Ma'am, that's not liberty. That's the definition of security. They're not the same! It's time to replace the famous plaque at the base of the Statue, asking the world to "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." In its place we should put the words of Benjamin Franklin, which bear repeating as many times as necessary in today's America: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."