• Ideas

Capitulating to Terrorists Will Only Make Things Worse

4 minute read
Ideas
Professor Alan Dershowitz’s latest book is Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law.

If the North Korean government is in fact behind the hacking of Sony and the threats of violence directed against theaters that planned to show The Interview, then the United States has been a victim of warfare directed against our most basic right—free expression. Those who hacked and threatened violence succeeded in doing something the U.S. government could not do: namely censor a movie based on its content.

North Korea’s apparent victory over this film is but a coming attraction of things to come. If hacking and threats can shut down a poorly reviewed comedy, they can also shut down newspapers, magazines, television stations, and other media. This then was the Pearl Harbor of a war that is just beginning.

Like all wars, there were preludes. The prelude for this one came in an unlikely location: Yale University. Several years ago, the Yale University Press published a book on the controversy surrounding the cartoons of Mohammad that had appeared in several Scandinavian newspapers and provoked violent responses. Naturally, the book, as submitted, included the cartoons that were at the center of the dispute. But Yale University Press decided to censor these cartoons out of fear that their inclusion might endanger the lives of Yale students and faculty. Yale’s understandable decision set an unfortunate precedent that has now been followed by Sony and by the theaters that pressured Sony into canceling The Interview.

The Most Controversial Films of All Time

James Franco;Seth Rogen
The Interview, 2014 The James Franco-Seth Rogen movie hadn’t even been released when it made its greatest impact. The Interview, about two Americans on a mission to kill Kim Jong-un, has sparked conversations about the tastefulness -- or not -- of depicting the killing of a foreign head of state. But it also is widely seen as having sparked the Sony hacking scandal, as the hackers, known as the Guardians of Peace, have urged Sony not to release the film. The ripple effect of the email hack saw off-color remarks about Angelina Jolie, Aaron Sorkin, and President Obama between Sony executives go public.Columbia
'The Birth Of A Nation'
Birth of a Nation, 1915 Birth of a Nation is held in high esteem as one of the most ambitious and innovative early films. It has also, in the near-century since its release, been derided for its use of blackface to depict black men as sexually rapacious and its characterization of the KKK as heroes. Is it possible to admire a film’s technical excellence while acknowledging that its content is deeply offensive? Many film scholars, who point to Birth of a Nation as part of the foundation of modern film, believe so.Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Charles Chaplin And Jack Oakie In 'The Great Dictator'
The Great Dictator, 1940 Charlie Chaplin’s lampooning of Hitler came before the U.S. was necessarily ready to hear it -- the country hadn’t yet entered World War II yet. The Great Dictator was controversial both for its advancement of anti-Hitler rhetoric and, at the same time, its turning Hitler into a figure of comedy. United Artists/Getty Images
Ray Milland & Jane Wyman In 'The Lost Weekend'
The Lost Weekend, 1945 Billy Wilder’s frank depiction of alcoholism, anchored with a tragic performance from Ray Milland, was startling for its time. Though it won several Oscars and the Palme d’Or, it had been, before its release, far from a sure thing. The success of The Lost Weekend allowed for fuller depictions of social issues on film, even though it could be uncomfortable.Paramount/Getty Images
Sue Lyon And James Mason In 'Lolita'
Lolita, 1962 This film was perhaps the first of director Stanley Kubrick’s to directly court controversy; the poster famously asked “How did they ever make a movie of Lolita?” and the question was very much worth asking. Lolita, the novel, is a strange and surreal look at an older man’s obsession with “nymphets,” or young girls; the film manages to carry across the same subject matter, though Lolita herself was aged up to avoid outright banning.MGM/Getty Images
Bonnie And Clyde
Bonnie and Clyde, 1967 Arthur Penn’s depiction of the short, glamorous lives of two bank robbers kicked off the New Hollywood era and scandalized audiences with its over-the-top violence. Bonnie and Clyde made its subjects look like, well, movie stars -- and then killed them in a brutal, seemingly endless hail of gunfire. Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images
"A Clockwork Orange"  Hawk Films, Ltd. December 19, 1971
A Clockwork Orange, 1971 Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s dystopian drama features shocking sex and violence, to the degree that the film was restricted within the U.K. for decades. Its central notion, of behavioral therapy as a force for evil, has also provoked debate since the film’s release.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Dustin Hoffman And Meryl Streep In 'Kramer vs. Karmer'
Kramer vs. Kramer, 1979 This domestic drama, starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep as a couple whose marriage ends, was upfront about the challenges of raising children and the degree to which married life could be fundamentally unsatisfying.Columbia/Getty Images
Michael Douglas And Sharon Stone In 'Basic Instinct'
Basic Instinct, 1992 This film made Sharon Stone, for a brief time, one of the most compelling movie stars on Earth. Her role as the voracious novelist and serial killer Catherine Tramell outraged gay audiences who viewed her as a homophobic stereotype, and spooked some men who were unaccustomed to Stone’s forthright sexuality. Either way, no one could stop talking about Catherine, or about Stone.TriStar/Getty Images
Nicole Kidman In 'Eyes Wide Shut'
Eyes Wide Shut, 1999 Stanley Kubrick’s final film was perfectly in keeping with his careerlong interest in provocation. Eyes Wide Shut depicts a seamy New York underworld in which just about everyone is looking for sex, power, or both. Though the film’s graphic sexuality (including a scene at an orgy) was shocking, it was its depiction of the act of love as a transaction that really unsettled audiences.Warner Brothers/Getty Images
Requiem for a Dream, 2000 Darren Aronofsky’s breakthrough film, based on the work of Hubert Selby, Jr., was unabashed in its depiction of drugs’ effects. Each of the four principal characters suffers, brutally, for his or her addiction, culminating in one character’s psychotic break, another’s amputated arm, and a third’s descent into prostitution. The film’s miserabilist outlook, graphic sex, and body-horror imagery are as effective an antidrug campaign as exists. Artisan Entertainment
Fahrenheit 9/11, 2004 The 2004 presidential election was ugly to an unprecedented degree, with attacks on John Kerry’s service from the right’s Swift Boat Veterans for truth and this documentary-length Molotov cocktail tossed at George W. Bush from director Michael Moore. Moore, who’d previously been booed at the 2003 Oscars for an anti-Bush speech, mixed together insinuations about voter fraud in Florida and ties between the Bush and bin Laden families into an antiwar statement. In its sheer provocation and palpable anger, it was the perfect film for its polarized time; the fact that it was received very differently by audiences of different political persuasions seemed somehow apt.Lionsgate
MCDPAOF NW021
The Passion of the Christ, 2004 This film, depicting the torture and eventual death of Jesus, was one of the biggest hits of all time. But it hadn’t necessarily had a clear path to acclaim; pre-release, the film was pilloried for perceived anti-Semitism. As audiences flocked over the weeks preceding Easter, some criticized director Mel Gibson for an excessively violent and sadistic vision of Jesus’s death.Newmarket
MCDBORA FE048
Borat, 2006 Sacha Baron Cohen’s depiction of a Kazakh immigrant interacting with real people stateside showed America in a terrible light; it was hilarious, painful viewing. But for months after the film’s release, questions over just how fair Borat had been to its participants persisted. And Baron Cohen’s career continued to push boundaries of taste, with subsequent movies lampooning gay men (Bruno) and Sub-Saharan African heads of state (The Dictator).20th Century Fox

There is no simple solution to this dilemma. On the one hand, terrorists cannot be allowed to succeed in their censorial goals by hacking and threatening. On the other hand, responsible institutions must do everything in their power to protect their employees, their students, and the general public. It is precisely the object of the terrorists to create this dilemma, knowing that democracies will generally err on the sides of caution and protection.

In one sense, this dilemma is not unlike those faced by democracies that must decide whether to pay ransom to ISIS and other terrorists groups in order to prevent their citizens from being beheaded. There is no perfect solution to either dilemma. But there are steps that can be taken both by our government and by the private sector to confront these attacks on our liberty.

Our government must respond strongly, but it is constrained by North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons. This should be an object lesson for how important it is to America, and to the rest of the world, to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Iran too is a cyber-superpower, as well as the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism. A nuclear Iran would stop at nothing to censor anything it found offensive to its radical brand of Islam. It may be too late to stop North Korea from flexing its nuclear muscles, but it is not too late to stop Iran from becoming the world’s most powerful censor.

The response of the private sector can be much stronger as well. When Islamic extremists directed threats were made against Salman Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses, several leading publishing companies agreed to publish the book jointly in a show of solidarity against censorial threats. Although Rushdie had to live in hiding for several years, as the result fatwa issued against him by Iran’s supreme leader, freedom of speech prevailed and his book was published and widely read. In the Sony case, there was no such collective support. Nor did Sony itself do everything it could to strike a proper balance between caution and artistic freedom. It should have offered the film free on the Internet so that millions of people around the world could choose to see what North Korea didn’t want them to see. They can still do this, thus showing the North Korean’s leaders that private companies have ways to fight back. Such an action would not eliminate all risks, but it would remove movie theaters in malls as soft and highly visible targets.

None of these proposals offer perfect solutions to an intractable dilemma that will only get worse if we simply capitulate to the censorial terrorists.

Professor Alan Dershowitz’s latest book is Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law.

More Must-Reads from TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com

TIME Ideas hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society, and culture. We welcome outside contributions. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.