’National Security’ is the New ’National Defense’ - The Atlantic
▻https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/the-strange-career-of-national-security/598048
Invoke national security, and unpopular policies become law—or the law itself may even be suspended. One act of legal levitation was George Bush’s suspension of habeas corpus for foreigners, a move that enabled the Defense Department to lock up so-called “enemy combatants” in Guantanamo Bay without trial, indefinitely. Uttering the magic phrase can make other things disappear. Shelf upon shelf of government documents vanishes from public sight after being shrouded in security classifications. Poof!
Google NGram, the number of mentions of “national defense” and “national security” in American books from 1900 to 2000.