personal liberty

American  

noun

1. the liberty of an individual to act with free will except for those restraints imposed by law to safeguard the physical, moral, political, and economic welfare of others.

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Etymology

Origin of personal liberty

First recorded in 1840–50

Example Sentences

Buzzard was accused of unlawfully violating the personal liberty of Tyler S. Brewer after disclosing sensitive information to him.

From Los Angeles Times

Far from reducing the power of white American evangelicals — the architects of the current attacks on personal liberty — the taxation of religious organizations would increase it by helping to eliminate their competition.

From Salon

Buzzard is accused of unlawfully violating the personal liberty of Tyler S. Brewer on Thursday and is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday.

From Los Angeles Times

Whatever costs—in time, money and potentially even personal liberty—these legal actions bring may be more than offset by the halo of martyrdom conferred on the defendant.

From The Wall Street Journal

The National Convention of Colored Men that met in Syracuse, New York, in the fall of 1864 called the right to vote the “keystone to the arch of human liberty” and insisted that “personal liberty” and “all other rights” effectively “become mere privileges, held at the option of others, where we are excepted from the general political liberty.”

From Slate