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1.) The article didn't link the original letter. If you want to give the context, then link the entire text from the letter. Wittes may be completely accurate, but there is no way to verify his credibility.
2.) Wittes still didn't prove that his remarks are not a general argument to the specific issue he is writing about. The quotation is so generic that is seems to be a basic principle that he believes in, and he is using that principle as his argument against this specific instance of liberties being curtailed. If Wittes posted the actual text that surrounds the quote, it would become clear that he believes in this general principle in every context, not just in this specific argument.
"There is not in any volume, the sacred writings excepted, a passage to be found better worth the veneration of freemen, than this, "those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety;" nor could a lesson of more utility have been laid at the crisis before the Pennsylvanians."
http://books.google.com/books?id=HptPAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA100&dq=%2...
Probably worth reading the author's follow up article. It's a Brookings Institute piece focused on creating a disconnect between Liberty and Secuity, or rather decoupling the concepts as non-related. Interesting logic.
"We seldom stop and ask the question of whether and when our surveillance programs are really coming at the expense of liberty at all; or whether the relationship might be more complicated than that—indeed, whether some of these programs might even enhance liberty."
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2011/...
It's an interesting historical wrinkle to the quotation, but I don't think it alters anything fundamental about it's meaning.
All we can say is that Franklin considered a people's right to self government an essential liberty. Given his role in the independence struggle that shouldn't surprise anyone. What other things he, or we might consider essential is moot. But it's clear that he used the term 'essential' deliberately. He clearly isn't saying that we should never surrender any liberties in return for security.
When I read the article it struck me that it is nearly the opposite of how people use the quote today. It appears the quote's context was about the liberty of government (Ben Franklin as a legislator in 1750's Pennsylvania colony) to tax the elite Penn family to pay for arming British troops, the government's army at the time. It had nothing to do with individual liberty or individual security.
It was about his liberty as a legislator to tax the property owners inside the colony to fund the government's army to defend itself during the French & Indian war. The colony governor was appointed by the Penn family and the Penn family didn't want to pay taxes.
I don't read it like that at all. It was about the liberty of a people to govern themselves. I don't think Franklin saw the people and their representative government as being separable the way your interpretation separates them.
I certainly don't think he was talking about the liberty of the people from government, nor was he talking about the liberty of the government to govern the people. He was talking about the liberty of the people to govern themselves.