Negative liberty is the absence of obstacles, barriers or constraints. One has negative liberty to the extent that actions are available to one in this negative sense. Positive liberty is the possibility of acting — or the fact of acting — in such a way as to take control of one's life and realize one's fundamental purposes. While negative liberty is usually attributed to individual agents, positive liberty is sometimes attributed to collectivities, or to individuals considered primarily as members of given collectivities.
The idea of distinguishing between a negative and a positive sense of the term ‘liberty' goes back at least to Kant ...
See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative/
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