|
Our wise predecessors advised us a long time ago, “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.” Echoing this same sentiment, last year on the eve of the first anniversary of 9/11, the New York Times wrote, “Every time the country has felt threatened and tightened the screws on civil liberties, it had later wished it had not done so. In each case—whether the barring of government criticism under the Sedition Act of 1798 and the Espionage Act of 1918, the internment Japanese-Americans in WWII, or the McCarthyite witch hunts of the Cold War—profound regrets set in later.” (Editorial, 9/10/02) More particularly, after Japanese-Americans suffered in internment camps for the acts of their former countrymen, America had vowed that it would never again let similar things happen on its soil.
However, 9/11 has flipped everything upside down once again. Belying the lessons of the past, we are now adopting the same policies, which advocate for punishing a whole community for the crime of individuals. Thus, immediately after the attacks, hundreds of individuals, mostly Muslims, were rounded up and detained; these individuals had no connection with the attack or with any terrorist activities whatsoever. Furthermore, they were detained for an extended period of time without any criminal charges being brought against them. As the internal review report of the Justice Department has revealed, some of the detainees were subjected to a 23-hour “lockdown” rule and “put in handcuffs, leg irons and heavy chains any time they moved outside their cells.” In many cases, they were denied access to lawyers.
We are, also, witnessing, for the first time in decades, immigration procedures that single out certain nationalities for unequal treatment. This is what happened with the non-resident immigrants of “certain countries” who were subjected to the “special registration program.” More importantly, the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (USA PATRIOT Act) is on everyone’s mind. This Act and the actions it authorizes are, according to many civil rights and human rights activists, very troubling. This legislation has given unprecedented authority to law enforcement agencies; it enables them to obtain search warrants for business, medical, educational, library and bookstore records simply by claiming that the desired records may be related to ongoing terrorism investigation or intelligence activities. This is “a very relaxed legal standard which does not require any actual proof or even reasonable suspicion of terrorist activity.” According to many experts, this Act has seriously “compromised the First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth amendment rights of citizens and non-citizens alike.” (“Erosion of Civil Liberties in the Post 9/11 Era”, A Report Issued By The Center for Constitutional Rights)
Recently, another Act, entitled the “Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003,” has been secretly prepared by the Justice Department, and it may be introduced to Congress at any moment. This proposed Act, which was leaked by an anonymous official, is an extreme version of the USA PATRIOT Act. If passed, it “would make it easier for the government to initiate surveillance and wiretapping of U.S. citizens, repeal current court limits on local police gathering information on religious and political activity, allow the government to obtain credit and library records without a warrant, restrict release of information about health or safety hazards posed by chemical and other plants, expand the definition of terrorist actions to include civil disobedience, permit certain warrantless wiretaps and searches, loosen the standards for electronic eavesdropping of entirely domestic activity, and strip even native-born Americans of all the rights of United States citizenship if they provide support to unpopular organizations labeled as terrorist by our government.” (Nancy Kranich, “The Impact of the USA PATRIOT Act on Free Expression,” www.feproject.org)
While there is no desire to undermine the need for extra vigilance and security measures in an effort to save this country from further terrorist attacks, discarding democracy and adopting an Orwellian path cannot be of any help in our mission. It is simply unwarranted and, hence, a misdirected method. For every American, security is incomplete without freedom. As Georgetown Law professor David Cole has very eloquently stated, “Freedom and security need not be traded off against each other. Maintaining our freedoms is itself critical to maintaining our security.” (David Cole, “How Not to Fight Terrorism”, The American Prospect, vol.12, no.18, Oct 22, 2001) Our security demands that we ensure both liberty and security.
Mahbubur Rahman
Editor-in-Chief
June / July 2003
|
