What Is The Best Way To Balance Protection Of Our Homeland And Individual Rights?
What Is The Best Way To Balance Protection Of Our Homeland And Individual Rights?
The problem is how is the United States suppose to balance the security of the U.S., it’s boarders, it’s air, etc without infringing on the average Americans civil liberties. The Homeland Security measures implemented after the attacks on 9-11-01 have removed more of the average Americans civil liberties than it has protected. These new laws gave the federal government the right to invade citizen’s privacy without warrant or proof of necessity with the expanded phone tap privileges and by the allowance of internet / email monitoring according to the opposition of the bill. These infringes have been reduces somewhat in the last few months by congress’ refusal to renew parts of the Homeland Security bill. Over all the parts that were renewed are still very much outside of what scholars consider constitutional. While ensuring the public is safe is of vital importance the administration and congress ‘over reacted’ to the threat and put in place laws that violate the United States Constitution in an attempt to safeguard the American people. While the desire to preserve the American people is a noble and a worthy cause, we must ensure that, our elected officials do so in a matter that not only protects us but also protects our civil liberties. If the government is to have extended powers such as expanded phone tap and internet monitoring there should be strict guidelines to keep the government from exploiting these powers. The law that gives the C.I.A., F.B.I., N.S.A., H.S.A. these abilities without warrants must require that verifiable proof that there is a probable and imminent threat to the United States or it’s territories and be provided for the non-warrant phone tap and non-warrant internet monitoring legally against suspected terrorists. This verifiable proof does not have to be as through as when they are asking for a warrant to tap Mr. X’s phone but proof should be required to protect citizens from being targeted for having unpopular opinions while not being terrorists or a threat. The problem area of the issue of how to balance the United States security without infringing on average American’s civil liberties are communication, transportation, free speech violation, illegal search and seizers, and privacy violations. “It is often said that civil liberties are the first casualty of war, whether the war is on communism, crime, or terrorism.” (Cole, 2002) “While many of the most troubling initiatives have initially been targeted at noncitizens, they are likely to pave the way for future measures against citizens.” (Cole, 2004)
It is imperative that all American’s be aware of the usefulness as well as the dangers of the laws that have been put in place to combat terrorism. Communication is a problem area because of the breakdown in communication that was behind our unawareness of two different massive acts of terrorism in United States history. The first such as the attack was on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and the second attack was the coordinated attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and attempted attack on the White House (flight 93) on September 11, 2001. If we had taken the intelligence reports seriously coming in from the Pacific, recognized the likelihood of an imminent attack by the Japanese, if the regular radio had not been broken, and the military had not had to use commercial telegraph to communicate the imminent attack we might have been able to reduce, if not eliminate the massive loss of life seen at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. If we had been more diligent with our intelligence coming from the pacific, caught and communicated the intelligence receive before the attack on Pearl Harbor back to the naval instillations in and near Pearl Harbor we could have avoided the massive loss of life and debilitation to our Pacific Naval Fleet that was the result of the historic attack. The writer for the History Place website on the Pearl Harbor attack states, “The Americans are taken completely by surprise. The first attack wave targeted airfields and battleships. The second wave targeted other ships and shipyard facilities. The air raid on Pearl Harbor lasts until 9:45 a.m.” (Gavin, 1996) As with prior to the Pearl Harbor attack we underestimated our enemies and did not prepare for another attack like the attack on the U.S.S. Cole and the first attack on the World Trade Center preceding 2001. Our intelligence communities are like stingy children with any data they collect. They have to horde it away and not share with the others. Mr. Eland said in his address to the Senate in June 2002 that “The United States has an unparalleled ability to collect vast amounts of raw intelligence data--the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle--but the already too numerous agencies in the U.S. intelligence community have had trouble fusing it into a complete picture.” (Eland, 2002) If the F.B.I., C.I.A., N.S.A., and Military Intelligence had been fully disclosing all information on the known threat of Al Qaeda we might have been able to avoid the huge loss of life we suffered on September 11, 2001. Mr. Eland stated in his address to the Senate in June 2002 that “the [terrorist] attacks of September 11, 2001, illustrated dramatically that the U.S. governmental security apparatus has paid too much attention to the defense of other nations and too little to the security of the U.S. homeland.” (Eland, 2002) The inattention to our own security by us protecting other nations better than we were set up to prepare our own nation lead to lacked homeland security and unawareness on the increased threat to safety at home as well as abroad. Mr. Eland stated in this same address “terrorists take advantage of the sluggishness and poor coordination among military, intelligence, law enforcement, and domestic response bureaucracies to attack gaps in the defenses.” (Eland, 2002) In revamping our intelligence community we must be sure to reduce or eliminate all together the sluggishness that it suffers as well as the unwillingness and inability to share information among the agencies. Mr. Eland as stated in his address to the Senate in June 2002 that “the Bush administration has rushed, before the congressional intelligence panels have completed their work to determine the exact nature of the problem prior to September 11, to propose a solution that does not seem to deal with preliminary indications of what the major problem seems to have been--lack of coordination between and inside the intelligence agencies making up the vast U.S. intelligence bureaucracy.” (Eland, 2002) Transportation is a problem area due to Al Queda deciding that planes full of people were the perfect unexpected way to launch an attack. We have had to up our security especially on planes and in airports.
The new security measures while they have saved lives have also caused problems such as having to dump your carry on bag because you have something in it that is making the metal detectors go crazy, which ends up being your fingernail clippers on your keychain. There has also been an increase wait at customs and during the boarding processes. All these combined has lowered the number of people flying along with the fear of being on a plane hijacked in another attack. Several air transportation companies have suffered due to the attacks and the new fear of flying many Americans are feeling and this has lead to layoffs by some airliners and closures of some of the smaller regional airliners. Free speech is a problem area because of the already occurred violations and the probability of continued free speech violations under the Homeland Security Act. There have been much legislation and many laws passed shortly after the attacks on September 11, 2001, and since then that in part or in whole are first amendment violations. There have also been countless requests by government, the news media, Hollywood, and the music industries, not to mention civilians in all occupations for artist and average people to self-censor. All these behaviors are direct violations of the censored individual’s first amendment rights. As stated by Nuzum in his article “Within hours of the attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) installed its controversial Carnivore system at some Internet providers to monitor and eavesdrop on electronic communications, especially those to and from accounts with Arabic names and words in the user IDs. Within two days, the U.S. Senate had adopted legislation making it easier for the FBI to obtain warrants.” (Nuzum, 2002) Another show of blind violations of individual first amendment rights were the disrespect shown towards protestors for peace and civil libertarians in general. While it is understandable for American has to be angry over the attacks and the loss of life caused by them this does not give us the right to begrudge others for having a different view of how to handle to terrorist threat. Nuzum states in his article that, “further complicating the protection of civil rights in the United States was the myopic jingoism permeating America, creating an atmosphere of visceral intolerance. Peace activists and civil libertarians were branded as "un-American" and "crazy communists."” (Nuzum, 2002)
This is not the first time individuals with a different point of view has been penalized for expressing themselves it has been done many times in the past when unpopular speech has been spoken in volatile times such as during the Vietnam War. The author of Wikipedia online states “Civil liberties groups have criticized the PATRIOT Act, saying that it allows law enforcement to invade the privacy of citizens and eliminates judicial oversight of law-enforcement and domestic intelligence gathering. The Bush Administration also invoked 9/11 as the reason to initiate a secret National Security Agency operation , "to eavesdrop on telephone and e-mail communications between the United States and people overseas without a warrant."” (Gavin, 2006 ) What is to say that after the “war on terror” is ‘won’ that these same laws set into effect to combat foreign terrorism against the United States will not be turned around and used to terrorize United States citizens by ones who do not like what this group or that group has to say or stands for? These laws such as the PATRIOT Act must be limited in what they may be used for in legislation and law if we are to protect our civil liberties from future attack. Illegal search and seizers are a problem area because they are a violation of the fourth amendment and on some occasions several other amendments. Mr. Torr of the A.C.L.U. states in his book that “there has been little showing that the post 9-11 avalanche of laws, in the aggregate, make America safer. And, while the benefit of these measures is hard to discern, there is no question that they exact a profound cost to civil liberties and core constitutional values.” (Torr, 2002) Along with the increased ability of law enforcement to search ones mail and email at will if a connection to terrorism is suspected, we have also seen an increase in number of people – not just ethnically Arab – being held without provocation in federal “detention centers.” This should cause concern in every American’s mind for the detention of citizens for having unpopular views is seen as well in Communist China when one speaks out against the regime. One such example is stated in Ms. Dority article “Nearly seven hundred men are being held at "Camp X-Ray" in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
However, it isn't just "foreigners" who are being deemed dangerous and un-American. For example, there is Tom Treece, a teacher who taught a class on "public issues" at a Vermont high school. A uniformed police officer entered Treece's classroom in the middle of the night because a student art project on the wall showed a picture of Bush with duct tape over his mouth and the words, "Put your duct tape to good use. Shut your mouth.” Residents refused to pass the school budget if Treece wasn't fired, resulting in his removal.’” (Dority, 2004) The detention of Mr. Treece with ‘foreign combatants’ is a clear violation of his civil rights, especially since detainees at camp x-ray are generally not allowed council, are treated harshly, and subject to psychological abuse. His detention is a violation of his civil rights specifically of his First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, and the Fifth Amendment rights. Mr. Cole states in his article The War on Terrorism Has Eroded Civil Liberties, “Physical liberty and habeas corpus survive only until the President decides someone is a "bad guy.” Property is seized without notice, without a hearing and based on secret evidence. Equal protection has fallen prey to ethnic profiling.” (Cole, 2002)
Privacy violations is a problem area because under the new laws set into affect after the attacks on September 11, 2001 the government has the ability to tap phones, read emails, track internet movements, track monetary movements of any individual they choose, though they claim this is only being done to suspected terrorists. As Mr. Cole states in his article The War on Terrorism Has Eroded Civil Liberties, “Privacy has given way to Internet tracking and plans to recruit a corps of 11 million private snoopers.” (Cole, 2002) There are many assumptions on the subject of U.S. homeland security including but not limited to that government knows what is best for its citizens even if the government is moving closer to a communist state. Another assumption is that reducing American’s civil liberties will help stop Al Queda or Al Queda-like terrorist by giving the government more control and more ability to spy on it’s citizens and immigrants. Yet another assumption is that more bureaucracy is better than less and that is why the development of the Homeland Security Agency without reducing any of the preexisting intelligence bureaucracies is acceptable. The USA PATRIOT ACT and the Homeland Security Act have lead to numerous violations of the first, fourth, fifth, and sixth amendments. By way of allowing law enforcement to avoid the time tested method of acquiring a warrant for arresting an individual or monitoring their communication with others and by leading many to believe or feel that if they expressed dissatisfaction in the governments handling of the terrorist threat that they could face retribution. These acts have also lead to long confinements without access to council and without process of speedy trail as guaranteed in the fifth and sixth amendments of the United States Constitution.
The American Intelligence community is not structured to be able to fight guerrilla warfare, which is what we are facing to fight the Al Queda network effectively and decisively. Mr. Eland stated in his testimony in front of the Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information, Senate Judiciary Committee “the intelligence community and other agencies involved in security have traditionally battled nation-states. …. In contrast, terrorist groups have always been nimble opponents that were difficult to stop, but they were not a strategic threat to the U.S. homeland. As dramatically illustrated by the attack on September 11, terrorists willing to engage in mass slaughter (with conventional weapons or weapons of mass destruction) and commit suicide now pose a strategic threat to the U.S. territory and population.” (Eland, 2002) There are at least two points of view that this can be used to support restructuring the intelligence community. These two points of view are: the intelligence community is not set up to gather and share information with one another this is the reason for the Homeland Security Act; and the reconstruction it involves is needed, and we need to use provisions already set up to combat this problem such as the use of the National Security Council as an oversight and ‘head’ of all intelligence agencies. Ones in support of the Homeland Security Act would say that without the Act and the reconstruction of the intelligence communities we remain vulnerable to The American Intelligence community is not structured to be able to fight guerrilla warfare, which is what we are facing to fight the Al Queda network effectively and decisively. Mr. Eland stated in his testimony in front of the Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information, Senate Judiciary Committee “the intelligence community and other agencies involved in security have traditionally battled nation-states. In contrast, terrorist groups have always been nimble opponents that were difficult to stop, but they were not a strategic threat to the U.S. homeland as dramatically illustrated by the attack on September 11, terrorists willing to engage in mass slaughter (with conventional weapons or weapons of mass destruction) and commit suicide now pose a strategic threat to the U.S. territory and population.” (Eland, 2002) There are at least two points of view that this can be used to support restructuring the intelligence community. These two points of view are: the intelligence community is not set up to gather and share information with one another this is the reason for the Homeland Security Act; and the reconstruction it involves is needed, and we need to use provisions already set up to combat this problem such as the use of the National Security Council as an oversight and ‘head’ of all intelligence agencies. Ones in support of the Homeland Security Act would say that without the Act and the reconstruction of the intelligence communities we remain vulnerable to outside attacks such as we suffered on September 11, 2001. They would also argue that without the reconstruction of the intelligence communities the various agencies would continue to withhold vital information from one another as they have done in the past. Ones that see the Homeland Security Act as a threat to civil liberties, or at least do not see it as the answer to our needs, but agree that the intelligence communities as they are without reconstruction are vastly in adequate would argue that we already have in place the means to fix the intelligence breakdowns. They would point out that we have in place the National Security Committee that if we removed a lot of excess layers and rearranged the command structure of the intelligence agencies and set it up that these agencies would ultimately report to the NSC all intelligence. This would allow the intelligence to be shared equally and quickly because so much of the excess would have been cut out and all agencies would be forced to work as one. The strengths to these arguments include the slowness of response by the intelligence community prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Our intelligence community needs to be better organized or to have less ‘fat’ to allow sharing of information to have occurred quicker so that the attacks can be prevented. In the wake of the attacks and the continued threat by Al Queda our intelligence community needs to be reorganized and trimmed so that all intelligence post 9-11 and all future intelligence can be equally shared among all members of the community rather than horded away by them. We have seen for at least twenty years how terrorist work in general – that they are small mobile, nimble, isolated cells that want to inflict the largest damage possible to those they attack. We need our intelligence community to be nearly as nimble as the terrorist that they are collecting data on so that our intelligence community can keep up. The weaknesses to these arguments include Terrorist groups have always been nimble opponents and our intelligence community and our military are not and it will take quiet some time to implement all changes needed to make or intelligence community and military as an effective nimble defensive force against the terrorist threat. Terrorist groups have generally been unorganized with very little leadership; Al Queda is the exception to the rule of true terrorist groups minus a few we experienced that were funded by a group of clerics in Iran during the 1980s. Aircraft are not conventional weapons or WMD’s. “Weapons of Mass destruction are classified by the acronym NBC which stands for Nuke, Bio, and Chemical.” (Card, 2002) So terrorist groups have shown they are willing to use any item or person or object as a weapon. Thus, it becomes increasingly difficult for us as a defensive unit to be able to identify their weapons since they do not always use conventional weapons.. Should privacy violations be tolerated in the name of homeland security? “As a knee jerk reaction to inaction prior to the September 11 attacks the FBI set up internet monitoring, and eavesdropping technology. Within a week, the Senate followed suite and passed into law documents allowing law enforcement the ability to search private records to monitor or detect terrorist supporters as well as the ability to seize the suspected terrorists’ property.” (Nuzum, 2002) Mr. Nuzum points out in his article about censorship that “within hours of the attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) installed its controversial Carnivore system at some Internet providers to monitor and eavesdrop on electronic communications, especially those to and from accounts with Arabic names and words in the user IDs.” (Nuzum, 2002)” There are two main points of view that these statements can be used in support of they are these are good antiterrorism activities and these are a danger to American civil liberties and are unconstitutional.
Individuals in support of these actions as good antiterrorist activities would support their belief by stating that allowing the FBI to monitor internet conversations and activities would give us for knowledge of planned terrorist attacks and allow us time to stop the attacks before they happen. Individuals that see the Carnivore system and other intrusive acts by the intelligence community post 9-11 as a danger to civil liberties and unconstitutional would point out that any form of censorship and any violations of the constitution should not be tolerated. They would point out that our constitution is the foundation of our legal system and way of life if we put into place laws that counter act or directly violate the constitution or any of it’s amendments as the Homeland Security Act does than we are going against our own laws and basic principles. They would point out that we should follow the letter of the law in investigating possible terrorist and prosecuting them. The strengths of this argument include monitoring accounts with Arabic names or words in user ids allow us to be aware of potential terrorist plans and activities. With the law enforcement agencies being able to search private records more easily they will be able to identify individuals who are sympathetic to know terrorists or who are providing financial support to terrorists. The weaknesses of this argument include the Carnivore system the FBI installed at some internet providers is a direct violation of the first and fourth amendments to the United States Constitution. Individuals who use the internet expect the same reasonable amount of privacy that individuals using their home telephone do. The laws that the Senate passed shortly after 9-11 are also in violation of the Constitution in that they allow law enforcement agencies to circumvent the fourth amendment. There are many theories on how we can protect Americans, preserve American civil liberties, and fight terrorism. These rang from keep the existing law enforcement set up but prune back the bureaucracy than slightly restructure these law enforcement agencies so that they share information and work together to using Special Forces troops for precision attacks. Our law enforcement set up, but more specifically our intelligence community, is in vital need of being restructured and trimmed. As Mr. Eland states, “the Bush administration is correct that the current [in June 2002] U.S. government structure--with more than 100 federal entities involved in homeland security--is not optimal for defending the nation against the new strategic threat. Although consolidating federal efforts is not a bad idea in itself, it does not ensure that the bureaucracy will be more streamlined, experience fewer coordination problems, or be more effective in the fight against terrorism.” (Eland, 2002) In our fight to defend the United States against homegrown or foreign terrorist, we should continue to follow the constitution.
We should not stray from the laws and beliefs that have served us so well since our founding. We can defeat terrorism without sacrificing our civil liberties or constitution. This is best expressed by Mr. Dihn when he stated, “when the nation is under attack, the natural answer to the first question, what are we fighting for, is: for the security of America and the safety of her people. That answer naturally pits security against other societal values and leads some to recite Benjamin Franklin's now-famous statement, "they that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” (Dihn, 2004) That we are fighting for security and safety is a true enough answer, but I do not think it is a complete answer. “In this sense I agree with Franklin and those who quote him that one should not trade liberty (let alone essential liberty) for safety (let alone a little temporary safety). However, the trade-off between security and liberty is a false choice. That is so because security should not be (and under our constitutional democracy, is not) an end in itself, but rather simply a means to the greater end of liberty.” (Dihn, 2004)
We must use the law to bring the terrorists to justice. We have a justice system that is meant to be fair and unbiased. Rather than invade any country we see as a potential place for members of Al Queda to hide use diplomatic avenues to extradite them and try them for their crimes in American courts. Mr. Cole stated in his testimony to the Senate that, “America must be ready to respond to acts of terror, carried out or planned, with the full force of law. For those who kill or injure civilians for political ends, long prison terms and deportation are appropriate; punishing immigrants who merely associate with unpopular groups is not.” (Cole, 2002) We should use Special Forces to go in, hunt down, and dismantle the Al Queda network. Our initial response to go into Afghanistan and take down the Taliban and Al Queda was the most logical decision to destroy our enemy. Special Forces teams are trained to go in quick and work alone with few other military personnel on the ground and be able to find their targets and remove the threat. Since Al Queda is the culprit for the September 11, 2001 attacks, they should be our only focus in the military front in our fight to protect the United States. As we have seen with the current condition in Afghanistan and the resurgence of Al Queda there due to our impatient behavior to go ahead and get rid of someone who is visible and easy to see (i.e. Saddam Hussein) to show a ‘decisive victory’ in the War on terror we have limited our ability to eliminate the Al Queda threat and created a new hot spot instead. If we would have stayed focused on the task at hand in Afghanistan and wiped out the al Queda network and than with the help of the United Nations aided the Afghanistan people to get back on their feet with a democratic Islamic government we would be a lot closer to achieving our goal of destroying Al Queda and riding the world of Bin Laden than we are today. But instead of finishing one thing before going on to another we as a nation under the Bush Administration have acted like a child who suffers from Attention Deficient Disorder and had to jump over to the next ‘item on our agenda’ and invade Iraq just to dispose of Hussein. Yes, Hussein is one of many incarnate evils in our world and guilty of thousands of dead but he, as later was shown, had no direct or even indirect connection to the 9-11 attacks and thus we had no business going into Iraq. Several factors have contributed to uncertainties in the problem of how to balance homeland security of the United States and civil liberties of Americans. These factors have included the Bush administration blaming the Clinton administration for non-action, the U.S. intelligence community needing to be restructured or replaced to be functional, citizens are willing to give up some civil liberties to ensure their safety, citizens are being lead to believe that holding individuals suspected of terrorism without due processes of law is ok to protect America. As well as the development of the Department of Homeland Security under the U.S. PATRIOT Act as the only viable solution to the intelligence problems that happened before and on September 11, 2001. Each president once they take office are briefed on all issues that the outgoing administration has been facing, any legistrative, international political strife, any possible cause of concern (such as terrorist or nation-state threats). The George W. Bush administration blaming the Clinton administration of not telling them about the likelihood of the Al Queda threat and also for not doing something about Al Queda only leads to confusion and uncertainties for the common American who is not aware of the process that new presidents go through once in office.
“The Bush administration hoped in doing this finger pointing it would buy them some time to figure out who ‘dropped the ball’ and why the imminent threat that President Bush had been debriefed on several times had not been taken seriously and acted on.” (Hannity, 2004) All have agreed that the United States Intelligence community needs to be revised, but cannot agree on how this should be done. Some believe that ‘cutting out much of the fat’ of the agencies and restructuring them so that all are required to share all intelligence with each other and all agencies including the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. report to the National Security Council will ensure all gaps in communication between the various agencies will not happen again. Some such as President Bush think that just starting a new department and not trimming the existing agencies but expecting them to comply with new rules about intelligence sharing without a system to ensure they comply is the way to go. Mr. Eland as stated in his address to the Senate in June 2002 that “the Bush administration has rushed, before the congressional intelligence panels have completed their work to determine the exact nature of the problem prior to September 11, to propose a solution that does not seem to deal with preliminary indications of what the major problem seems to have been--lack of coordination between and inside the intelligence agencies making up the vast U.S. intelligence bureaucracy.” (Eland, 2002) Many citizens act as if they are unaware of how much has been sacrificed to give them the opportunity to be willing to voluntarily give up some of their civil liberties to, as they think, help ensure their safety. Our fighting men, and now woman, have given up so many lives not to mention the damage they have come home with defending our freedoms and these citizens that are willing to give away their freedoms that they would not have if Hitler, for example, had be successful in his attempts at world domination.
We, as American citizens, should not have to give up our right to express our opinions about our government, or listen to the music we want, or make the art we want, or believe in the religion we want just because it is unpopular at the time. Our founding fathers broke away from Britain, to name a few, because of being taxed without representation, restrictions on religious beliefs, the desire for free and unequivocal speech, and desire for self-government. “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.-Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” (Jefferson, 1776)
Now little over two hundred years later we are allowing an over sized government, that would have these same men balking because they wanted the federal government to remain fairly small and a reasonable amount of the power to remain with the states, to monitor our correspondence, imprison people due to suspicion with no evidence, no due process of the law, and largely because they are ethnically Arab and or of Muslim religion. There are many assumptions by many individuals when it comes to how to balance homeland security and American civil liberties. American citizens are being lead to believe that holding individuals suspected of terrorism without due processes of law is ok to protect America. We must use the law to bring the terrorists to justice. We have a justice system that is meant to be fair and unbiased. Rather than invade any country we see as a potential place for members of Al Queda to hide use diplomatic avenues to extradite them and try them for their crimes in American courts. Mr. Cole stated in his testimony to the Senate that, “America must be ready to respond to acts of terror, carried out or planned, with the full force of law. For those who kill or injure civilians for political ends, long prison terms and deportation are appropriate; punishing immigrants who merely associate with unpopular groups is not.” (Cole, 2002)
In David Cole’s article in The Nation titled “Enemy Aliens and American Freedoms: Experience Teaches Us That Whatever the Threat, Certain Principles Are Sacrosanct”, from which we get the viewpoint essay: “The War on Terrorism Has Eroded Civil Liberties”, he plainly contradicts President Bush and points out some apparent fallacies in President Bush’s speech written by Mr. Torr “The Department of Homeland Security Will Protect Americans Against Terrorists.” Mr. Cole points out first that the Bush administration has maintained that the terrorists attacked us because they hate our freedom. According to Mr. Robb in his posting on his website in 2004, Al Queda’s real reason for attacking the United States pre 9-11, on 9-11, and any attacks there after is “initiating a full scale polarization between Muslims and America. Therefore, even if Al Queda disappears there would be a huge interest in fighting the U.S. and its allies. This underpinned the planning of the 9/11 attacks.
The purpose was not to kill thousands of people. Nobody saw the attacks as an assault against buildings and people, almost everyone saw it as a symbolic action.” (Robb, 2004) The after affects of the attacks is the true great threat to our freedoms; our government’s response to the continued threat of terrorist attacks. As Mr. Cole states in his article, “Administration supporters argue that the magnitude of the new threat requires a new paradigm. But so far we have seen only a repetition of a very old paradigm--broad incursions on liberties, largely targeted at unpopular noncitizens and minorities, in the name of fighting a war.” (Cole, 2004) Mr. Cole points out that the Bush administration has seen to the detainment of more than two thousand people most of which were foreigners under unprecedented secrecy insisting that the administration opposed racial and ethnic profiling while undertaking numerous measures predicated on little more than a foreign citizen’s country of origin. (Cole, 2002) Mr. Cole explains that the PATRIOT Act broadly undermines the rights of all Americans not just immigrants by “reducing oversight of investigative measures ranging from wiretaps to expanding the government ability to track individuals’ internet use and gives federal officials expansive new powers that are not limited to investigating terrorist related crimes.” (Cole, 2004)
The PATRIOT Act authorizes the government to disregard the Fourth Amendment by conducting wiretaps and searches in criminal investigations without first obtaining warrants as long as the government claims that it seeks to gather foreign intelligence even when the individuals being spied on are American citizens. Mr. Cole points out that “Under PATRIOT Act amendments to preexisting emergency powers laws, the President can designate any organization or individual a terrorist and thereby freeze all their assets and criminalize all transactions with them.” (Cole, 2002) This would give the administrations of the future the ability to turn the PATRIOT Act against average Americans whom disagree with the policies of this future administration. This is one of the main reasons that the PATRIOT Act should have an expiration date or rules set down to control the use of the extended powers listed in it. Mr. Cole also speaks of the military tribunals that the Bush Administration had instated to try “enemy combatants.” Mr. Cole states in his article that the “Administration's ultimate trump card is to bypass that system altogether for "military justice" a Bush oxymoron that would have impressed even [author George] Orwell [who wrote 1984 , a novel about an authoritarian government].
President Bush has asserted the authority to hold people in military custody incommunicado, without any individualized hearing into the basis for their detention, without access to a lawyer and without judicial review. He has set up military tribunals in which the detainees can be tried, and ultimately executed, without independent judicial review and without anyone outside the military, including the defendant, ever seeing the evidence upon which the conviction rests. In addition, even if a defendant manages to prevail in such a trial, the military will not release him, but will hold him until there are no longer any terrorist organizations of potentially global reach left in the world, or more simply, for the rest of their lives.” (Cole, 2004) This clearly goes against the Constitution of the United States by violation of the Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth amendments. As evidence to support his claim that the PATRIOT Act (along with much of the Homeland Security Act) is unconstitutional Mr. Cole presents this argument, “With the exception of the right to bear arms, one would be hard pressed to name a single constitutional liberty that the Bush Administration has not overridden in the name of protecting our freedom. Privacy has given way to Internet trackingand plans to recruit a corps of 11 million private snoopers. Political freedom has been trumped by the effort to stem funding for terrorists. Physical liberty and habeas corpus survive only until the President decides someone is a "bad guy.” Property is seized without notice, without a hearing and based on secret evidence.
Equal protection has fallen prey to ethnic profiling. Conversations with a lawyer may be monitored without a warrant or denied altogether, when the military finds them inconvenient. And the right to a public hearing upon arrest exists only at the Attorney General's sufferance.” (Cole, 2004) One disturbing note is that most of the individuals that have been arrested since September 11, 2001 under the guise of “suspected terrorist” have not been arraigned or tried. As Mr. Cole states in his article when speaking about Attorney General John Ashcroft “justified the use of transparently pretextual charges to hold them by calling them "suspected terrorists," but his grounds for suspicion are apparently so unfounded that not a single one has been charged with involvement in the September 11 attacks, and with the exception of four people indicted on support-for-terrorism charges in late August [2002], no one has been charged with any terrorist act. Those arrested on immigration charges--the vast majority--have been effectively "disappeared.” Their cases are not listed on any public docket, their hearings are closed to the public and the presiding judges are instructed to neither confirm nor deny that their cases exist, if asked.” (Cole, 2002)
Mr. Cole also pointed out that the PATRIOT Act permits the Attorney General to “detain noncitizens on his own say-so, without a hearing; bars foreign citizens from entering the country, based solely on their speech; and authorizes deportation based on any support to a disfavored group, without any requirement that the support be connected to a terrorist act.” (Cole, 2004) All of which goes against everything that our great nation has come to stand for. Mr. Cole points out that the Bush Administration uses several principle arguments to defend these policies. “They argue that noncitizens, the targets of many of the new measures, are not entitled to the same rights as citizens, especially in time of war.
As a constitutional matter, basic rights such as due process, equal protection and the freedoms of speech and association are not limited to citizens but apply to all "persons" within the United States or subject to US authority. The Constitution does restrict the right to vote to citizens, but that restriction only underscores by contrast that the Constitution is other rights apply to all "persons.” These are human rights, not privileges of citizenship. Double standards are also unlikely to make us more secure. Even granting that it is rational to assume that [terrorist group] Al Queda operatives are more likely to be Arab or Muslim, if we are going to identify and capture the few Al Queda terrorists among the many millions of lawabiding Arabs and Muslims here and abroad, we need the cooperation of those communities. When we impose on Arabs and Muslims burdens that we would not tolerate for ourselves, we make the targeted communities far less likely to cooperate, and we stoke anti-American sentiments.
The military claims that simply by attaching the label “enemy combatant," the President can authorize the indefinite, incommunicado incarceration of any US citizen he chooses, without judicial review. Military justice has come home. This proposition is so extreme that even the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, by far the most conservative federal circuit in the country, has rejected it.” (Cole, 2002) Mr. Cole is a proficient writer who makes very clear arguments with plenty of evidence to back him up. I did not include all the evidence he provided in the viewpoint essay but I used the majority of the major evidence that is in most opposition to Mr. Torr’s speech that President Bush recited before signing the Homeland Security Act into effect. In the speech, President George W. Bush gave before signing into affect the Homeland Security Act on November 25, 2002, writtensupport his signing of the Homeland Security Act. He said that the new department would analyze threats as well as guard our borders, airports and protect our critical infrastructure as well as coordinate the response of our nation for the future. The Department of Homeland Security will focus the full resources of the American government on the safety of the American people. (Torr, 2002)
President Bush states that equipment to detect weapons of mass destruction has been deployed and that the “tools to detect and disrupt terrorist cells which might be hiding in our own country” have been provided. (Torr, 2002) President Bush explains, “dozens of agencies charged with homeland security will now be located within one Cabinet department with the mandate and legal authority to protect our people.” (Torr, 2002) President Bush says that this new organization of the intelligence community will make America “better able to respond to any future attacks, to reduce our vulnerability and, most important, prevent the terrorists from taking innocent American lives.” (Torr, 2002) President Bush goes on to explain that this new department will analyze intelligence information collected by all of the intelligence agencies. President Bush states, “the department will match this intelligence against the nation's vulnerabilities--and work with other agencies, and the private sector, and state and local governments to harden America's defenses against terror.” (Torr, 2002) President Bush states that by James D. Torr entitled The Department of Homeland Security Will Protect Americans Against Terrorists President offered several reason why this legislation was not a horrible encroachment on civil liberties and how it will benefit Americans. The main reason that the Homeland Security Act will actually benefit America according to President Bush is that it will protect America. It will reinforce what has been being done since the attacks on September 11, 2001.
According to President Bush in his speech, “because terrorists are targeting America the front of the new war is here in America” (Torr, 2002). The American government had gone from ignorant before 9-11 to knowing the nature of the enemy and why the enemy hates America. The continued threat of terrorism especially of mass murder by biological weapons, the department will enhance our safety in practical ways, and this new kind of war requires a new kind of system to fight a new kind of enemy.” (Torr, 2002) President Bush presents much evidence to support his signing of the Homeland Security Act. He said that the new department would analyze threats as well as guard our borders, airports and protect our critical infrastructure as well as coordinate the response of our nation for the future. The Department of Homeland Security will focus the full resources of the American government on the safety of the American people. (Torr, 2002) President Bush states that equipment to detect weapons of mass destruction has been deployed and that the “tools to detect and disrupt terrorist cells which might be hiding in our own country” have been provided. (Torr, 2002) President Bush explains, “dozens of agencies charged with homeland security will now be located within one Cabinet department with the mandate and legal authority to protect our people.” (Torr, 2002)
President Bush says that this new organization of the intelligence community will make America “better able to respond to any future attacks, to reduce our vulnerability and, most important, prevent the terrorists from taking innocent American lives.” (Torr, 2002) President Bush goes on to explain that this new department will analyze intelligence information collected by all of the intelligence agencies. President Bush states, “the department will match this intelligence against the nation's vulnerabilities--and work with other agencies, and the private sector, and state and local governments to harden America's defenses against terror.” (Torr, 2002) President Bush states that the department will focus all efforts “to face the challenge of cyberterrorism, and the even worse danger of nuclear, chemical, and biological terrorism. This department will be charged with encouraging research on new technologies that can detect these threats in time to prevent an attack.” (Torr, 2002) President Bush states that the goal of this Act is to allow the state and local government to be able turn to one federal domestic security agency for help rather than more than twenty agencies. President Bush states that the Department of Homeland Security will “bring together the agencies responsible for border, coastline, and transportation security.” (Torr, 2002) President Bush states that our nations “first responders need the carefully planned and drilled strategies that will make their work effective” (Torr, 2002) President Bush states that the reduction needed to reorganize the domestic intelligence community “will also end a great deal of duplication and overlapping responsibilities. Our objective is to spend less on administrators in offices and more on working agents in the field--less on overhead and more on protecting our neighborhoods and borders and waters and skies from terrorists.” (Torr, 2002)
Mr. Torr did a very good job at wording this speech to be reassuring and concise so that the vast audience would all be able to understand the points made. In Mr. Cole’s essay titled The War on Terrorism Has Eroded Civil Liberties he examines many statements and activities that the Bush Administration has done since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Mr. Cole assumes that he must point out that the behavior of the Bush Administration after the attacks has been largely unconstitutional. Mr. Cole’s background in law makes him able to point out with bias that the Bush administration has been repeating old paradigm that has largely been targeted at unpopular noncitizens and minorities. Mr. Cole is correct in his assumption that most Americans except for the educated and the “baby boomer generation” need to have political action plainly explained to them since many of them did their best in school to ignore or goof off during Government and History classes. Mr. Cole also points out that this ‘war on terror’ as it is called with it’s vaguely defined enemy has no end in sight thus he is able to assume that the incursions that have been set forth in the name of fighting this war are likely to be permanent. This assumption of Mr. Cole’s is both strong and weak, it is strong in that unless we get civil rights minded individuals in places of power the violations will be allowed to stay on the books without argument forevermore. However, Mr. Cole’s assumption is weak in that he gives little reasoning for why it would remain permanent, anyone who has limited knowledge of how the legislation process works would be stumped to figure out why. Mr. Cole assumes that many of the civil liberty infractions that have been set forth against noncitizens will likely be used against citizens. Mr. Cole shows his bias against the detainment without due process of over two thousand people during the investigation of the September 11 th attacks when he calls into question the actions of Attorney General John Ashcroft and that at the time of the writing of this article there had not been a single person of the two thousand that had been charged with involvement in the September 11 th attacks, this making his argument, while possible, weak. Mr. Cole assumes that the majority of the USA PATRIOT Act will be used the same as the provisions that have been used against noncitizens in limiting their civil liberties and allowing for easier deportation. Mr. Cole assures us that his assumption that citizen’s rights have not escaped the encroachment of the PATRIOT Act or the Homeland Security Act. Mr. Cole points this out in this quote, “The PATRIOT Act broadly undermines the rights of all Americans. It reduces judicial oversight of a host of investigative measures, including wiretaps, expands the government's ability to track individuals' Internet use and gives federal officials expansive new powers that are in no way limited to investigating terrorist crimes. It authorizes an end run around the Fourth Amendment by allowing the government to conduct wiretaps and searches in criminal investigations, without probable cause of a crime, as long as the government claims that it also seeks to gather foreign intelligence. Even property rights, generally sacrosanct among conservatives, have been sharply compromised.” (Cole, 2002)
Mr. Cole shows his bias against the new ‘system’ that the Bush Administration has put into place for trying suspected terrorists by military tribunals. This obvious showing of bias is Mr. Cole’s weakness, it makes his assumptions and points appear weak even if backed up with valid or logical arguments. Mr. Torr wrote the speech The Department of Homeland Security Will Protect Americans Against Terrorists that was recited by Present George W. Bush prior to the signing of the Homeland Security Act. Mr. Torr shows that at least on paper there is a plan to reorganize the Intelligence community through the Homeland Security Act, thus showing strength by way or forethought in the legislature and being sure to point this out to President Bush’s audience. Another strength in this speech is also in planning; instead of putting an inexperienced person at the helm of this new department they are putting the man who had been leader of homeland security efforts for a year after many years in politics. Mr. Torr assumes that the Homeland Security Act will benefit America by adding protection from terrorists.
The way the Homeland Security Act is written it will actually infringe on many civil liberties such as the right to free expression, right to free press, right to assemble, right to speedy trail by peers, right to council, and several others. This will not add protection from terrorists but steal away many of our basic principles of law that our country has flourished under. This is a weakness in his assumption that all Americans are unaware of how legislation will affect them and specifically it will affect their basic civil rights handed down to them from the founding of our great country. Mr. Torr assumes that the things that had been done since the attacks on September 11, 2001 was considered enough by the American people to justify reinforcing them and adding on to these activities with the Homeland Security Act. Any American who has a true understanding of their civil liberties and the constitution has never considered illegal wiretaps, illegal search and seizures justifiable. This belief of Mr. Torr, President Bush and others of their mind set that the American people will follow them blindly if they are told often enough that it’s for their own good and protection even if it leads to a near communist state are severely mistaken and their beliefs are flawed.
Mr. Torr and others who think like him assume that Americans will not mind loosing civil liberties if they do realize they are loosing them or if they are told that it is the only way to protect them from more terrorist attacks. The Bush Administration and some of the news media has/had worked very hard to ensure that at least a small amount of the American public believes that what the Administration is doing or allowing the intelligence community to do under the PATRIOT Act and Homeland Security Act is justifiable and that the American people will not be harmed in the long run by allowing many of their civil liberties to be striped from them. Mr. Torr goes by the assumption that anything done to ‘protect’ America is acceptable even when they go against the Constitution and The Bill Of Rights, which are paramount to our way of life. Our founding fathers wrote the Constitution and the Bill Of Rights in such a way as to minimize the federal government to being just big enough to handle the affairs it is responsible for and leaving the rest to the states. Our founders had seen that with the states having the majority of control over what was later turned over to federal control that the states acted as individual units rather than as a nation as they did under the Articles of Confederation. I do believe that our founding fathers would be rolling over in their graves if they were aware of how our federal government under the Bush Administration has secretly stolen many of our civil liberties that they felt were God given and should never be allowed to removed by any entity.
When I first started this, I stated that I opposed the civil liberty infringements that have taken place since the September 11, 2001 attacks. I have examined many articles and books written by both Republicans and Democrats and I have examined the constitution it self to see how the USA PATRIOT ACT and the Homeland Security Act stack up against the basic of our laws. There are many parts of both of these acts that are wholly unconstitutional and violate many amendments. There are blatantly obvious violations of the first, fourth, fifth, and sixth amendments. While we as Americans would love to be able to preserve our way of life and at the same time secure our country from internal and external terrorist actions, we also have to acknowledge and deal with the fact that the USA PATRIOT ACT and the Homeland Security Act both severely undermine our basic principles of law.
How can we expect to maintain our freedoms and integrity if we allow our government to strip us of our ‘inalienable rights’ in the name of protecting us? If the government being able to decide what rights citizens were needing most at a certain time than the American Revolution would most likely would not have happened and our great nation would not exist since our founding fathers would have seen no problem in the British Empire restricting free press, freedom of expression, free speech, property rights, and taxing without representation. We must be aware of the continued threat, of our enemies as well as that of our government.
The best solution is for the American people to be aware of whom they are voting for, vote in masses that have NEVER been seen before, and remove from office those who abuse their power. This would set a precedence that the American people are going to DEMAND accurate representation. That they will not allow elected officials ignore their promises and the people that elected them. This would also maintain the checks and balance system. Our government has exploded to a size unthinkable to our Founding Fathers back in 1787, us as the American people, must maintain a state of awareness, alertness. We must choose wisely when we vote, have knowledge of who this candidate is, what he or she stands for, how they have voted before if they have held a senate or house seat, who is backing them, who their advisors are, where they were educated, what their personal beliefs on controversial issues are, and so on. If we vote just because we like their ad, how they look, or their rhetoric we would be as good as saying ‘hey, do as you want, I don’t care where we go from here, have fun!’ That kind of attitude is the kind of attitude that too many Americans have today and threatens our stability as a true democracy.
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