AUSTIN -- WHOA! The problem is the premise. We are having one of
those circular arguments about how many civil liberties we can trade away in
order to make ourselves safe from terrorism, without even looking at the
assumption -- can we can make ourselves safer by
making ourselves less free? There is no inverse relationship between freedom
and security. Less of one does not lead to more of the other. People with no
rights are not safe from terrorist attack.
Exactly what do we want to strike out of the U.S. Constitution
that we think would prevent terrorist attacks? Let's see, if civil liberties
had been suspended before Sept. 11, would law enforcement have noticed
Mohamed Atta? Would the FBI have opened an investigation of Zacarias
Moussaoui, as Minneapolis agents wanted to do? The CIA had several of the 9-11
actors on their lists of suspected terrorists. Exactly what civil liberty
prevented them from doing anything about it?
In the case of a suspected terrorist, the government already had
the right to search, wiretap, intercept, detain, examine computer and
financial records, and do anything else it needed to do. There's a special
court they go to for subpoenas and warrants. As it happens, they didn't do
it.
Changing the law retroactively is not going to change that.
Certainly, we had a visa system that had more holes than Swiss cheese. What
does that have to do with civil liberties? When we don't give an agency
enough money to do its job, it doesn't get done.
As you may have heard, Immigration and Naturalization has been a
bit overwhelmed in recent years. In fairness to law enforcement, it's hard
to imagine how anyone could have seen this one coming. It's always easy to
point the finger after the fact. It was just a damnable act.
Absolutely nothing in the Constitution would have prevented us
from stopping 9-11, so why would we want to change it? I also think we're
arguing from the wrong historical analogies. Yes, during past wars civil
liberties have been abrogated and the courts have even upheld this. We
regret it later, but we don't seem to learn from that.
But the Bush administration's rhetoric aside, we are not at war.
War is when the armed forces of one country attack the armed forces of
another. What we're looking at is more akin to the 19th century problem with
anarchists, the terrorists of their day. And we made some memorable errors
by giving in to hysteria over anarchists.
In the infamous 1886 Haymarket Square affair in Chicago, after a
bomb killed seven policemen, eight labor leaders were rounded up and
"tried," even though there was no evidence against them -- four hanged, one
suicide, three sentenced. Historians agree they were all innocent.
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, executed in 1927, were
finally exonerated by the state of Massachusetts in 1977. That outbreak of
hysteria over "foreign anarchists" led to, among other abuses, a wave of
arrests for DWI: "Driving While Italian." And no one was ever made safer
from an anarchist bomb by the execution of innocent people. We all know
other groups, from the Irish to the blacks to the Chinese, have been
targeted for legal abuse over the years -- all betrayals of our laws, values
and the sacrifices of generations. Let's not do it again.
The counter-case was neatly put by David Blunkett, the British
Home Secretary: "We can live in a world with airy-fairy civil liberties and
believe the best in everybody -- and they will destroy us." Unless, of
course, we destroy ourselves first.
"Fascism" is not a word I throw around lightly, but what do you
think happened in Germany in the 1930s? The US.
Constitution was written by men who had just been through a long, incredibly
nasty war. They did not consider the Bill of Rights a frivolous luxury, to
be in force only in times of peace and prosperity, put aside when the going
gets tough. The Founders knew from tough going. They weren't airy-fairy
guys.
We put away Tim McVeigh and the terrorists who did the 1993
World Trade Center bombing without damaging the Constitution. If the laws
break into some apartment full of al-Qaeda literature and plans of airports,
absolutely nothing prevents them from hauling in the suspects and having a
nice, cozy, cop-like chat with them. Because there's evidence. That's what
they call "due process."
When there is no evidence, no grounds for suspicion, we do not
hold citizens indefinitely and without legal representation. Very airy-fairy
of us, to be sure. Foreign citizens have only limited rights in this
country, depending their means of entry -- different for refugees, permanent
residents, etc. So what's the problem?
Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft has been so busy busting dying
marijuana smokers in California and doctors in Oregon who carry out their
terminal patients' wishes to die in peace, he obviously has no time to
consider the Constitution. But he did swear to uphold it.
To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other
Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web
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