"We are not going to achieve a new world order without paying for it in blood, as well as in words and money." - Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., in 'Foreign Affairs', the CFR journal (July/August 1995)
"Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government." - Dr. Henry Kissinger, Bilderberger Conference, Evians, France, 1991
"Legitimate violence is integral to our form of government, for it is from this source that we can continue to purge our weaknesses." - quote from police and military training manual, California Specialized Training Institute, San Luis Obispo, California"Free speech, civil rights, rights to assembly" are now "clichés." "Dissidents go beyond ... honest dissent, honest and proper use of the right of free speech." - reported comments attributed to then-Deputy Attorney General Buck Compton, at the Cable Splicer II Conference [Operation Cable Splicer is an adjunct of the Draconian Operation Garden Plot]
Jack Anderson reveals, in an October, 1984, syndicated newspaper column, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] had quietly drafted alarming "standby legislation" that would, upon the declaration of a national emergency, "suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, effectively eliminate private property, abolish free enterprise, and generally clamp Americans in a totalitarian vise." FEMA referred to this Draconian blueprint for martial law and totalitarian rule as an exercise in "national security planning."
Poll: Third of New Yorkers support internment camps for some
By Marc Humbert,
Associated Press Writer
Newsday, NY,
September 24, 2001ALBANY, N.Y. -- One third of New Yorkers favor establishing internment camps for "individuals who authorities identify as being sympathetic to terrorist causes," according to a poll from the Siena College Research Institute.
Fifty percent of those surveyed for the statewide poll said they were opposed to that idea while 15 percent had no opinion.
The telephone poll of 610 New York state residents over age 18 was conducted from Sept. 12, the day after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, through Sept. 19. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
The poll found 75 percent of respondents felt terrorist attacks would continue and 40 percent said they were very concerned they or family members could become victims.
Forty-six percent said the attacks make it less likely they will use commercial flights even though two-thirds of those surveyed said they believe the airlines can be made safe from terrorism. Ninety percent said undercover, armed security guards should be put on the planes.
Internment camps have been controversial since World War II when the United States ordered thousands of Japanese-Americans into such facilities.
Douglas Lonnstrom, director of the research institute, said that given that World War II experience he found it "startling" that 34 percent of those polled supported the creation of new internment camps.
Lonnstrom said he didn't know if those questioned equated the phrase "sympathetic to terrorist causes" to Arab-Americans.
But James Zogby, president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute, said, "You have to be very careful how you go down this road of defining sympathies. I think it's dangerous."
Zogby said creation of such camps would be unconstitutional, but that he wasn't surprised by the poll's findings.
"In the current context, when you ask that question you're going to get that kind of response," Zogby said. "I would say if you asked people, `Should terrorist sympathizers have their toenails forcibly plucked from their toes?', you would probably get something akin to that."
Copyright © 2001, The Associated Press
NewsMax.com
September 27, 2001Official: New York Is Now a 'Police State'
The Twin Towers terrorist attacks have rattled normally unflappable New Yorkers to such an extent that few are complaining about new rules instituted Wednesday that one law enforcement source said had turned the city into a "police state.""This is how it is because this is how it has to be," the law enforcement official told the New York Post as cars, trucks and vans entering the city continue to be subject to traffic-snarling searches for the third day in a row.
"This is a police state now," he added.
Ever since Attorney General Ashcroft warned Tuesday of "a clear and present danger" of more terrorist attacks, New York has been on heightened alert.
Reports that the FBI has arrested up to 18 individuals for fraudulently attempting to get licenses to transport hazardous materials have both police and city residents even more nervous.
But New Yorkers, by and large, are accepting the new restrictions. The sentiment of truck driver Jose Torres is typical.
"Given what happened at the World Trade Center, the traffic is the least of our problems," he told the paper.
LINK: http://www.newsmax.com/archive/print.shtml?a=2001/9/27/94522
LINK to original 'NEW YORK POST' article, 'CITY IS NOW A ‘POLICE STATE'
Houston Chronicle
Sept. 26, 2001Majority of Texans would limit civil liberties to boost security
By Clay Robison, Austin BureauAUSTIN -- Three-fourths of Texans are willing to sacrifice some of their civil liberties in an effort to prevent the type of terrorism that struck New York and the Pentagon, a new survey indicates.
According to the Scripps Howard Texas Poll, 52 percent of Texans are concerned about new restrictions being imposed on their freedoms as the government reacts to the Sept. 11 attacks.
But 74 percent of the poll's respondents said they would be willing to give up some of their liberties to fight terrorism.
The telephone survey of 500 Texas adults was conducted Sept. 20-25, as the Bush administration was pressing Congress for legislation to expand the authority of law enforcement officials against suspected terrorists.
Action on the proposals has been delayed by lawmakers who want to ensure the changes don't go too far in limiting civil liberties.
Texans' attitudes on limiting their freedoms are similar to those expressed nationally. Seventy-nine percent of respondents to a New York Times/CBS News Poll published earlier this week agreed that Americans will have to give up some of their personal freedoms to make the country safe from terrorist attacks.
In addition to the administration's push for expanded use of wiretaps and other steps against suspected terrorists, there also has been public discussion about imposing unprecedented restrictions on ordinary citizens, such as the issuance of electronic identification cards and government monitoring of phone calls and e-mail.
Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, said it was "dangerous" for Americans to be so willing to accept new governmental restrictions on their lives.
"This is exactly what happens every time there is a crisis. Our political leadership tries to gain more leverage, in a sense, over the Bill of Rights," he said.
Harrington said the talk of restricting personal freedoms was particularly ominous since the Bush administration has been unable to say that any of the expanded investigatory authority it is seeking would have prevented the recent attacks.
"There is absolutely no guarantee that these safeguards would have avoided the Sept. 11 occurrence," Attorney General John Ashcroft told the House Judiciary Committee this week. "We do know that without them, the occurrence took place."
Will Harrell, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said he also was concerned about the polls. But he said the findings were "understandable" because America is suffering through a time of crisis and fear.
"It's a bump, but a temporary bump, and I don't think that's an opinion shared by most elected officials," he said.
An overwhelming majority of Texans, 93 percent, are concerned about the possibility of more terrorist attacks in the United States, the Texas Poll indicates. And 57 percent are worried that they or a member of their family will become a terrorist victim.
Only 27 percent, however, said the Sept. 11 attacks had made them more fearful to attend sporting or other public events.
Sixty-two percent of the Texas Poll respondents thought U.S. intelligence agencies should have discovered plans for the terrorist attacks on the East Coast before they happened. But 86 percent said they were confident that the government can prevent further terrorist attacks in this country.
Harrington said he suspected one reason the administration was in a hurry to expand its authority was to provide "political cover" for its intelligence failures and lack of security at the airports where hijackers boarded commercial airliners for use in the attacks.
The survey by the Scripps Howard Data Center has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
LINK: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.hts/metropolitan/1064093
Reuters,
29th September, 2001US Backs Bush Plans, Ready to Give Up Civil Rights
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans, firmly behind the administration's war on terrorism, are ready to give up some civil liberties if it helps catch those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington, according to a poll released on Saturday.The poll of 1,215 Americans, published in The Washington Post, showed that nine out of 10 people believed President Bush (news - web sites) was doing a good job -- a figure in line with other surveys conducted since the deadly attacks.
A similar number favored a military response to the attacks and said the United States needed to capture or kill Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), who the administration holds responsible for the plot, and dismantle his al Qaeda network.
Some 6,500 people are feared dead in the attacks, when hijackers rammed three planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon (news - web sites) near Washington.
A fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania, probably after passengers overpowered the hijackers.
The survey showed that between 69 percent and 95 percent of respondents favored granting police additional powers to tap telephones or intercept voice mail or e-mail, as well as to hold foreign terrorist suspects indefinitely.
"One sacrifice Americans said they are willing to make is in their civil liberties,'' the newspaper said.
The Washington Post also said many people favored action that went well beyond the administration's stated goals.
Sixty-one percent believed that the United States ''absolutely must'' overthrow Afghanistan's Taliban government, believed to be harboring bin Laden, and 39 percent wanted the United States to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, even if he could not be directly linked to the attacks.
"The responses suggest that Americans have strategically unrealistic hopes and will be disappointed with anything less than full success,'' the newspaper said.
A poll released on Friday conducted for Time Magazine and the Cable News Network showed that Americans are prepared to wait a month or more for military strikes on Afghanistan.
Four out of every five Americans also believe another attack on U.S. soil is either "very likely'' or "somewhat likely'' within a year.
The United States has massed troops, warplanes and aircraft carriers within striking distance of Afghanistan and demanded its Taliban rulers avert a U.S. attack by surrendering bin Laden and the leaders of his al Qaeda network.
LINK: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010929/ts/attack_poll_dc_7.html
THE NEW YORK TIMES
September 24, 2001War on Terrorism Stirs Memory of Internment
By William GlabersonThe Bush administration's proposals for increased law enforcement powers to fight terrorism are provoking a debate about whether American courts would repeat the kinds of rulings that restricted the civil rights of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
The debate, some legal experts say, may help define how far courts are willing to go now in giving the government latitude in its treatment of Arabs in this country. Officials have held at least 75 immigrants in the investigation of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Among the most controversial of the administration's proposals are several that would give immigrants who are detained in the terror investigation limited opportunities to get their cases heard in court.
The Justice Department has insisted that the proposals uphold constitutional rights while giving law enforcement the tools it needs to conduct its investigation. But critics say immigrants in particular face new dangers from the proposals that they say parallel the treatment of Japanese in this country during the 1940's.
"Under these provisions," said Jeanne A. Butterfield, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, "there is a much bigger danger than we have ever seen in our history of innocent people being rounded up and held on suspicion that they did something and never having their day in court."
For many years, the most expansive of the World War II rulings, a 1944 Supreme Court decision that approved the internment of Japanese-Americans, has been widely discredited.
But in recent days legal experts of varying political views have said that the principles of the decision may not have been as widely repudiated as had been previously assumed. The 1944 case involved a Japanese-American, Fred T. Korematsu, who was convicted of disobeying an order requiring people of Japanese ancestry to report to assembly centers. The Supreme Court approved his conviction.
"Some people say we've learned the lesson from Korematsu and we would never do that again," said Jerry Kang, a law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles and an expert on the World War II rulings. "I'm much more skeptical; I think there is a chance we would do that again."
In the 1944 case, a divided court approved the internments, saying that "hardships are part of war." The United States government formally apologized for the internments in 1988. But the Supreme Court has never overruled its decision.
Though a blanket detention of Arab-Americans now appears politically implausible, some legal experts say the reasoning of the 1944 ruling could permit limits on the civil liberties of Arab immigrants and even some Americans of Arab descent.
Among limits that might be approved by the courts are detentions of immigrants who give officials cause for concern. For instance, the government might detain individuals who had spent time in countries associated with terrorist activities, said Douglas W. Kmiec, a constitutional law expert at the Catholic University of America in Washington.
The heart of the 1944 decision was that the courts should give deference to government decisions about what was required for national security. "In wartime more latitude is given to the military's judgments," Mr. Kmiec said.
The Supreme Court has said immigrants have some constitutional rights, like the Fifth Amendment's guarantee that "no person" will be "deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law." The language of the amendment, courts have said, means that its protections extend to all people in the country, not just citizens.
In a case decided this June, the Supreme Court held that it was a violation of the Constitution for authorities to hold immigrants indefinitely while awaiting permission to deport them to another country.
The decision said indefinite detention by immigration officials was not constitutional even if there was evidence that the immigrants were dangerous. Long-term detentions are permissible under American law generally after criminal trials where a defendant has extensive right to contest the evidence with many legal protections. Immigration proceedings are considered civil.
But the opinion in June, written by Justice Stephen G. Breyer, seemed to anticipate the current questions about when added powers might be given to immigration officials. In the case before it, Justice Breyer wrote, the court did not have to consider broader questions that were not presented by the case.
But then he suggested that the law might be flexible in times of emergency. "Neither do we consider terrorism or other special circumstances," he wrote, "where special arguments might be made for forms of preventive detention and for heightened deference to the judgments of the political branches with respect to matters of national security."
Several legal experts said there had been many indications that the Supreme Court justices might well consider parts of the World War II internment case as a precedent to restrict civil rights during wartime.
But some defenders of the administration's proposals say civil libertarians' alarm is overstated.
Jan C. Ting, a Temple University law professor who is a former assistant commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said that when the nation was in peril, people ought to assume that the authorities were acting in good faith.
"No one is trying to squash anyone's constitutional rights," Mr. Ting said. "They're looking to protect the American people."
LINK: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/24/national/24LEGA.html
LOS ANGELES TIMES
September 23, 1001Sweet Land of Liberties
by John Balzar
CommentaryWith a growing sense of disbelief, we fathom our losses: The loss in lives, the loss to our skyline, the loss of our placid sense of security. Then, another loss arises in the collective mind: The fear that our freedoms will be eroded now
In fatigue and shock, we express this chiefly as a feeling. But we feel it strongly. And you can't very well argue with feelings, can you?
If you feel scared, you are.
So are we headed for a loss of liberty? No question. But will these losses diminish us in important and lasting ways? I'm not so sure. At the least, now seems like the right time to ponder what freedom and liberty mean at the root. They are more than just feelings. If we calibrate their essentials, we can be guided by something besides jumpy emotions as the United States marches ahead to well, just wherever?.
It's notable that in his remarks to the nation, President Bush rushed to say that liberty would not succumb to terrorism. I think his timing was laudable. His words were not an afterthought. He spoke with his eyes over the horizon to generations yet to come.
Liberty is, in its broad definition, the sum of those rights that we hold and which define our freedom. Liberty, in fact, is what we propose to defend.
Among our cherished freedoms, not fully realized yet, is the freedom to be different. Is that threatened?
In some ways it already has been-in the show-off vandalism by teenagers and bellicose confrontations by racist knuckleheads against Americans of Middle Eastern heritage. We can expect worse. Hate crimes remind us of the distance that America has yet to travel between its ideals and reality. But the ideal will survive, and ultimately be strengthened. Already, I think it's safe to say that never have Arab Americans received such firm and united expressions of brotherhood from the nation's political and civic leaders, and from thinking citizens everywhere.
There has been and will be, yes, more police profiling of "suspicious Arab-looking" people. To expect, or demand, otherwise is probably more than we can ask, or maybe more than we should expect. Many of these incidents will pass with forbearance. Others will flare into civil rights showdowns-and that fact itself will prove how little America will tolerate backsliding toward the days of mass roundups, internments and, we can hope, blacklists.
Naturally the rub will come when law-abiding people here choose to speak out for our foes-an exercise of free speech that will surely test America's tolerance, as it has before. But we need only look to the experience of Vietnam to remember that Americans who gave comfort to the enemy, for instance, Jane Fonda, were not denied their place in society.
Our movements will become more tedious and expensive. Government surveillance and eavesdropping will expand. And who knows how many other tiresome, even scary, impositions will follow? Will we be issued gas masks? Will our schools be sandbagged?
These burdens may or may not add up to erosions of freedom, depending on how we collectively regard them and whether our government keeps its head. But we may not have a choice: A free people can also be a besieged people.
For a while, and maybe again and again for a long time, Americans will feel exposed, vulnerable to the religious fanaticism that ulcerates our shrinking world. Who among us knows how this war against terrorism will unfold, how often it will hit home or how hard?
But this country was conceived in war and has fought a civil war, two world wars and six other wars since, not to mention a long Cold War. The essentials of our liberties, sometimes heavily compromised, have proved resilient. And in important ways, such as civil rights and voting rights, they are more firmly rooted now than ever.
Wartime's greatest imposition on personal liberty-the military draft-is, not part of our national dialogue, at least yet.
Part of the reason that liberty has endured is our historic suspicion of government power. For more than 200 years, Americans have not seen themselves as contradictory when they insist upon being protected by and from government.
It would be glib to dismiss the domestic threats that come when we empower our authorities: secrecy and intrusion. But it would be equally glib to overstate these threats at a time when America is mopping up its blood, counting its losses and girding for more.
Liberty is little if it doesn't include the freedom from attack. That's the liberty we want to preserve now. Along the way, maybe we'll gain some perspective on what is important and what is trivial among those things we think of as freedoms. The doubters will be shoved aside. But they won't go away. Before long, we'll be happy to have them around to make sure we didn't willingly give up too much of America in its defense.
Some threats to rights are trivial; others dire.
LINK: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-092301balzar.story
LOS ANGELES TIMES,
27th September, 2001COMMENTARY: Giving Up Our Rights for Little Gain
By Erwin ChemerinskyErwin Chemerinsky is a professor of constitutional law and political science at USC.
Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's plan for fighting terrorism seems to include all the bad ideas for greater law enforcement powers that have been rejected over the years. The attorney general's recommendations-presented Monday to the House Judiciary Committee-would give the government sweeping new authority to eavesdrop and monitor communications in the United States. The key problem is that the proposals would entail a massive loss of freedom without notably enhancing the war against terrorism.
The discussion about protecting civil liberties while fighting terrorism has been far too simplistic. Some loss of freedom may be necessary to ensure security; but not every sacrifice of liberty is warranted. For example, people accept more thorough searches at airports even though it means a loss of privacy. But strip searches and body cavity searches would be clearly unacceptable. The central question must be what rights need to be sacrificed, under what circumstances and for what gains.
The burden must be on the government to show that any significant loss of liberty is truly needed. Ashcroft already has repudiated some of his proposals, but many of the remaining ones fail this test. For example, a centerpiece of his recommendations is for the government to have the authority to conduct "roving wiretaps" to listen to all conversations of a particular person, unlike traditional warrants, which authorize listening to specific phones. The police could listen to every phone in the places where a suspect works or shops or visits.
This loss of privacy would not do much to enhance security. Ashcroft said that roving wiretaps are needed because suspects easily shift to new phones. But once the police learn that a person subject to a warrant has a new phone, a judge immediately could approve adding it to the warrant.
The majority of Ashcroft's other proposals are no better. Some would make a shambles of the Constitution's protections. For instance, Ashcroft proposed that the law be changed so that calls illegally intercepted by foreign governments could be used as evidence in U.S. courts. If federal, state or local police engage in illegal wiretapping, the fruits of the police misconduct are excluded from evidence. Ashcroft's proposal would encourage U.S. police to circumvent the Constitution and to use foreign governments, like Canada, to illegally tap phones in this country.
Similarly, Ashcroft proposes giving the government expansive power to monitor electronic communications, such as visits to Web sites and e-mail. The government can open a person's mail only after obtaining a warrant. The same standard should be used for monitoring the use of Web sites and e-mail communications.
The burden is now on Congress and the courts to scrutinize these proposals. Great care must be taken to not repeat the mistakes of the past where significant freedoms were lost in times of crisis without any gain in security.
During World War I, laws were enacted to punish critics of the war effort. Mild and ineffectual speech led to long prison sentences. During World War II, more than 100,000 Japanese Americans were uprooted and placed in what President Franklin D. Roosevelt called "concentration camps." Nothing was gained in security from this unconscionable loss of freedom. Not one Japanese American was charged or convicted of any crime against the war effort.
In hindsight, these mistakes occurred because the public, Congress and even the courts were reluctant to challenge the executive proposals in a time of crisis. This mistake must not be repeated. Dissent is never disloyal. Patriotism means supporting the country but not any particular proposal.
On Sept. 11, the terrorists ended more than 6,000 lives and cost the economy incalculable sums; they took away our shared sense of safety and security. We must take great care to ensure that they not be responsible for unnecessarily taking away our freedom.
LINK: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-092701chem.story
THE NEW YORK TIMES
September 29, 2001THE SUPREME COURT: O'Connor Foresees Limits on Freedom
By Linda GreenhouseDescribing herself as "still tearful" after viewing the World Trade Center site, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor told a law school audience in Manhattan yesterday that as part of the country's response to terrorism, "we're likely to experience more restrictions on our personal freedom than has ever been the case in our country."
Lawyers have a special duty to work to maintain the rule of law in the face of terrorism, Justice O'Connor said, adding in a quotation from Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister: "Where law ends, tyranny begins."
Justice O'Connor, who was on an official visit to India when the terrorist attacks took place on Sept. 11, was the first Supreme Court justice to speak publicly about the events and their possible legal consequences. She was the main speaker at the groundbreaking for a law school building at New York University in Greenwich Village.
Her brief remarks emphasized the need to proceed with care in the aftermath of a national trauma that she said "will cause us to re-examine some of our laws pertaining to criminal surveillance, wiretapping, immigration and so on."
Lawyers would play an important role in striking the right balance, she said, adding, "Lawyers and academics will help define how to maintain a fair and a just society with a strong rule of law at a time when many are more concerned with safety and a measure of vengeance."
Justice O'Connor did not offer an analysis of any particular proposal, instead observing that "no single response is appropriate for every situation."
Referring to the prospect that military deployments overseas rather than domestic prosecutions will be a principal means of bringing terrorists to justice, she said: "It is possible, if not likely, that we will rely more on international rules of war than on our cherished constitutional standards for criminal prosecutions in responding to threats to our national security."
Justice O'Connor posed a series of questions at the ceremony:
"First, can a society that prides itself on equality before the law treat terrorists differently than ordinary criminals? And where do we draw the line between them? Second, at what point does the cost to civil liberties from legislation designed to prevent terrorism outweigh the added security that that legislation provides?"
Without answering the questions herself, she concluded: "These are tough questions, and they're going to require a great deal of study, goodwill and expertise to resolve them. And in the years to come, it will become clear that the need for lawyers does not diminish in times of crisis; it only increases."
Justice O'Connor, who grew up in Arizona, said her visit to New York and the trade center site had changed her image of a city she and her husband, John, had considered "harsh, brash, brassy, tough."
Now, she said, "there is a new spirit here and it's one of warmth, solidarity, humanity and determination that we have not witnessed before."
She added: "It's very noticeable and very moving."
LINK: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/29/national/29SCOT.html
The Free-Market.Net: The Freedom Network
www.free-market.net
30th September, 2001Declaring War - A Threat To Freedom
The terrorist attack of September 11 has been called an act of war; voices have been raised in Congress and across the country to respond in kind. Given the deep transformations that wars of the past have made in U.S. society, Americans should be aware of the likely effects of a new round of hostilities -- no matter how necessary a response to these crimes may be.In 1918, Eugene Debs, a perennial Socialist presidential candidate who was something like a Ralph Nader of his time, was tried, convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison. His "crime" was a speech in which he criticized the conviction of several World War I-era draft resisters and opponents of conscription. Debs didn't enjoy freedom again until President Harding commuted his sentence on Christmas Day of 1921.
In the post-Vietnam era, the idea that an American could be jailed for opposing the draft is almost inconceivable. But in times of panic and emergency, the inconceivable has a way of becoming real in a myriad of unpleasant ways.
The Constitution itself explicitly allows for only one emergency power:
The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.But as early as the Civil War, officials created new "temporary" powers for themselves out of whole cloth. They acted in the heat of the moment, with necessity as their defense and opposing voices few and largely muzzled by wartime passions.In a 1996 speech to the Indiana University School of Law, Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist said of that divisive conflict:
"The Civil War was the first time that the United States government mobilized for a major war effort, and a major war effort necessarily results in the curtailment of some civil liberties."Those curtailments were severe. They included banning anti-war newspapers from the mails -- which was how most reached their subscribers. When the newspapers hired private services to circumvent the Post Office, U.S. Marshals seized all copies of the papers and even arrested a newsboy in Connecticut.In an apparent case of treason by inference, the Reverend J.R. Stewart, of Alexandria, Virginia, was arrested for omitting a customary prayer for the president of the United States from his sermon.
Civilian courts were suspended in many peaceful regions of the country -- especially where opposition Democrats held power -- allowing the government to parade defendants before rubber-stamp military courts.
In 1866, in Ex parte Milligan, the Supreme Court ruled that civilians couldn't be tried by the military so long as the civil courts are open for business. But that was only one step back from a leaping expansion of war-time powers. As is so often the case in the wake of crises, the government retained some of the "special" powers it adopted during the war.
That incomplete return to pre-crisis conditions is described by Robert Higgs, author of "Crisis and Leviathan," as a "ratchet" effect. Says Higgs in his book:
"[A]fter each major crisis the size of government, though smaller than during the crisis, remained larger than it would have been had the pre-crisis rate of growth persisted ..."The expansion of government during the civil war fits the pattern described by Higgs and created an enormous precedent for the government to build on during war scares to come.During the First World War, Postal bans on newspapers became arrests of individuals for even the mildest criticism of the government's war efforts.
These arrests came courtesy of the Sedition Act, which banned a truly breathtaking range of speech and action. In addition to muzzling opposition to conscription, the Act threatened fines and prison for anybody who dared to "utter, print, write or publish" any "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the government, the Constitution, or the military.
Eugene Debs wasn't the only American to become an involuntary guest of the United States government for voicing his opinion. In an article for the Foundation for Economic Education, Robert Higgs wrote: "In California the police arrested Upton Sinclair for reading the Bill of Rights at a rally. In New Jersey the police arrested Roger Baldwin [of the ACLU] for publicly reading the Constitution."
At the same time, the government intruded itself into America's economic life. Says Higgs, "the federal government ... virtually nationalized the ocean shipping industry. It did nationalize the railroad, telephone, domestic telegraph, and international telegraphic cable industries."
After the war, the Sedition Act was repealed and industry largely returned to private hands. But the government was much larger than in the past and Americans not so free as they had been just a few years earlier. War-time roundups of dissidents paved the way for peace-time red scares. And heavy government intervention in the economy continued along the lines established while hostilities were under way.
During World War II, "emergency" powers reached a zenith that Americans can only hope will never be surpassed.
Officially, newspaper censorship was "voluntary," but significant arm-twisting kept most of the media in-line with the official message. Some publications were banned from the mail or even closed.
The First War Powers Act granted the President broad powers to, among other things "cause to be censored ... communications by mail, cable, radio, or other means of transmission passing between the United States and any foreign country."
The Second War Powers Act allowed the government to exercise broad economic powers, including seizing private property.
In an examination of the modern impact of a declaration of war, analysts for the Independent Institute noted:
"FDR ... instituted the same controls Wilson did in World War I and added to them comprehensive wage and price controls, nationwide rent control, rationing of many consumer goods and central planning of production.As the Independent Institute paper added:And in one of the most dramatic abuses of power ever seen in the United States, more than 110,000 Japanese-Americans were held in internment camps solely because their ancestors came from a country with which the U.S. was at war. That rationale would have put the majority of the population behind bars during the War of 1812 against Great Britain.
Just as with previous wars, the aftermath of World War II left the government permanently expanded in size and power."
"Much of what presidents once did only during wartime can be done now under existing powers and the right circumstances. . Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the president need only declare a national emergency to assume wartime control over the economy."So, what new powers are likely to be assumed by the government if the recent attack on the United States results in war?Already, in response to the bloody terrorist attack on the United States, the U.S. Senate has passed the Combating Terrorism Act of 2001 which greatly expands the power of federal authorities to spy on online communications. If the act becomes law, the authorities will even be able to monitor internet use without a court order.
Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire wants to impose severe restrictions on the ability of Americans to use encryption to shield communications from prying eyes.
Some lawmakers are talking about requiring Americans to carry national identification cards, and to show their papers upon demand.
All this while the country is still officially at peace.
And while these counterterrorism powers sound like impressive tools, there's no guarantee that they'll actually make us safer. Countries considerably more authoritarian than the United States, such as Russia, are still plagued by terrorist attacks.
If America goes to war, the power of government will grow enormously -- probably with the blessing of the people. After the conflict is over, history tells us that the state will not give up all of its new powers. And it's by no means certain that the crisis will pass; "terrorism" not being a country that can be defeated, or a single organization that can surrender.
Terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center; it remains to be seen whether Americans will destroy the Statue of Liberty themselves.
Copyright 1995-2000, The Henry Hazlitt Foundation. Feel free to copy and forward this message, but please include this notice: This is a service of Free-Market.Net: The Freedom Network. See http://www.free-market.net/ Opinions expressed are those of the writers and editors only.
WASHINGTON POST,
Oxtober 2nd, 2001House Bill Would Expand Federal Detention Powers
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff WriterHouse negotiators yesterday agreed to give the government new authority to investigate and detain terrorist suspects, a bipartisan compromise that denied the Bush administration some powers it sought but that was assailed by civil libertarians as a blow to American values.
Under an agreement reached by Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) and the ranking Democrat, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), authorities would be able to hold any foreigner suspected of terrorist activity without charges for as long as a week. The anti-terrorism legislation would also expand the government's wiretapping and Internet surveillance powers in terrorism cases.
The 122-page House legislation, dubbed the "Patriot Act," is due to be considered by the committee Wednesday and by the entire House next week.
The House compromise will become a framework for negotiations with the Senate and the administration over an expansion of police powers following the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. David Carle, spokesman for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), said the Senate and House bills "will largely complement each other."
He said Senate Democrats and Republicans "negotiated through the weekend and are close to an agreement over here."
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said, "The administration has been working very closely with members of the House, as well as with Chairman Leahy and others in the Senate who have just jurisdiction over this."
The Bush administration sought new anti-terrorism legislation in the aftermath of the attacks, saying it was necessary because of what Attorney General John D. Ashcroft described as the "clear and present danger" of further terrorist attacks.
The agreement yesterday came as more than 100 members of Congress traveled to New York to view the devastation at the World Trade Center.
In the thorniest matter faced by negotiators, the government would be allowed to detain any foreigners suspected of terrorist activity for up to seven days without filing charges or giving them an opportunity to ask a judge to release them. That would apply both to legal immigrants and those in the country illegally.
After that time, the government would either need to file criminal charges, begin deportation proceedings or release the suspects. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft had sought detention powers without any particular time limit.
Even after the seven days, Ashcroft would have power to detain foreigners until they are deported as long as he has "reasonable grounds to believe" that they may be involved in terrorism.
Ashcroft had sought broader language, allowing detention if there was "reason to believe" the person was involved in terrorism. Only the attorney general or the Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner would certify such detentions, which could be reviewed by courts.
Jeanne Butterfield, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, called the compromise "a significant improvement" over Ashcroft's request.
But Laura W. Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington office, said the compromise was "inadequate" and "confers unprecedented detention authority on the attorney general."
The House compromise would also give the government multiple wiretap powers in terrorism cases so that surveillance would be attached to an individual rather than a particular telephone.
It would also make it easier for law enforcement officials to obtain wiretaps. Under existing law, wiretaps can be obtained under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act if the primary purpose for getting the information is intelligence, rather than criminal enforcement. Ashcroft had sought to use the FISA provision if intelligence gathering was merely "a purpose." The proposed House legislation would compromise with "a significant purpose."
The wiretap provision would expire in December 2003; renewing it would require congressional approval.
Law enforcement officials would be able to get court orders allowing them to retrieve records of e-mails and other electronic communications, not just telephone records.
Such orders would not entitle investigators to review the content of e-mails and telephone calls, however, and electronic evidence obtained illegally would be unusable.
The legislation also grants Ashcroft's wish to remove the statute of limitations from a number of terrorism offenses, while increasing maximum penalties for terrorism-related crimes and expanding offenses to include support or expert advice to terrorists.
Those gathering intelligence information would now be allowed to share their information with criminal investigators.
The proposed legislation would drop provisions Ashcroft had sought that would allow certain intelligence information gathered overseas to be admitted in U.S. courts even if the methods used to obtain the information would cause the evidence to be thrown out of court if it had been gathered domestically.
Also removed were Ashcroft provisions that would have allowed authorities to search a suspect's home without notification that they had searched, and provisions allowing the release of student records to authorities.
The committee, while honoring many of the requests Ashcroft made, modified some of those provisions.
The lawmakers backed a list of crimes that Ashcroft wanted characterized as terrorism but added language that such crimes must be "calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion or to retaliate against government conduct."
Prosecutors would also have more ability to share grand jury information with other government officials investigating terrorism, but they would need court approval to do so.
Ashcroft would also have expanded ability to obtain business records of suspects, but he would not have the power he sought to do so without going to court first.
To protect civil liberties, the House legislation would create a new inspector general's office in the Justice Department for civil rights and civil liberties; it would be responsible for handling complaints and reporting to Congress.
The proposal would also increase, to $10,000 from $1,000, the damages private citizens could seek from the government for civil liberties violations.
Staff writer John Lancaster contributed to this report.
LINK: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A55410-2001Oct1?language=printer
National Post, Toronto
October 2, 2001Freedom shouldn't be price of terrorist fight: privacy boss
by Charlie Gillis
Protection urged for fundamental human rightsCanadians should beware of trading coveted freedoms and privacy in the rush to fight terrorism, even if stringent security measures make them and their U.S. neighbours feel better, says the federal privacy commissioner.
George Radwanski denounced a variety of proposals yesterday intended to enhance national security, including the issuing of national identification cards and expansion of camera surveillance in public places.
"We all want to feel less vulnerable," Mr. Radwanski said in a speech to the Treasury Management Association of Canada in Toronto. "But I don't think the objective of making people feel safe is a good basis for public policy, particularly where fundamental human rights are involved.
"The first test of any proposed measure has to be demonstrable need and effectiveness."
Compromising Canada's relatively free-flowing and anonymous way of life is "an unthinkable response to a finite band of criminals," the commissioner added.
Mr. Radwanski's comments come as government considers a variety of proposed anti-terrorism measures, such as aligning Canada's immigration and refugee laws with those of the United States to create a North American security zone, and creating a special cabinet post for security matters.
Air safety experts, among others, have suggested national identification cards as a means of helping customs inspectors, airline workers and police to track terrorists.
Such visions may not be entirely far-fetched. Last week, Elinor Caplan, the Immigration Minister, revealed plans to fast-track high-technology identity cards for permanent residents, which would contain pictures and other information about their holders for authorities to access at will.
Mr. Radwanski deplored the concept, noting that government already holds a surfeit of unorganized personal information about Canadians. Voters and government should carefully weigh the benefits of any such measure before expanding it to rest of the country, he said.
"Any terrorists who have established themselves here over time would probably be able to get such an ID card and show it on demand, though it would identify their occupation as 'terrorist,'" he said.
"So how would it make us any safer? It seems more likely to me that we would have lost the very important privacy right of anonymity, of not having to produce identification on demand as we go about our daily lives, without any appreciable gain in security."
The commissioner did say Ottawa seemed aware of the risks associated with a security crackdown. But he warned that the current climate of fear across North America could lead to measures Canadians would later regret.
At least one terrorism expert agreed with the need to protect basic liberties. But John Thompson, director of the Mackenzie Institute, argued that some immediate measures -- including the creation of a citizenship card -- can be justified.
"Yes, we all have our rights to privacy, but we also have a right not to be blown up," said Mr. Thompson, whose organization gathers and disseminates information on terrorism, organized violence and political instability.
He pointed to the case of Ahmed Ressam, the man linked to Osama Bin Laden who was caught in late 1999 trying to cross the Canada-U.S. border with explosives in his car.
"If we did have the right laws and a solid ID card for every citizen, then I don't think [Ressam] would have been able to travel off to Afghanistan for training," he said. "We would have had him out of the country fairly quickly."
"The attacks on Sept. 11 killed one in every 50,000 North American residents in a single day. We can sustain an attack like that maybe once. Not twice, not three times a year. Consider the enormous economic damage that has hit everybody in the bank account and pocketbook.
"Some changes are definitely required."
LINK: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?f=/stories/20011002/716271.html
Wired.com
October 1st, 2001Eavesdrop Now, Reassess Later?
By Declan McCullaghWASHINGTON -- House negotiators have drafted anti-terrorism legislation to grant police unprecedented eavesdropping powers that would automatically expire in two years.
Leaders of the House Judiciary committee have crafted a new anti-terrorism bill, called the Patriot Act, that includes nearly all the surveillance abilities requested by President Bush -- but with a sunset date of Dec. 31, 2003. A vote on the bill is expected this week.
A 122-page draft (PDF) of the Patriot Act, obtained by Wired News, says that police could conduct Internet wiretaps in some situations without court orders, that judges' ability to reject surveillance requests would be sharply curtailed, and that the powers of a secret federal court would be expanded.
The measure, prepared by House Judiciary chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) and Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan), is the product of two weeks of painstaking, closed-door negotiations between Congress and the Bush administration. Sensenbrenner and Conyers hope their alterations to Bush's proposal will assuage some of the concerns that conservative, libertarian, and civil libertarian groups have raised.
It doesn't seem to have worked.
The American Civil Liberties Union is urging Congress to reject the Patriot Act, saying it hands police far too much power. Congress is considering the legislation in response to the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the worst in the nation's history.
"While the (Patriot Act) deleted the provision allowing for use of foreign government wiretapping, it retained virtually all of the other problems of the administration's proposal," says Greg Nojeim, deputy director of the ACLU's legislative office.
The wiretapping section Nojeim is talking about is one of the most controversial portions of President Bush's "Anti-Terrorism Act" -- and it does not appear in the House Judiciary's Patriot Act.
The Bush administration had proposed that Echelon, the National Security Agency's shadowy data-collection system operated in conjunction with friendly nations, could be used to spy on Americans. Information gathered from Echelon and other electronic surveillance by foreign governments could be used against Americans "even if the collection would have violated the Fourth Amendment," according to the Justice Department's analysis of the bill.
Last week, the House Judiciary committee abruptly postponed a scheduled vote on anti-terrorism legislation until this week.
In his weekly radio address on Saturday, Bush urged Congress to approve his legislation -- which does not include an expiration date.
"In the long campaign ahead, (federal agents) will need our continued support, and every necessary tool to do their work," Bush said. "I'm asking Congress for new law enforcement authority, to better track the communications of terrorists, and to detain suspected terrorists until the moment they are deported."
Under both the administration's proposal and the House Judiciary's draft Patriot Act:
Police wiretap powers would be expanded, and the utility of the FBI's Carnivore surveillance system increased. Any U.S. attorney or state attorney general could order the installation of the FBI's Carnivore Net-surveillance system in emergency situations without obtaining a court order first.
Voicemail messages would be easier for law enforcement investigators to obtain. A search warrant would be required, instead of a wiretap order that brings with it a higher level of court scrutiny.
Wiretapping would become easier. Currently, police are required to perform "normal investigative procedures" before tapping, a requirement that would no longer apply.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a law that created a secret court to approve spy investigations, would be broadened and made more powerful.
One way in which the two proposals differ is that the Bush plan allowed for the indefinite detention of immigrants who were suspected terrorists. According to the draft Patriot Act, the indefinite detention is limited to after prosecutors secure a deportation order.
Brad Jansen of the Free Congress Foundation said he's worried about yet another draft anti-terrorist bill being written by Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont).
"There are things we want deleted. We're trying to keep out the 'Know Your Customer' -- the Senate Democrat money laundering -- proposal," Jansen said, on grounds it violates Americans' rights to financial privacy.
Leahy's bill, which appears to be gaining support in the Senate, is called the "Strengthening Our Domestic Security Against Terrorist Act." On Tuesday, his committee is scheduled to continue a hearing on the topic.
The Patriot Act stands for "Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism."
THE NEW YORK TIMES,
October 2, 2001CONGRESS: Negotiators Back Scaled-Down Bill to Battle Terror
By Neil A. Lewis and Robert PearWASHINGTON, Oct. 1 - Democratic and Republican negotiators in the House reached agreement today on a bill that would give law enforcement officials expanded authority to wiretap suspected terrorists, share intelligence information about them and monitor their Internet communications.
But the compromise bill also makes the wiretap authority temporary and omits or scales back some of the measures the Bush administration sought, notably the authority to detain immigrants suspected of terrorism indefinitely without charges. The administration had been pressing for far more extensive changes in the law and had hoped its proposals would move with little debate through a Congress eager to respond to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The proposal for indefinite detention of immigrant suspects engendered the greatest opposition from civil libertarians both inside and outside Congress. Under the plan agreed to this evening by Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the Wisconsin Republican who is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the committee's ranking Democrat, the government could detain an immigrant suspected of terrorism for seven days without bringing charges.
The two members of Congress and their staffs had worked over the last several days to forge a compromise after several committee members last week, both Democrats and Republicans, complained quietly but insistently that the administration's legislative package expanded the government's powers at the expense of long-established civil liberties.
John P. Feehery, a spokesman for Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, said Mr. Hastert hoped that the House would soon act on the proposed compromise. Richard A. Gephardt, the Democratic leader in the House, was in New York today viewing the damage to Lower Manhattan and had not yet reviewed the final bill. But his spokesman, Erik Smith, said Mr. Gephardt had great confidence in Mr. Conyers's ability to negotiate a compromise.
A senior Bush administration official tonight said that the House compromise proposal was encouraging because it demonstrated bipartisan support for much of the White House's wish list. But the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, also said some of the elements were troubling, especially a "sunset" feature that would have the expanded wiretap powers expire in two years unless explicitly renewed by Congress.
Senior Congressional aides said today that the expiration feature was crucial for a bipartisan consensus. One aide said that it was easier for some members to accept potential infringements on civil liberties if they were temporary.
Further complicating the administration's hope to quickly enact broad changes in criminal law, the Senate is moving along a separate track on its own antiterrorism legislation; that bill is not expected to be ready for a floor vote for at least two weeks. Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has made it plain he will not be rushed into accepting many of the administration's proposals.
At the same time Congress is deliberating changes in the antiterrorism laws, its members are moving swiftly to enact other measures in response to the attacks. Support is building in Congress for proposals to permit military personnel to assist in patrolling the nation's borders, to triple the number of agents on the Canadian border, to limit student visas, and to spend emergency funds for additional moves to tighten immigration rules and procedures.
Under the antiterrorism bill that will be formally introduced in the House on Tuesday and could be voted on as early as next week, a foreigner could be detained for up to seven days before being charged if the authorities had "reasonable grounds" for suspecting that person of terrorism. The person detained could also seek a review of that determination in the federal trial court in Washington. The administration had sought a lesser threshold for detention, that of the authorities having "reason to believe" the person was involved in terrorism, a designation that was not designed to be subject to court review.
The bill would also allow only the attorney general or the commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service to deem that there were reasonable grounds to label an individual a suspected terrorist.
Also under the bill, officials would be able to obtain authority to wiretap an individual suspected of terrorism, not just a specific telephone as they must do now. Law enforcement officials have complained that the wiretap laws, written when all telephones were wired, do not provide for terrorists using and discarding cellphones.
The bill would also put e-mail communications on a level with telephone communications. It would allow the authorities to use an easily obtainable subpoena to get from Internet service providers records of to whom and when e-mail messages was sent or received by a suspect. Currently, the authorities can obtain by subpoena the equivalent, called a pen register, from the telephone company, which discloses the time and destination of phone calls.
The actual phone conversations cannot be obtained by authorities without a search warrant, which requires a demonstration to a judge of probable cause that a crime has been committed; the same is true for e- mail messages. The administration had sought wider authority to monitor e-mail correspondence.
The House negotiators dropped an administration request that schools be required to disclose information about foreign students to investigators who said they had a reasonable need to obtain it. The compromise bill also omitted a provision that would have allowed officials to use evidence gathered abroad even if it was obtained by methods considered unconstitutional in the United States.
In devising a compromise, Congressional officials said, the negotiators were also concerned that the definition of terrorism in the administration proposal was too broad and would allow the authorities to treat crimes more harshly by deeming them acts of terrorism. As a result, the bill lists many crimes like hijacking and destruction of government property as qualifying as terrorist actions only if they were committed with a motive to influence or change the government.
The bill also narrows the definition of computer crimes that could be deemed potential terrorist acts. Negotiators said the administration's version would have given wide latitude to officials to treat all computer hacking incidents as terrorism. The bill now requires that the hacking be part of an effort to gain access to national security information, cause damage to a secure computer or obtain information from a secure computer system by threaten to damage that system.
The bill would prohibit intelligence officials from sharing information they obtained with anyone but law enforcement authorities in the federal government.
Representative Bob Barr, a conservative Georgia Republican, said tonight that he had not yet dropped his opposition to the legislation because he still had serious concerns. Mr. Barr, a former federal prosecutor, has described the legislative efforts as giving too much power to law enforcement authorities.
The House bill has been given the title "Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001" to allow it to be called by an acronym, the Patriot Act of 2001.
On the other side of the Capitol, lawmakers drafting the antiterrorism bill there have tentatively agreed on a plan to triple the number of immigration inspectors on the Canadian border. The agency's own analysis concludes that the current contingent of 300 Border Patrol agents is inadequate for the 5,500- mile boundary.
Many lawmakers support a budget increase for American embassies and consulates, so they can more thoroughly investigate the background of people applying for visas. Such investigations now are often perfunctory.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, has proposed major changes in the foreign student visa program, including a six-month moratorium on issuing new visas, comprehensive background checks on all foreign students and new requirements for schools to verify students' compliance with the terms of their visas.
Colleges and vocational schools are vehemently opposed to her proposal, saying it would disrupt their operations without significantly reducing the risk of terrorism.
LINK: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/02/national/02RIGH.html?pagewanted=print
THE NEW YORK TIMES,
October 3, 2001Plan to Expand U.S. Powers Alarms Some in the West
By Timothy EganCOLORADO SPRINGS, Oct. 2 - The people who live under the formidable jaw of Pikes Peak like their churches, houses and cars big, and their government small. They send a steady flow of Republicans east, and do not expect much to come west, unless it is tax cuts or farm subsidies.
So to many it has come as a surprise, bordering on outrage, that a government thought to be safely controlled by like-minded conservatives is trying to expand the power and size of the federal policing authority, increase surveillance and wiretapping powers, even consider proposals for national identification cards.
"Here it comes - our government trying to take away freedoms again in the name of a national emergency," said Ted Adamovich, a 53-year-old resident of Colorado Springs. "They can put a little more surveillance in airports, but beyond that - no. Let them try to make me sign up for a national ID card. I dare them."
Mr. Adamovich says he bleeds red, white and blue, and has been consistently loyal to one party. "I'm Republican, for now," he said. "But if they push this stuff, who knows where I'll end up."
His warning was echoed throughout the cradle of New West Republicanism, where it is almost as hard to find a liberal as it is a slice of street-side pizza. To hear some people talk, Janet Reno is still attorney general and Bill Clinton remains president.
"Some of this stuff they're proposing reminds me of a police state," said Bob Kosser, a member of the National Rifle Association, a Republican and an Air Force veteran who lives in this booming, conservative city along the Front Range.
"Cameras, wiretapping, e-mail surveillance," Mr. Kosser counted off, wearing a T-shirt featuring an embroidered American flag. "Are they going to be asking us to show our papers everywhere were go, like the Germans did?"
After the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, Mr. Clinton proposed expanding the reach of government wiretaps and giving authorities power to trace gun powder from explosives. But a storm of opposition that blew in from the Rocky Mountain West and the South helped to kill the measures.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration quickly put forward antiterrorism legislation to give the government more authority to seize people's assets, detain immigrants longer between court appearances, conduct broader wiretapping and other surveillance and to subpoena e-mail correspondence.
A national ID card was not part of the package the administration requested, but some members of Congress raised it as a possibility in the days the antiterrorist plan was being assembled.
Many leading Republicans, including Westerners like Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, favored the plan the administration introduced, and some called for even stricter measures. But Republican and Democratic negotiators in Congress have scaled back some of what the administration sought, deciding to make the wiretap provision temporary, for example.
Still, the train of expanded government authority has run into the very people who helped to put many Republicans in power over the last decade - strong gun supporters and former independents with a Western feistiness. They have been joined, for the moment, by allies from a distant and unlikely camp: liberals like Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, and the American Civil Liberties Union.
"My position, and the position of most pro-gun organizations, is that it is not a crime thing, it's a freedom issue," said Tony Fabian, president of the Colorado State Shooting Association, which is the state affiliate of the National Rifle Association.
"Any time the government is looking seriously at taking measures that roll back our freedoms as Americans - whether it's guns, communications or transportation - there needs to be very careful, cautious and measured evaluation," Mr. Fabian said.
The National Rifle Association, while expressing concerns that some provisions of the antiterrorist bill could be used by other administrations against gun owners, said it did not oppose the measure.
"As written, we don't see anything in the bill that goes to gun ownership," said Jim Baker, chief lobbyist for the N.R.A. "The way we read it, it's all tied into terrorist acts."
In interviews conducted randomly in Colorado, people seemed particularly concerned about the prospect of more surveillance. "I don't mind profiling as long as they don't do it on average people," said Kory Birge, a high school senior touring the Professional Rodeo Hall of Fame here. "But on the surveillance, I don't want it to get like London, where they have cameras everywhere."
Expanding the federal government's reach - through the establishment of a new home defense agency, increased federal involvement in airport security and bailouts for faltering sectors of the economy - has also struck a nerve among many Westerners. They said they thought the era of big government was over when Mr. Clinton declared it dead.
But the mood across the nation, according to several recent polls, shows that antigovernment sentiments have ebbed considerably. Not since 1966 has such a large majority - more than 60 percent in several polls - said that they trusted the government to do the right thing most of the time.
And here in Colorado, plenty of people say the government should take whatever security steps are needed to curb terrorism, even if it means a loss of civil liberties.
"I don't mind the stepped-up surveillance as long as they keep it in certain places, and don't try to come into the home with it," said Chuck Rice, 55, of Colorado Springs.
While most of the attention has focused on airport security, people here have started to voice concerns about the expanded federal authority.
"Just in the last few days, we've been hearing from a lot of people in the district who wonder what this bill means to them," said Sarah Shelden, a spokeswoman for Representative Joel Hefley, a Republican whose district includes Colorado Springs.
"Surveillance is a very big deal in our district," Ms. Shelden added. "People are concerned about Big Brother, that feeling that somebody might be watching them. It's just not the way they are used to living."
LINK: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/03/national/03WEST.html?pagewanted=print
Miami Herald,
Friday, October 5, 2001Time limits considered for new anti-terrorism bills
By Jackie Koszczuk
Civil liberties groups fear abuse of information-gathering laws
Herald Washington BureauWASHINGTON -- Congress is moving quickly to enact sweeping new powers to help federal investigators fight terrorism, but lawmakers may make those powers temporary as a check on possible abuses.
After reaching compromises on several issues this week, the House and Senate are expected to act on the Bush administration's anti-terrorism legislation next week. The proposals give the president and Attorney General John Ashcroft most of the tools they had asked for to go after terrorists.
Both the House and Senate versions of the bill would make it easier for police to tap the phones, cellphones, Internet and e-mail activity of suspects. Investigators also would be allowed to share information -- including normally secret grand jury information -- with intelligence agencies.
The proposals, particularly the last, disturb civil liberties groups that fear sensitive information gathered under the new rules could be abused, leaked for political reasons or exploited to besmirch reputations.
Both Republicans and Democrats favor allowing the enhanced powers to expire on Dec. 31, 2003, unless Congress renews them. The time limit is considered key to winning passage in the House, where the Judiciary Committee passed the bill 36-0 late Wednesday.
The Senate bill has no such time limit, but Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and other Democrats favor one. Leahy will chair the House-Senate negotiating team that will reconcile the differences between the two chambers' versions.
House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., said that the so-called sunset provision in the House bill "threads the needle between constitutional protections and giving the attorney general the proper law enforcement tools.''
Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, expressed misgivings.
"My friends in law enforcement tell me that they can be trusted not to abuse the sweeping new powers they have requested,'' he said. "I wish that were true, but history has proven otherwise.''
Conyers noted that during the Nixon administration the Central Intelligence Agency gathered secret information about Americans who opposed the Vietnam War.
The Bush White House opposes the House bill's time limit, as do a number of Senate Republicans, including Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the senior GOP member of the Judiciary Committee.
"If we could put a sunset on terrorism, then we could put a sunset on this bill,'' Hatch said.
Lawmakers who want permanent changes in law fear that terrorists will wait out the clock.
A possible compromise would be to leave the new law in place for a longer period, such as five years instead of two, said a Democratic aide.
Civil liberties groups continue to oppose the limited House bill.
Laura Murphy, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington office, said, "Our fear is that 10 years from now the American public will look back to this legislation and say, `This is where we crossed the line to a surveillance society.' ''
Under the House and Senate proposals, the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies would get broad new powers, including many sought since the 1995 terrorist bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.
Wiretap privileges, granted by court orders, would be extended to computer communications. Agents would be barred from reading content; they could monitor only where e-mail originates and goes.
Wiretap orders would also be "roving'' for the first time, meaning that agents could tap multiple phones and computer lines of a suspect who operated in several jurisdictions.
For the first time, investigators could obtain bank and credit card records by filling out a form rather than by obtaining a court order from a judge.
LINK: http://www.miami.com/herald/special/news/terrorism/digdocs/070579.htm
United Press International
5th October, 2001Senate Version of Anti-terror Bill Lengthens New Powers
WASHINGTON -- An anti-terrorism bill the Senate will consider next week does not include a 2-year "sunset" on new surveillance powers that was included in a House version to safeguard civil liberties, according to a summary of the Senate version.
White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer argued against a 2-year sunset of new surveillance powers.
"It is entirely possible, if not likely, that this war against terrorism is going to last beyond the sunset," Fleischer said. "And it's important that policy-makers have a realistic understanding of what this different type of war will involve and how long it will require giving the law enforcement agencies the tools they need so we can prevent further attacks on the country."
That bipartisan Senate bill would also triple the number of agents patrolling the border with Canada, and establish standards for an automated "fingerprint identification system" for points of entry, according to the summary.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Thursday he would "expedite" the bill and move it directly to the Senate floor, skipping deliberations in the Senate Judiciary Committee. <