Our Liberties, Traditions and Values  7-20-02 Submitted to N&O for op-ed

Raleigh, Our liberties are being slowly eroded without much critical discussion by either the press or congress. Let us examine some events since the tragedy last September in light of our national traditions and institutions. We learned in civic classes, that in order to protect our liberties, our republic has three branches of government with a beautifully tuned system of checks and balance which operates at the federal level and in all states. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights allow us to live under the rule of law and not the rule of man. Government is not centralized and is diffuse at the federal, state and county levels.

More importantly, law enforcement is handled by multiple organizations each having different jurisdictional responsibility. For example, unlike most other nations we do not have a central police force. We have the FBI, the Marshal Service, the INS, state police, city police county police etc. Each has jurisdictional responsibilities defined by laws enacted by a variety of elected bodies. Our armed forces are in five different branches each under civilian supervision. Unlike most other countries legal barriers exist which limits their actions within our borders.

 We allow a vast array of none governmental institutions to keep watch on the government and publicize any wrong doing by our elected or government officials. It is possible, therefore, to assert that our institutions are wide and deep; it is difficult for any one administration or any one person to seriously undermine our liberties. Changes to the system normally happen in an orderly fashion with many debates.

After last September, the President (not Congress which has the Constitutional responsibility) has declared ‘War on Terrorism.’ The function of government it was claimed is to protect the public from further attacks. In order to do that, extraordinary powers were hastily given and certain provisions of the Bill of Rights were summarily suspended. It seems like the authorities are beginning to see a terrorist behind every corner. Generalized warning of imminent and credible attacks have been continuously broadcast. What is worse we begin to judge all actions in terms of the ‘War on Terrorism’ - a rather ill defined undifferentiated term that seems to continually change. We are told that this is a long term expensive struggle and that may require preemptive nuclear first strike. If you count the number of times the T word is applied to all manner of events, it begins to loose any effective meaning

The fact is no attack has taken place since that dreadful day last September, and it is unlikely that any will. But under the rubric of the ‘War on Terrorism’ many things are being planned. For example, there is the Department of Homeland Security, which in one fell swoop goes a long way in unifying substantial law enforcement under one organization. It would be the first step to a national Police Force and would void much of our valued decentralization. What is worse, it violates the central philosophy of keeping the armed forces separated from internal civilian affairs, and it will operate in secrecy, exempt from the freedom of information act

 Another example is the Justice Department TIPS program (a clever acronym which stands for Terrorist Information Prevention System) that’ll start this fall. Under this program, it is planned to recruit and train million of workers that normally service homes and businesses to be on the alert for suspicious terrorist activity. Observations will be placed in a centralized database to be administered by Justice. In effect the workers would spy on their fellow citizens in a fashion reminiscent of the STASI East German secret police. Such techniques are normally used by totalitarian governments and are certainly contrary to our values. Details can be found in the Department of Justice web site (http://www.citizencorps.gov/tips.html)

 Finally there is the issue of the ‘disappeared’ – a large undisclosed number of immigrants are being held in camera, for whom the attorney general has created an alternate system of justice by executive regulation. Some 600 immigrants are being deported in absolute secrecy. Take a recent example reported by Mark Bixler of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on July 10th where police in North Carolina stopped a legal Palestinian immigrant for going four miles above the speed limit. They noticed he had a road map in which a variety of cities were circled in red. The FBI was called and established that he was father of six and was in the process of selling equipment to flee markets. They turned him over to the INS, which held him for four months and started deportation proceedings because he failed to report a change of address. This is not normal behavior for minor infractions.

 No emergency justifies the suspension of our constitutional protections. They certainly do not improve our security. Benjamin Franklin said it better than most, "He who gives up liberty for security gets neither."

_______________

 Sami A. Halaby is a retired Palestinian American scientist who came to the United States in 1951