More security vs. freedom fallout

This wasn't supposed to happen here

[Reprinted from Issues & Views November 19, 2001]

The worrying continues over the consequences of recent legislation that is ostensibly designed to "protect" Americans. The Christian Science Monitor asks why individual members of Congress have been quiet after both houses passed the USA Patriot Act, that gives broad intrusive powers to government agencies.

"We've been preoccupied with other things," says Senate Majority Whip Harry Reid of Nevada. "I can live with the new military court and the 5,000 interviews, but I can't live with not allowing attorneys to speak to clients in private. We're seeing what we can do about it."

On Wednesday, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan called for congressional hearings on "the broad array of concerns raised by Federal law enforcement policy in the wake of the terrorist attacks."

From Time magazine's Jessica Reaves, we hear this:

This Tuesday, the Bush administration went to a whole new level when the President signed an emergency order allowing non-citizens suspected of terrorism to be tried in military tribunals.

The decree, urged on the President by Attorney General John Ashcroft, allows the government to circumvent the legal requirements of a civilian trial (i.e. all that "innocent until proven guilty" stuff) in favor of brisk, clandestine proceedings behind closed doors. No jury, no public hearing. Just swift "justice." Some legal experts question the necessity of creating a whole new court system. "It's not clear to me why we're doing this now," says Professor Jonathan Entin, who teaches constitutional law at Case Western Reserve University. "We tried the people who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 in civilian court. Since we figured out a way to handle that trial, I guess my question is why this administration now sees civilian courts as inadequate."

Susan Milligan of the Boston Globe writes about the roughly 1,100 people now being detained in connection with the September 11 attacks. Members of Congress and others claim that they have received little information about the detainees from the Department of Justice, and they have been informed that they "won't get a full report before Congress adjourns for the Thanksgiving holiday."

Elise Young, of New Jersey's Record, suspects that some officials are pleased with this unexpected opportunity to acquire new technological devices:

Toward the bottom of the Pentagon's 38-item security wish list, between the video-powered human tracker and the bomb neutralizer, is some of the heavy-duty snoop equipment: the camera that sees through walls, for example, and the software that identifies red-flag retail purchases--any time and anywhere. The hope is that the U.S. military can get all the gadgets listed in 12 to 18 months. Never mind that the Pentagon doesn't have contractors lined up to build the stuff. A few of the items don't even exist. . . .

Privacy and intelligence experts point out that funding increases--combined with strong public support for increased security and rapidly advancing database and imaging technology--could produce profound change in a short time. . . .

Phil Agre, a professor of information studies at UCLA, says use of the Visionics system [face scanning software] at events like the Super Bowl goes against a free society's most basic principals. "The potential for abuse for facial recognition in public places is astronomical," Agre says. "Once there's a bureaucracy behind it, then imaginations will begin to work overtime about what else to do with it."

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