The War on Our Freedoms: Civil Liberties In An Age of Terrorism

While we were out of town last week, we had a chance to read this excellent new book, The War on Our Freedoms: Civil Liberties in an Age of Terrorism. It is a compilation of articles authored by many experts and journalists--one is even a civil rights attorney.

In each generation, for different reasons, America witnesses a tug of war between the instinct to suppress and the instinct for openness. Today, with the perception of a mortal threat from terrorists, the instinct to suppress is in the ascendancy. Part of the reason for this is the trauma that our country experienced on September 11, 2001, and part of the reason is that the people who are in charge of our government are inclined to use the suppression of information as a management strategy.

These essays by top thinkers, scholars, journalists, and historians lift the veil on what is happening and why the implications are dangerous and disturbing and ultimately destructive of American values and ideals. Without our even being aware, the judiciary is being undermined, the press is being intimidated, racial profiling is rampant, and our privacy is being invaded. The "war on our freedoms" is just as real as the "war on terror"--and, in the end, just as dangerous.

It is published by the not-for-profit, non-partisan Century Foundation. We really think you will like it and learn from it. So go, buy. With the 4th of July coming up, Independence Day, what book could be better suited?

Remember Bush's State of the Union speech in which he promised huge dollars for drug treatment -- provided by religious groups? Or his "faith-based" initiative in 2000 that mercifully died? Well, he's not giving up. But he's delusional if he thinks his new plan will get through Congress.

Bush is trying to get Congress to exempt religious groups from adhering to anti-discrimination laws on hiring policies. In other words, he is seeking to allow religious groups to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and religion when hiring.

A White House position paper sent to Capitol Hill argues that "religious hiring rights" are part of religious organizations' civil rights. "When they receive federal funds, they should retain their right to hire those individuals who are best able to further their organizations' goals and mission," the document says.

Yesterday the Supreme Court upheld an act of Congress requiring libraries to install filtering devices on computers that prevent users from accessing pornography sites, so long as the devices could be easily disabled by a librarian at the request of an adult.

In three sets of opinions, the splintered court held that forcing libraries to install anti-smut software does not violate the First Amendment rights of library patrons even though the filters also block out legitimate Web sites. The 6-3 ruling, which upholds a law passed three years ago, affects 119,000 libraries in the nation that receive federal funds, including many in the Bay Area.

....Library groups and patrons challenging the law protested that it also blocked out access to information on health, politics, gays and lesbians, and other legitimate Web sites.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that non-compliance with the law is punished by loss of federal funds. Libraries willing to forego federal funds don't have to install the devices.

Judith Krug, director of the Office of Intellectual Freedom for the American Library Association, predicted that many libraries might forgo federal funds rather than install the filters. Libraries -- including school libraries -- have received about $1 billion in federal funds in the last four years, about 1 percent of their total budget.

In San Francisco, Susan Hildreth, city librarian for the public library, said the library might give up the $240,000 it receives each year in federal funds, about half of the $430,000 the library budgets for telecommunications and Internet costs. Hildreth said that after Congress passed the filter law in 2000, San Francisco supervisors had adopted legislation that prohibits Internet filters being installed on computers used by adults or teenagers. "I don't believe our library commission or our Board of Supervisors would really be interested in the use of filters," she said.

What about poor communities that need the federal money?

"The impact of this will be much worse on poor communities rather than rich communities," said Christopher Hansen, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the Santa Cruz public library and several other libraries and patrons challenging the law.

We knew the headline Bush Issues Federal Ban on Racial Profiling was too good to be true.

Bush's new racial profiling policy sounds like a campaign move geared towards increasing his minority support. But it will only reach those who can't read between the lines.

President Bush issued guidelines today barring federal agents from using race or ethnicity in their routine investigations, but the policy carves out clear exemptions for investigations involving terrorism and national security matters.

...Arab-American and civil rights groups said the exemptions in the White House policy would give the authorities legal justification to single out Middle Easterners and others who may fall under suspicion, and they questioned whether the new policy — issued as "guidance" — would be aggressively enforced.

"This policy acknowledges racial profiling as a national concern, but it does nothing to stop it," Laura Murphy, director of the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in an interview. "It's largely a rhetorical statement. The administration is trying to soften its image, but it's smoke and mirrors."

To show you just how little change Bush and the Justice Department really intend, read this statement by White House Spokesman Scott McClellan:

"The way the president looks at it," a White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said, "this is about stopping the abuses of a few, and today's action should only strengthen the public's confidence that the vast majority of law enforcement officials have earned and deserve credit for the job they do in protecting Americans."

The abuses of a few? Is he kidding? It's been rampant all over America for years. Driving While Black. Driving While Hispanic. Driving While Muslim.

Further, what isn't a terrorist-related offense to Aschroft these days? Not much.

Germany In 1933: The Easy Slide Into Fascism Bernard Weiner, Co-Editor, The Crisis Papers
June 9, 2003

If my email is any indication, a goodly number of folks wonder if they're living in America in 2003 or Germany in 1933.

All this emphasis on nationalism, the militarization of society, identifying The Leader as the nation, a constant state of fear and anxiety heightened by the authorities, repressive laws that shred constitutional guarantees of due process, wars of aggression launched on weaker nations, the desire to assume global hegemony, the merging of corporate and governmental interests, vast mass-media propaganda campaigns, a populace that tends to believe the slogans and lies it's fed without asking too many questions, a timid opposition that barely contests the administration's reckless adventurism abroad and police-state policies at home, etc. etc.

The parallels are not exact, of course; America in 2003 and Germany seventy ears earlier are not the same, and Bush certainly is not Adolf Hitler. But there are enough disquieting similarities in the two periods at least to see what we can learn -- cautionary tales, as it were -- and then figure out what to do with our knowledge. ...

A good share of what we know about how this happened in Germany usually comes to us many years later from post-facto books, looking backward to the horror. There are very few examples of accounts written from the inside at the very time the events were unfolding.

One such book is " Defying Hitler," by the noted German journalist/author Sebastian Haffner. ... "Defying Hitler" is a brilliantly written social document, begun (and ended abruptly) in 1939; even though it fills in the reader on German history from the First World War on, its major focus is on the year 1933, when, as Hitler assumed power, Haffner was a 25-year-old law student, in-training to join the German courts as a junior administrator.

We're sorry we missed this--FBI Director Robert Mueller spoke at the ACLU Meeting in Washington Friday--1.400 members were present--and he got good marks.

We don't know what he said besides the few quips reported in the article, but we give Mueller a lot of credit for showing up and for saying he wants to keep a dialogue open on civil liberties issues. Unlike Ashcroft, he didn't unconditionally defend the treatment of immigrants post-9/11 even in face of the recent Inspector General Report. To the contrary, he said he expected the FBI to adopt many of the report's recommendations.

It's going to be a long, hot summer.

In Shreveport, LA, police pumped 8 bullets into the back of young black man they thought was holding a gun. He was holding a cell phone.

The cops chased the man for five miles because he was weaving in and out of traffic and they thought he might be drunk. When he pulled over and got out of the car, he had a shiny object in his hand. The cops say they thought he was adopting a "shooter's stance" and began firing. The cops have been exonerated by the local authorities. The prosecutor said the cops acted in self defense and this was a case of "justifiable homicide."

The community is angry.

.... many Shreveport residents were outraged, especially members of its black community. "That man was shot down like a dog," said one resident.

A growing number of American Muslims are accusing banks, credit card companies and money-wiring services of discriminating against them.

The allegations cover a host of financial services, from terminated bank accounts and credit cards, to major money wiring businesses refusing to transfer their money within or outside the country.

"We have definitely seen a growing number of calls from concerned people calling to ask what's going on," said Dalia Hasha, a spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union. "They are shocked because they're making good salaries, paying fees, abiding by the rules, but they are being prevented from conducting their daily lives."

Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Justice Department have reversed the discriminatory ban of a Gay Pride Event for Justice Department employees.

However, while Human Rights Campaign is praising the decision, it notes that the Department still refuses to endorse the event as it has in the past. Thus, the group says, Ashcroft still is not living up to his promises.

Richard Cohen writes Tuesday in the Washington Post of Ashcroft's Attitude Problem . Cohen argues that Ashcroft is more dangerous than those he detains.

My job is to connect the dots. So follow me as I take you from a typical newspaper story about yet another convicted murderer being freed after DNA testing to the testimony last week of Attorney General John Ashcroft. The first is clear evidence of the imperfectability of the criminal justice system, and the second is the smug refusal to admit it. Ashcroft has a serious attitude problem.

Cohen begins with Ashcroft being questioned about the 762 post-9/11 detainees:

None of them -- that's precisely zero -- was ever linked to terrorist activities. Yet some of them were held incommunicado for months. Either they were refused lawyers or so many obstacles were put in their way that it amounted to the same thing. They were denied visitors. Some were held in solitary confinement, verbally harassed and threatened and, on occasion, allegedly physically manhandled. To all of this, Ashcroft responded with a shrug. "We make no apologies," he said -- and, of course, he asked for additional death penalties in terrorism cases.

Cohen protests.

In the first place, the Justice Department got things exactly backward. In this country, you're innocent until proven guilty -- not the other way around. Second, harsh and inhumane treatment -- keeping the cell illuminated 24 hours a day -- ought not to be tolerated. After all -- and it is worth repeating -- the detainees were never charged with any crime linking them to terrorism. Most of them were detained because they were Muslims or Arabs. In this country, that ain't a crime.

Cohen asks whether Ashcroft owed the detainees an apology.

Innocent people were held behind bars, sometimes cruelly, for months at a time. They were sometimes called names and told they would never be set free. The report highlights the experience of one woman who for two months was repeatedly told her husband was not being detained (he was) and who, even after she found him, was permitted to visit him only three times in five months. Isn't she deserving of an apology?

Cohen notes Ashcroft refused to apologize.

To hear him, the system worked perfectly. This is precisely the mind-set he brings to capital punishment, of which he clearly cannot get enough....Routinely, it seems, yet another person walks from death row, freed on account of DNA testing. Routinely, we hear of yet another case where the defense lawyer fell asleep, a lab technician lied or some cop got a confession out of some addled suspect who did not, as it turned out, commit that particular crime. Oops.

Cohen sums up with these thoughts--

But when they were cleared, the detainees were owed an apology. A more humble attorney general would have conceded that mistakes were made and procedures violated, and that these are serious matters of concern. In this country, we bend over backward to protect the innocent. We don't casually trash their lives and then walk away as Ashcroft did, saying tough luck.

Go ahead, connect the dots on Ashcroft yourself. A cavalier attitude toward civil liberties, an inability to concede mistakes, a refusal to see imperfections in the criminal justice system, a zealously irrational belief in the death penalty -- and pretty soon you can read between the lines of that Justice Department report: The attorney general is far more dangerous than any of the immigrants he wrongly detained.

How heartening to hear a journalist say it.

Update: Ruben Navarrette, Jr. of the Dallas Morning News calls for Ashcroft to step down.

Get ready for another onslaught. This time, it's tiny devices known as Radio Frequency Identification Chips (RFIDs.) They are already in mass production.

Computer chips the size of grains of sand have become the latest trend among manufacturers seeking to track everything from automobiles to underwear to razor blades. The radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips now in mass production are affixed to postage-stamp-size labels.

The new technology can fix the exact location of virtually any consumer product and the humans who wear and carry the items. The radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips now in mass production are affixed to postage-stamp-size labels. Merchandisers, led by Wal-Mart, will soon use them to track goods inside the store. Shelf antennae will alert staff to restock products, or turn on surveillance cameras if shoplifting is suspected.

The implications of this technology, according to MIT, is "enormous."

The global infrastructure that MIT envisions is an Internet tool "that will make it possible for computers to identify any object anywhere in the world instantly. This network will not just provide the means to feed reliable, accurate, real-time information into existing business applications; it will usher in a whole new era of innovation and opportunity."

And that is what worries some privacy advocates, who fear the Big Brother technology attached to clothing will follow customers out of the store and be used to track people through the items they purchase.

A consumer watchdog group called Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion And Numbering (CASPIAN) is already boycotting Benneton's for putting RFID's on "smart labels" in...are you ready?...underwear.

It gets worse. The technology is capable of "X-ray vision, capable of reading personal items in handbags, brief cases and pockets.

The leading manufacturer so far is Alien Technology Corp. of California, which has a "contract from Gillette Co. to produce 500 million tags, at about 25 cents apiece, to track the firm's shaving products."

The Government is already hot on the trail of these pesky devices.

Some companies are already moving past consumer use and marketing the technology for military and homeland-security applications....ActiveWave says its RFID system can aid homeland security by real-time tracking of airport employees working in secure areas by their identification cards, and passengers by airline tickets. To expedite border crossing, the Homeland Security Department is already using the chips, embedded on identification cards.

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Hesiod at Counterspin Central brings us the inspirational story of an Egyptian civil rights activist who is using the legal system to effectuate change in his country.

Hessiod notes that:

The irony is that, at a time when our toadying, deferential courts are giving John Ashcroft and the Bush adminsitration a blank check to trample on our civil rights, activists like Abdel Mohsen Hammouda are actually IMPROVING civil liberties in a place like Egypt through the legal system.

It is also worth relaying this story if for no other reason than to point out that things CAN change in the authoritarian Middle East. No paternalistic invasions are necessary. Left to their own devices, the people will find a way.