Civil Indignities

A liberty-squelching sequel?

The Minneapolis Star Tribune
February 21, 2003

When Osama bin Laden's henchmen ended their evil mission on 9/11, they toppled more than Manhattan's towers. They also demolished the American assumption that freedom and security can coexist. The White House has made much of the ensuing uncertainty, trimming freedom's sails in the name of national safety. And if Attorney General John Ashcroft has his way, U.S. civil liberties may soon be snipped still further. His rumored Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 bespeaks despotism, not democracy. Congress must resist it.

Lawmakers haven't had the chance to object to this bill yet. In fact, they aren't even supposed to know about it. Nobody is. The plan was apparently cobbled in secret, and only recently leaked from Ashcroft's office onto the World Wide Web. Though Justice Department officials deny any such measure exists, the text available at www.publicintegrity.org _ the Web site of a partisan public-service journalism group _ reads exactly like an Ashcroft-crafted sequel to the liberty-lopping Patriot Act of 2001.

"Patriot Act II" offers everything an aspiring autocrat might wish for: It would expand government's spying power and curb judicial checks _ permitting 15-day wiretaps without court approval in a "time of emergency." It would expand law-enforcers' power to secretly arrest and indefinitely detain anyone thought to be linked to a suspected terror group. It would tighten the Freedom of Information Act to keep the public from discovering whom the government has arrested and why.

Most troubling, perhaps, is a provision that would strip American citizenship from anyone who supports political groups of which the executive branch disapproves. That could mean expatriation for any citizen who makes a contribution to a charity that the Justice Department decides is subversive _ even if the gift was otherwise legal and made in good faith.

Just how such harassment would keep America safe is hard to see. The Justice Department _ which disavows the plan despite evidence that drafts were sent to Vice President Dick Cheney and House Speaker Dennis Hastert _ apparently isn't ready to make the case.

Actually, it's heartening that Ashcroft's office is so reluctant to claim ownership of this hodgepodge. It could mean that even the attorney general feels abashed about such shameless bashing of civil liberties.

Secrecy and suppression, after all, have never been known as the building blocks of U.S. democracy. They're not commonly used to shore up that American invention called freedom. They are the tools of McCarthyites, of men who see no difference between liberty and license _ of people willing to undermine the foundation of freedom to fight an unseen enemy.

It takes real nerve to defend such sabotage. So perhaps Ashcroft will forever deny that the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 is his handiwork. Perhaps the legal experts lamenting the damage this draft would do will never witness its appearance on Capitol Hill. Maybe "Patriot Act II" will become another urban legend _ a horror that arose from the mists of the Internet, not the depths of Ashcroftian minds. What a strange and pleasant happenstance that would be.

Copyright 2003 Star Tribune

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