It is said that you can boil someone in a bathtub without them knowing it, provided you turn the temperature up slowly enough. The war on terrorism is eroding civil liberties little by little, but few seem to care. Since Sept. 11, several new laws and policies have been created to fight terrorism. Some of these are effective and necessary, but others set a dangerous precedent for skirting due process and keeping secrets from the American people.
The clearest examples were during the bombing of Afghanistan. Estimations on civilian casualties run anywhere from a few hundred, according to the Associated Press, to several thousand, according to a study by University of New Hampshire professor Marc Herold. The Pentagon has never candidly addressed this, nor has it addressed the presence of unexploded cluster bombs, which could maim and kill people for years to come. Without this information, we can never judge the full effects of our air strikes.
There are non-military examples of rights abuses as well. Mr. Bush wisely made it clear that fighting terrorism cannot be solely a military endeavor, emphasizing human intelligence and financial ways of combating threats. The US over the last few months has successfully frozen the assets of several organizations and banks allegedly supporting terrorism.
The most notable of these was the freezing of Al-Barakaat - one of the "hawala" banks that relies on passwords, trust and connections to do business, sometimes used by the Islamic world to transfer funds instead of traditional Western banks that rely on contracts and paperwork. In November, the US announced it had proof that the bank was funneling $25 million year to terrorist organizations. Customs agents raided Al-Barakaat's offices and seized their documents. Yet only four criminal prosecutions have been filed, none of which involve terrorism. The US has yet to provide any definitive proof that Al-Barakaat actually contributed money to terrorism. According to a New York Times article, the connection is based on the information provided by only one source.
OK, if the bank was indeed financing terrorism, shut it down and prosecute the owners. However, be sure when you make your accusations and provide evidence to back them up. Neither has been done in this case - the crackdown on Al-Barakaat was initiated on sketchy information and no real inculpating [EJB1]evidence has been produced.
Another example is the detention of Arab or Islamic residents for visa violations. There were at times around 1,100 people held in custody in undisclosed locations. Their names were not released, nor were the details of their arrests. Yet only a handful of these people were believed to have connections to terrorism. There was no way to tell how they were being treated, what the charges against them were or how long they were to remain in custody. This secrecy sets a dangerous precedent.
The detention of about 300 al Qaeda suspects has also violated human rights. The prisoners have not been provided legal council or the right to challenge their detention in court, the press has not been invited to extensively cover the conditions in Camp X-Ray, the statements of US officials seems to assume guilt and the details of the arrests, or even the identities of the detainees, has never been made public. Furthermore, they have not been granted prisoner of war status, meaning they do not fall under the protections of the Geneva Conventions.
That is scary. So is the adoption of military tribunals to provide summery judgments outside the public eye. These tribunals have no protections for forced confessions, no access to outside media, no right of appeal and no presumption of innocence. Such tribunals fly in the face of so many of the rights the US itself holds as fundamental.
Furthermore, the treatment of Arab immigrants in the US has been disgraceful. By indefinitely detaining people who overstay their visas, demanding records of foreign students from universities and requesting that Arab-Americans "voluntarily" be interviewed (would anyone guilty of wrongdoing voluntarily agree to be interviewed?) sets a dangerous precedent. Apparently, the ideals of our Constitution only apply to citizens, not people in other countries and certainly not foreign people living in the US.
What is most dangerous is that these developments open huge doors for abuse. By expanding our definition of terrorism, we can began prosecuting drug smugglers in military tribunals, or indefinitely detain any suspect who does not happen to be a US citizen, or freeze the assets of any organization remotely connected with shady characters (that includes most of the major financial institutions of the US).
The remarks of US officials has been, at times, insulting to the intelligence of the American people. We are told by Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Rich or even Mr. Bush himself to "trust us on this one", as if the US does not already have a terrible history of abusing such trust. They have repeatedly refused to admit making any mistakes in the war on terror. Put simply, bad things happen when there is no accountability of leaders or transparency of government. Our own George Washington said, "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."
