The Civil Liberties vs. Security Conundrum
The tragedy of 9/11 resulted from the Clinton administration’s failure to understand that terrorism is neither a criminal justice matter nor a test of our adherence to civil liberties, but a matter of national security. Terrorism is warfare — surrogate and low-intensity warfare, but warfare nonetheless.
In 1993, the blind cleric Sheik Rahman masterminded the bombing of the World Trade Center. Rahman was tried as a criminal, not an enemy combatant, with full access to the protections and privileges of the American legal system. His lawyers used the discovery process to obtain information about the government’s unindicted co-conspirators. The government list later turned up in the hands of al-Qaeda operatives who bombed our embassy in Kenya.
Once convicted, Rahman was prohibited from having contact with the outside world; the government feared he would direct terrorist operations from prison. However, his radical lawyer, Lynne Stewart, served as a conduit for Rahman’s ongoing terrorist adventures. She was later arrested and convicted.
Civil libertarians were outraged that the “sanctity” of the convict/lawyer relationship had been violated. Yet there was no outrage that Rahman was plotting murder, and that Stewart was acting not as an officer of the court, but as a go-between in a criminal conspiracy. Stewart, while out on bail, spoke at San Francisco State University and other leftist venues, where she was enthusiastically embraced as a martyr.
It was in the Rahman case that Jamie Gorelick wrote her now infamous “wall-of-separation” memo, separating the intelligence community from information surfacing in criminal investigations and vice versa.
Gorelick’s memo was later used by Pentagon lawyers to stop the data-mining operation known as Able Danger. They prevented the team conducting the Able Danger operation from contacting the FBI about intelligence related to 9/11 that was unearthed in advance of the event.
Such walls were partially demolished by the Patriot Act. Seeing terrorism as a national security issue caused the Bush administration to promote cooperation between law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
The most outrageous consequence of the mindless adherence to the criminal justice model was the Clinton administration’s refusal to accept Osama bin Laden from the Sudanese and later the Afghans. The administration’s response was that they had no idea how to charge him as a criminal. What law did bin Laden break?
As Democrats agitate in this election season over our inability to capture bin Laden, they should consider — after the demolition of two skyscrapers and the loss of three thousand lives — that bin Laden was once ours for the taking.
The viable covert operations capability in our intelligence community was wrecked by Frank Church’s public revelations of the community’s dirty laundry during Congressional hearings held in the early 1970s. Jimmy Carter’s administration fired some 820 covert operatives, in the infamous “Halloween Massacre,” and severed the spy networks those operatives ran.
The consequence is that we can’t find bin Laden because the capacity to run covert operations has never totally recovered.
Our political parties have responded to terrorism with dramatic differences. To put it bluntly, when Osama calls, Republicans believe the intelligence community should listen. Democrats believe that there is more to fear from the intelligence community than from bin Laden.
Should the Democrats come to power, expect them to build walls that hinder the fight against terror. If you believe that terrorists like Sheik Rahman should be afforded the opportunity to abuse the criminal justice system to further their goals, and that the National Security Agency is a bigger threat to you than al-Qaeda, then join the Democratic base. But if you think that protecting the lives of Americans is more important than securing the rights of terrorists, then common sense will lead you to the same decision that most Western democracies have already made.
I think there’s a good solution to this. Declare non-citizens not protected by our Constitution and its guaranteed Rights. Such an amendment would solve lots of problems, like terrorism and illegal immigration, while protecting our own citizens’ rights. One must first define the enemy.
Thank you for this!
I hadn’t paid much attention to the whole Able Danger thing as it was unfolding. Thanks for the synopsis. I knew Jamie Gorelick had wrecked the intelligence infrastructure, but I didn’t know the specifics.
Only Nixon could go to China. We can only hope that if Obama is elected he has the sense to beef up our own security.
It shouldn’t be forgotten that the most appropriate response is to root out those who support terrorists–in particular those states that sponsor them–and remove them from existence. It’s probably impossible to protect against terrorist attacks through internal security, which is why it’s doubly important to remove the root causes of terrorism.
Does anyone think that we as Americans go way overboard in order not to offend a groups feelings ?
I am reminded of the waste of time and money that have been wasted strip searching granny at the airport . My mother had to throw away her yarn needles this last Christmas .
Thank you so much for this history lesson that all citizens of the United States needs to learn.
Read Bill Gertz latest book The Failure Factory it explains fantastically how liberals have screwed up our national security. There are pages devoted to Jamie Gorelick who should be charged with treason. If McCain is four more years of Bush in terms of national security I will be happy to have it. Without National Security no other issues matter.
I am most presently concerned about an active US Army brigade being tasked with homeland security response. While there are no immediate concerns about martial law (consider that this is 3,000 soldiers in a nation of 300 million well-armed civilians). The use of Federal troops for civilian law enforcement would clearly be a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. If you are also concerned about this, then please contact your paid to represent you, congressional representatives, and give them a piece of your concerned mind.
http://www.northcom.mil/News/2008/093008.html
US Northern Command Gains Dedicated Task Force
Notutopia, the Posse Comitatus act was created to stop the Federal Reconstruction of the South after the War Between the States. It allowed segregation, Jim Crow, the Klan, and unanswered violence against blacks to continue for decades. That’s not such a good thing, is it? But even Posse Comitatus allows the governor of a state to ask for military aid.
For a much deeper analysis of why we have to at least consider taking down internal/external walls like Posse Comitatus, see Philip Bobbitt’s Terror and Consent. (Bobbitt is a lifetime Democrat, by the way, and is IMO unfairly harsh on George Bush, but his analysis is strong enough that it should be accepted or refuted.) For why these responsibilities fall to this generation, read his previous work The Shield of Achilles. But if you have the guts to take on TSoA, be warned that if you don’t read and re-read the introduction until is seems (almost) obvious, you will probably miss the point of the book.
I’m not concerned about Posse Comitatus. I don’t view it as sacrosanct. Besides, we are at war with terrorism. If we have to use troops within our borders, it’s because there would be enemies within our borders. Just because the enemy is a terrorist, doesn’t mean he’s not an invader.
Mark — the root causes of Terrorism are really, polygamy. Which leaves a few men with four wives and most men with none. It’s estimated that about 30% of men in the Arabian peninsula have more than one wife, and 60% have none. This leaves them without any role in their society, except through Jihad which is the only means to find “wives” through 72 virgins in the Afterlife.
There is no way to eliminate the root causes because Islam’s pillar IS polygamy. Polygamy is indeed Islam’s reason for existence. Heck Obama’s father was a polygamist, who got his then 17 year old mother pregnant while married to other women in Kenya, and who returned to Kenya to marry multiple women at the same time.
Unless we kill about 45% of men 18-44 in the Muslim world, a horrifying prospect, eliminating root causes is simply impossible. Since the polygamy will continue, with most men losing out and thus becoming Jihadis.
Thus, the need to impose serious anti-terror measures, including overt profiling of Muslims and over discrimination, shutting Muslims out of the West as much as possible.
Because nuclear proliferation, in weak, divided, tribal-oriented states means obscure would be tribal leaders in places like Pakistan or Iran can decide if Copenhagen or NYC lives or dies. One Western city WILL die from a Muslim nuke, delivered by shipping container, and THEN you will see a totally different world. You will not like it.
All the more because the nuclear death of up to 6 million Westerners in a nuclear bombing by Muslim terrorists — is totally preventable.
Civil libertarians have been absolutists for a long time. One of these days, there will be another major terrorist attack, probably with a WMD (although that most recent major attempt was to blow up airliners over major US cities – stopped just in time by the British).
I have long urged civil libertarians to pre-emptively prepare for terrorism related laws by working on ways to cooperate the government in order to maximize security and minimize true abuses.
We have had a fetish of privacy in the US. Privacy (outside one’s home) is going away. Civil libertarians need to figure out how to protect our more important liberties in light of this fact, rather than constantly fighting it (and having librarians destroy records).
Security is nothing less than the excuse of the bipartisan plutocracy,to strip americans of their first and second amendment rights,in order to intimidate and opress them. Wait until Obama wins, you’ll see all of Bush’s national security poison,dumped on blogs, talk radio,and groups unacceptable to liberals,such as ther boy scouts, the NRA, and The Heritage foundation.Watch for the ACLU and the NYT “discover” situations where torture is permissible,and watch for the IRS to tsart harassing people who write on this blog.
Interesting post. I wasn’t aware of the Clinton administration’s negligence or how it contributed to 9/11. Thanks.
Marc Malone: the biggest enemy free Americans face is an Obama presidency with a Dem-controlled congress,armed with the Bush national security “laws” .If Dems achieve this, guantanamo bay will soon be full of talk radio hosts, libertarians, gun owners,and Thomas Jefferson enthusiasts .The main reason terrorism hasn’t struck the US, is to undermine the Bush presidency, and make him look like an overeacting fool,not the efficacy of measures that clearly threaten civil liberties.One question for the Shrub:”If Islam,as you said,is a religion of peace,then why do we need extra-legal national security measures? Oh I forgot, it’s those dangerous angry white males ,and their guns!Why some of them ,after the massacres at Waco,and The Weaver farm had the nerve to call the Bush senior’s ATF/FBI thugs “storm troopers”!Arrest the impudent hicks,send’em to Guantanamo!
This video was shot in 1985 but is particularly germane considering the crises our country faces today and considering that one of the candidates in the Presidential race has undeniable Socialist/Marxist leanings.
Whatever else you may conclude about this video, after viewing it you will have a very different perspective on causes of the current financial meltdown.
http://www.darkskiesblog.com/2008/10/07/video-presentation-of-marxist-ideological-subversion-in-us-video-embed-very-interesting/
deguello – Um, what exactly was the point you were trying to make to me? It didn’t seem to attwach to anything I posted. Sorry if I’m dense tonight.
Another great article from Dr. Miller. His years consulting to the justice department give us a window to the inside that we would otherwise never have.