The Arab American Mirror http://www.alif.com/mirror
Recently, Americans have been duped into legislating their civil liberties away over an incredibly exaggerated domestic threat in the form of politically motivated violence. We have unwittingly closed an eye to legislations with innocuous sounding names but sinister side-effects. After all, why would we object to a "counter-terrorism" bill supposedly crafted to safeguard our safety and ensure peace of mind. The so called counter-terrorism legislations were poison pills we swallowed whole. Not unlike many Americans, I was also late to fathom the magnitude of the severe erosion of what we have taken for granted but others would only dream of, our civil liberties.
In one masterful stroke by a self-serving Congress and calculating foreign lobbyists, Americans lost on three fronts: our tax dollars will be squandered to police fundraising activities of foreign groups; we are now forced to take sides in bloody struggles where we have no national interests at stake further endangering American lives abroad; worst of all our liberties have been crimped exposing us to serious governmental abuses.
OUR DISCOMFORT FOR THEIR PEACE OF MIND
It all started when lobbyists representing foreign governments campaigned aggressively through US-based PACs and poured millions into Congressional coffers resulting in freedom-constricting laws, our freedom. The draconian countermeasures Congress passed reek with double standards. It would be one thing for Congress to partake in the erosion of our liberties in response to the loss of hundreds of thousands of American lives over the years due to violent crimes. But for Congress to hold our liberties hostage for the benefit of foreign governments raises serious questions as to where members of Congress are willing to draw the line in their quest for incumbency and campaign contributions.
The discretionary powers given to the executive branch as a result of these new legislations fly in the face of the original intent behind restraining governmental powers. The alarming potential for abuse of power has resulted in political alliances of strange bedfellow such as the ACLU and the NRA who had the foresight to assess and react to the bad legislations. Many of us in the mainstream have reasons to be concerned too. The government’s performance in the case of Ruby Ridge and Waco, for starters, don’t bolster its credibility as a trustworthy enforcer of the law. The Hooverian FBI era still lingers in our memories and leaves little doubt as to what US law enforcement can do even in the absence of a free reign. History has a habit of recycling. No reason to think it won't relapse again. Governments and citizens have historically been impervious to the lessons of the past. Inter-generational memories are simply too weak to learn from the pain of past experiences with government abuses.
Every emotional cause has its extremist militants. Soon, if you are a pro-life, animal-rights, or NRA political activist you could be targeted for allegedly providing "indirect" material aid to militants. Just when you thought you were protected by the constitution, think again. The catch is that government now has broad powers of interpretation as to who is a terrorist and who is affiliated with terrorism. Better yet, under the guise of national security, law enforcement no longer has to share evidence with your defense attorneys so you may never know the exact nature of your offense. Only the judge, who is potentially a political appointee, would determine the relevance and integrity of such secret evidence. The traditional rigid review and confirmation process required of law enforcement agencies before invading our privacy has almost vanished overnight with the introduction of the so called terrorism and crime fighting measures which passed right under our noses.
THE REAL ABUSE EXCUSE
Many worst-case scenarios of law enforcement abuses, sadly, have left the realm of the hypothetical and are permanent scars in our history books ranging from Japanese American Internment to the burning death of 25 children in Waco. Many of those cases were tried in open courts if the victims lived long enough to tell the tale. And whenever evidence was challenged and proved unsound, innocence was affirmed and corrective measures usually followed. But in the presence of unrestricted invasion of privacy combined with sanctioned use of secret evidence, many of those whose innocence has been affirmed would have possibly ended in jail or deported to hostile countries. How likely for these worst case scenarios to occur again? Very likely given our government’s dismal track record at separating real enemies from political enemies and their propensity for deception. With their new gift of secret evidence, who needs a cover up. It is now the law.
How did we let Congress get away with this travesty of justice? Lack of accurate information combined with an aggressive disinformation campaign resulted in poor judgement. Thanks to the elite of Hollywood, the mention of terrorism conjures up images of depraved foreigners bent on our total destruction. But in failing to gauge the seriousness or the origins of the threat, we fell prey to political propaganda serving primarily foreign interests successfully cashing in on our horror following the World Trade Center, Oklahoma City, and TWA flight 800. Initially, all of those horrible incidents were attributed to foreign terrorists. But while only the World Trade Center bombing was officially linked to foreign terrorists, the images stuck in our minds of a besieged America under fire compelled us to overreact but to our own detriment.
Calls for extreme measures to prevent an exaggerated terrorism threat were not challenged or given a second thought. The bloody drama of TV coverage obfuscated the facts. All of a sudden the factors resulting in the loss of 19,645 American lives to violent crimes in one year were deemed less threatening to our safety than the politically motivated murder of 175 Americans in three years. As if to attach a lower moral value to the killing of an American by another fellow American, we demanded the severest consequences to the killing of an American by a non-American. Tell that to the American mothers of 19,645 violent crime victims.
PUNISHING THE VICTIMS
But the irony of it all is that in the process of curtailing foreign terrorist activities in the US, we have handed terrorism its greatest victory yet. The victories scored by terrorists are measured in political gains not in material ones. The destruction of life and property is merely means to a political end. So the curtailing of civil liberties for 260 million Americans and the strengthening of already incompetent and abusive law enforcement agencies is an irony worthy of a chuckle.
By granting politically motivated crime a special category worthy of special countermeasures we have in one half-witted move vested the government in office with the precarious task of defining who is a terrorist and who is a supporter of terrorism. Is the NRA member who rejects big government or pro-life activist who contributes to her cause are those associated with terrorism just because militants exist who champion the same causes. Once the genie is out of the bottle, it will take exponentially more effort to reverse the damage done to our fundamental rights.
In our rush to judgement, most of us approved of or did not object to this voluntary erosion of liberties. But we may never find the same critical mass again needed to rollback the damage. And instead of strengthening the checks and balances we have, in a moment of insecurity and anger, dealt a blow to ourselves, not to our over-hyped enemies. In our gullibility we have served the interests of foreign governments but at a great expense to our way of life. Hardly a wise thing to do. But good thing we still possess the right to regret.
