Will the long arm of the law strangle freedoms?

Sridhar Krishnaswami

IN THE aftermath of the horrific events of September 11, there is anticipation in America. On the one hand, about how the Bush administration will handle the military operations in and around Afghanistan; some in the administration also want to expand the net and go after Iraq. On the other hand, millions of Americans, Americans of foreign descent and foreigners are keeping their fingers crossed for a different reason. No one in the country - citizen or immigrant - has any use for terrorism and terrorists; yet there is widespread anxiety that in the rush to tackle terrorism, civil liberties may be curtailed.

The fear is well founded and not confined to ``foreigners'' who are so suddenly feeling the weight of the siege. But to say that those who are keen on capitalising on the environment for quick changes to the law are fascists would be stretching things. If the administration is in a ``hurry'', it is because of the feeling that the nation has paid dearly for the long delay. Republican law-makers, for the most part, tend to agree.

The Attorney-General, Mr. John Ashcroft, certainly has a point when he says the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department have more tools to fight organised gambling mafias than terrorists and their networks. But in asking for sweeping changes, Mr. Ashcroft and his allies have caused considerable unease on Capitol Hill, especially among Democrats and civil rights activists.

No one is talking about what the Justice Department's ``wish list'' will finally look like; and there is no doubt that there will be legal challenges along the way. After all, America is a nation of laws, not persons, as so many people point out so very often. The fear, of course, is that giving up freedom in the name of going after an enemy might end in a losing proposition on both counts.

Sceptics in Congress and civil rights activists are not, for instance, overly worried about the tightening of laws on wiretapping. Many believe the present laws are outdated given the developments in communications technology. Some also question the rationale of getting a court order for a wiretap on an instrument as opposed to a person owning several of them on a national basis.

For instance, the Justice Department and the FBI want permission to monitor cell phone and e-mail communication between suspected terrorists as also over landlines. These so-called ``roving wiretaps'' are said to be widely used in criminal investigations but not in terrorism-related cases. Senior members of Congress do not seem to have much objection on this aspect.

But what has woken up some members of Congress are sweeping surveillance, detention and deportation laws, particularly pertaining to non-Americans, that the Justice Department is seeking. Democrats are more than just a ``little'' uncomfortable with the idea of non-Americans being picked up, not to be heard from for days by even their lawyers. And the thought that America would actually stoop to the level of throwing out a person without presenting valid reasons in court is unbelievable to many.

Left to many Conservatives, the time is right to make the ``right'' changes and shut down the loopholes in immigration laws. But to many liberal and left-of-centre politicians, this is a troubling phenomenon. In the last two weeks, it has become almost routine for the White House to get ``anything'' it wants, and sometimes even more, from Capitol Hill.

The pursuit of tough anti-terrorism laws and hunting down terrorists is one thing; but infringing on the rights, civil and human, of individuals, even of non-citizens, is a different ballgame in the U.S. And there are enough law-makers who would not be afraid to speak up. As this quiet debate unfolds, politicians are not even talking about the ``unconstitutionality'' of some of the proposed measures. Many are simply ``troubled'' by what is unfolding.

Meriting some special attention in the House of Representatives and the Senate are provisions in the planned Anti-Terrorism Bill that seeks to enhance the powers of the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS). In particular, the Attorney-General has been warned that the idea of indefinite detention of non- citizens suspected of having ties to terrorist cells is far beyond the existing laws and may even be unconstitutional.

For his part, Mr. Ashcroft has argued that this call for enhancing the authority of the INS is confined to those who are already under detention and subject to deportation proceedings. But this explanation has not been taken at face value. ``Many of us have serious concerns about the administration proposal to detain someone indefinitely on the mere suspicion'' of involvement, said the Massachusetts Democrat, Mr. Edward Kennedy, who is the Chairman of the Immigration Sub-Committee of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

However horrific the events of September 11 may have been, there has been another side to the developments that has also attracted some attention in the official establishment - the intimidation, harassment and even killing of people who appeared out of sync with the so-called mainstream. The physical abuses and profanities by even enforcement agencies aside, several persons have been thrown out of aircraft on account of their looks.

What is surprising to many is that in the last two weeks there has not been even a murmur about the intelligence failure on the part of the FBI and the Central Intelligence Agency. The feeling is that this is not the ``right'' time to be pointing fingers. And law-makers who started off being critical of the leadership of the intelligence agencies have backed off to a very large extent. Now does not seem to be the time to enquire into intelligence lapses. Now is the time to close loopholes.

In normal times, tightening of laws would have caused an uproar and a subject such as the immigration policy is a highly contentious one on account of the ethnic mix of the population and its political underpinnings. But these are extraordinary times in which even law-makers are reluctant to say or do anything for fear of being accused of not falling in line in a time of crisis.

For the most part, the White House and the administration will get away; and the saddest commentary would be that all this is being done in a fashion that smacks of exploiting a troubled and emotional environment. Many Republicans want the Anti-Terrorism Bill out of the way by October 5, the target adjournment date for this session of Congress. The White House led by the Vice- President, Mr. Dick Cheney, has been lobbying for an early legislation, but some Republican law-makers such as Senator Arlen Specter find some things troublesome, especially permission to detain non-citizens ``without evidentiary basis''.

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