In a survey by the Pew Research Center, Americans expressed more of an unwillingness to allow the government into their private lives than at the beginning of the war. Fewer people in the survey supported ID cards and more people were unwilling to have the government examining e-mail or credit card purchases. Not too surprisingly, respondents were less willing to have the government examining their personal lives. In other words, the government reading e-mail is one thing; the government reading my e-mail is quite another. Thirty-three percent favored the government examining phone calls or e-mail; when it is their own communications, support dropped to 22%.
People were more willing to support other — but equally controversial — security issues. In the August 2002 survey, 68% favored letting pilots to carry handguns. Fifty-nine percent had no problem with racial profiling at airports.
How do we feel about our freedom? In a survey conducted in 1996, 65% of those polled agreed that civil liberties should not be curbed to fight terrorism (what must have seemed like a very distant threat, indeed). Even now, Americans seem to hold the same feelings: 62% expressed the same view. So, what do some people have to say about the new anti-terrorist legislation passed in October 2001?
Shortly after the September attacks, the PATRIOT Act was passed. It has made it easier for law enforcement groups to conduct surveillance and investigations. What are some of the powers granted by the new legislation? It is now easier for law enforcement to conduct secret search and seizures. The FBI has broader powers to conduct wiretaps. It is now easier to designate any group, foreign or domestic, a terrorist organization. The CIA now has access to testimony conducted by federal grand juries. Some of these new laws have already been put into practice: According to Justice Department statistics, more than 600 immigrants nationwide have been subjected to immigration hearings that were closed to the public and press. Two U.S. citizens were labeled "enemy combatants" to deny them legal protections. Other plans call for monitoring confidential attorney-client conversations.
Those on the other side of the fence immediately sounded the alarm. Several groups have also taken issue with the broad definitions in the legislation and the possible chilling outcomes of these new powers. Is the government headed back to the 1960s and 1970s, for example, when under Operation CHAOS, the CIA spied on anti-war and left-wing groups? Has "Big Brother" finally arrived? Or will these new powers be "checked and balanced"? It appears they will be. In August 2002, a Cincinnati Court of Appeals struck down a policy ordering that all immigration trials have to be conducted in secret when told to do so by the Justice Department. The court declared in its decision "democracies die behind closed doors." There was intense criticism of The Justice Department's Terrorism Information and Prevention System, known as Operation TIPS, a "national reporting system that allows American workers, whose routines position them well to observe unusual events, to report suspicious activity." Detractors claim that system will turn neighbor against neighbor. They imagine nervous meter readers and cable installers snooping in people's homes, looking for potential terrorists. The protesters raise a good point: Just how easy would it be for someone of Middle-Eastern descent to be considered "acting suspiciously"? Justice Department officials insist the systems would gather information….not names. (The U.S. Postal Service has declined to participate in the program).
Sources: "Temporary Turnabout." Public Perspectives, September/October 2002, p. 29; "Appeals court hear arguments today in second ACLU challenge to secret immigration hearings." Retrieved from http://www.aclu.org; Walter Shapiro. "Less-Adversarial Ash-croft An Image That Has Limits." USA Today, July 25, 2002; Abraham McLaughlin. "CIA Expands its Watchful Eye to the U.S." Christian Science Monitor, December 17, 2001, p. 2; "Postal Service Snubs Operation TIPS." Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com. All Internet data retrieved September 19, 2002.
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