The Association for Women Attorneys and the West Publishing Group hosted a forum Friday to discuss the war on terrorism and how the anti-terrorism legislation proposed by Attorney General John Ashcroft and the White House would affect American’s civil liberties.
About 100 students and faculty gathered at the Cecil C. Humphrey’s School of Law to participate in the forum, along with U.S. Rep. Ed Bryant (R-Tenn.), former U.S. Attorney Veronica Coleman and Jim Willis, holder of the Hardin Chair of Excellence in Managerial Journalism.
“We face a committed, deviant and perverted enemy that is bent on the destruction of the America we know,” Bryant said. “As we react, as a government, on many fronts we have to be careful not to dismantle our constitutional rights, diminish our fundamental rights of privacy or inappropriately expand law enforcement’s investigative authority.”
Bryant said balancing the need for national security with constitutional rights is an essential part of the war on terrorism.
“What we have to avoid in this country is an overreaction,” Bryant said. “Particularly in the legal system, because that would be a victory for these terrorists.” Bryant said some of the ant-terrorism legislation proposed by Ashcroft and supported by President Bush may be an “overreaction and maybe go too far.”
While he said some of the legislation may be too intrusive or broad, Bryant said changes are needed to keep up with terrorists who use new technologies and modes of communication to elude detection and capture by law enforcement agencies.
“Our law enforcement has to be able to keep up with folks and have the ability to act and react in order to be successful,” Bryant said.
The proposed anti-terrorism legislation would ease restrictions on wiretaps and search warrant requests and broaden the scope of the laws to include e-mail and voice mail.
In addition to these measures, the proposals would grant more powers to the Immigration and Naturalization Service to find, detain and deport illegal aliens who are suspected of having ties to terrorists or terrorist organizations. The legislation would also allow for more intelligence sharing between nations who may have different legal systems and standards.
The proposed legislation would allow for the indefinite detention of aliens suspected of having ties to terrorists or their organizations and it would give the government the authority to search a person’s house without notifying that person for 90 days.
This “war within” is the most troubling aspect of the war on terrorism for Coleman, who had friends and family in Washington D.C. and New York City on Sept. 11.
“First of all I was overjoyed that everyone was all right. Then I was angry. I was angry that we were attacked and I was angry that we were unprepared for it and knew so little about it,” Coleman said. “Now, I am angry because I am worried about what it will do to us as a people in the future.”
Coleman said she worried that the proposed legislation could lead the government down the slippery slope of intrusion by government agencies into the private lives of American citizens.
Coleman said that while our military defenses are on high alert, Americans may tend to let down their constitutional defenses. Coleman raised the specter of citizens informing on their neighbors and a possible return to McCarthy-era hearings and trials. Coleman also noted that the government has in the past abused its investigative authority to monitor citizens who held views that differed with the policies of the federal government. Coleman also warned against racially profiling those people of or suspected to be of Middle Eastern descent in an effort to round up suspected terrorists.
“One has to be concerned not with what happens now, but what happens down the road,” Coleman said. “After this war is over, do the laws stay on the books?”
Willis addressed the media’s role in the coverage of the attacks and the war to come.
Willis said journalists have “enormous responsibility” when they have to balance the needs of informing the public while not endangering the lives of American troops and personnel.
Bryant said he was “very impressed” by the performance of FBI director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Ashcroft but added that he thought the CIA and its director, George Tenet, “dropped the ball.”
Bryant said that former President Clinton and Congress placed limits on the agency’s ability to gather intelligence.
On various television show Sunday, Ashcroft urged Congress to pass the legislation as soon as possible. Ashcroft said the threat of further terrorists attacks remains a “clear and present danger” and the risk of attack may escalate as the U.S. wages war on terrorism.