[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 117 (Tuesday, September 17, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1592-E1593]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   OPPOSING THE WAR ON CIVL LIBERTIES

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 17, 2002

  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I remain strongly opposed to the 
continued efforts by President Bush, Attorney General Ashcroft and the 
Administration to seriously endanger our country's civil liberties. In 
the aftermath of the September 11 tragedies, Congress moved quickly to 
enact sweeping legislation granting additional powers to federal, state 
and local law enforcement authorities in the name of fighting 
terrorism. I voted against that measure because I believed, and still 
believe, that such measures intrude significantly on the important 
civil liberties that make American democracy invaluable and unique.
  The ``anti-terrorism'' legislation contained numerous provisions that 
had little or nothing to do with the war on terrorist activities. 
Amongst other things, the law authorized covert searches for any 
Federal criminal investigation, including the IRS, without restricting 
those to terrorist activities; provided for unprecedented wiretapping 
authority; gave access to confidential financial and medical 
information granted by a secret court; and allowed indefinite detention 
of immigrants solely on the basis of suspicion.
  In a September 10, 2002 editorial, the New York Times outlines the 
continuing and substantial nature of the assault on our civil 
liberties. In the wake of September 11, the administration has shown 
its ``contempt for basic rights in its enthusiasm for military 
tribunals.''
  Today, one year after the events that so tragically shook the nation, 
our precious civil liberties continue to be endangered in the name of 
``anti-terrorism efforts.'' Such a secret, covert and, ultimately un-
American agenda serves only to increase paranoia, rouse unnecessary 
public fear and stifle the protections that are fundamental to freedom, 
democracy and an open society. Rather than increasing security, such 
actions serve only to asphyxiate the public trust. Rather than 
protecting against terrorism, the foundations and principles upon which 
American democracy exist are slowly being eroded. The 4th Amendment was 
created for the purpose of ensuring our rights and protecting against 
the very violations to which our government would now subject us. The 
war on terror can be fought without surrendering our rights. As so 
amply stated in the New York Times, ``Fear is no guide to the 
Constitution. We must fight the enemies abroad without yielding to 
those at home.''
  I urge my colleagues to read the September 10, 2002 New York Times 
editorial entitled, ``The War on Civil Liberties.''

               [From the New York Times, Sept. 10, 2002]

                       The War on Civil Liberties

       It would be easy to dismiss the harm that has been done to 
     our civil liberties in the past year. Most of us do not know 
     anyone

[[Page E1593]]

     whose rights have been seriously curtailed. The 1,200 
     detainees rounded up after Sept. 11 and held in secret were 
     mainly Muslim men with immigration problems. So were the 
     people the government tried to deport in closed hearings. The 
     two Americans who were labeled ``enemy combatants,'' hustled 
     off to military brigs and denied the right even to meet with 
     a lawyer, are a Saudi American man captured in Afghanistan 
     and a onetime Chicago gang member.
       There is also no denying that the need for effective law 
     enforcement is greater than ever. The Constitution, Justice 
     Arthur Goldberg once noted, is not a suicide pact.
       And yet to curtail individual rights, as the Bush 
     administration has done, is to draw exactly the wrong lessons 
     from history. Every time the country has felt threatened and 
     tightened the screws on civil liberties, it later wished it 
     had not done so. In each case--whether the barring of 
     government criticism under the Sedition Act of 1798 and the 
     Espionage Act of 1918, the internment of Japanese-Americans 
     in World War II or the McCarthyite witch hunts of the cold 
     war--profound regrets set in later.
       When we are afraid, as we have all been this year, civil 
     liberties can seem abstract. But they are at the core of what 
     separates this country from nearly all others; they are what 
     we are defending when we go to war. To slash away at liberty 
     in order to defend it is not only illogical, it has proved to 
     be a failure. Yet that is what has been happening.
       Since last September, the Bush administration has held 
     people in prison indefinitely and refused to tell the public 
     who is being held or even how many detainees there are. No 
     less odious than the administration's secret arrests are its 
     secret trials. The government has barred the public and the 
     press from deportation hearings for immigrants suspected of 
     ties to terrorism.
       The administration has also shown contempt for basic rights 
     in its enthusiasm for military tribunals. In November, when 
     President Bush first issued the order setting these up, it 
     seemed the administration wanted to try anyone alleged to 
     have ties to terrorism, even American citizens arrested in 
     the United States, in military courts. Faced with an uproar, 
     the administration backed down, announcing that the tribunals 
     would accord defendants some rights. It then decided to try 
     several prominent terrorism suspects in civilian courts.
       This summer the administration unveiled, with great 
     fanfare, the TIPS program (for Terrorism Information and 
     Prevention System), to recruit Americans to spy on their 
     fellow Americans. As originally conceived, TIPS was to 
     include mail carriers, utility workers and others with access 
     to people's homes. Again, after a popular outcry the 
     administration scaled TIPS back.
       In times of conflict, the president seeks to increase his 
     power. Congress, sensitive to public fears over safety, 
     cannot always be counted on to stand up to him. That leaves 
     the Judiciary and members of the public to worry about the 
     trampling of rights. This year a number of judges have stood 
     out for their courage. Gladys Kessler, of Federal District 
     Court in Washington, D.C., declared that secret arrests were 
     ``odious to a democratic society,'' and ordered the 
     government to release the names of all detainees. It has not 
     done so. And Judge Robert Doumar of Federal District Court in 
     Norfolk, Va., who is presiding over one of the ``enemy 
     combatant'' cases, recently told prosecutors to submit 
     documents for his review so he could determine if the 
     defendant was in fact an enemy combatant. The Justice 
     Department, disgracefully, defied his order.
       As the Bush administration continues down its path, the 
     American people need to make clear that they have learned 
     from history and will not allow their rights to be rolled 
     back. The world has changed since Sept. 11, but the values 
     this country was founded on have not. Fear is no guide to the 
     Constitution. We must fight the enemies of freedom abroad 
     without yielding to those at home.

     

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