The United States of America was born in an armed struggle for freedom from tyranny. The liberties it sought for its people have been enshrined in a unique Constitution and guarded zealously for over two centuries. There have been some infringements of rights during periods of actual or perceived national peril, and our ability to maintain our freedoms under the current threat of terrorism is now an open question.
The framers of the Constitution surely had the excesses of the British monarchy and Parliament in mind as they forbade ex post facto laws and bills of attainder and severely restricted suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. But during the ratification process it became clear that a more explicit and extensive statement of rights was required. To this end, ten constitutional amendments were promptly added as a Bill of Rights, most prominently protecting the rights to expression, religion, assembly, security of persons and possessions, and fair trials.
Nevertheless, a few short years later, President John Adams, a leader in the independence movement and co-author of the Declaration of Independence, was pressing Congress successfully for the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which gave him extraordinary wartime powers under threat of a conflict with revolutionary France. While the ability to deport disloyal aliens was a key element of those powers, the laws were also used in substantial part to fine or imprison anti-Adams writers. Adams was defeated for reelection two years later.
President Woodrow Wilson's Attorney General, Mitchell Palmer, conducted raids and deportations for almost two years in an attempt to rid the nation of communist influence after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. President Franklin Roosevelt interned over 100,000 Japanese Americans, many of them citizens, because of a fear of collaboration with a possible invasion of the West Coast. And thousands of Americans lost government and private sector jobs in the 1940s and 1950s without due process of law because of suspicions or knowledge that they were involved in Soviet-backed subversion.
These infringements of treasured rights were not irrational. The infant U.S. would have been vulnerable in a war with a battle-hardened France. Palmer's own home was damaged in a series of bombings attributed to alien anarchists. The Japanese government expected its expatriates in America to help its war effort. And, notwithstanding the wildly exaggerated claims of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his allies, the Soviets did manage to infiltrate a number of U.S. agencies and institutions.
The history of our government and people, then , is to react vigorously to perceived threats, yielding some parts of our rights from time to time, and then reconsidering how far we have gone. A similar process is taking place now in the face of the real threat of organized, primarily Islamic-backed terrorism.
The main areas of rights and freedoms currently involved are private communications, judicial processes, and the treatment of detainees. The Administration has asserted the authority to expand wiretapping and telecommunications surveillance and to limit the accesss of suspected terrorists to normal judicial procedures and prisoner treatment standards. The Supreme Court has already rejected the most extravagant Administration claims to powers over terroism suspects, whether citizens or not, but seems willing to allow more than traditional leeway in detention and prosecution. Congress is putting up a spirited fight against warrantless surveillance and torture of prisoners and,as usual, extreme statements on both sides suggest irreconcilable differences on the nature of the threat and the legitimate means for dealing with it.
A review of history should help the contending sides to see that we have some times given in to fear and done more to infringe on basic rights than we needed to. On the other hand, some of our opinion leaders have minimized threats to national security and taken an ivory tower view of individual freedom. Moreover, overcoming of past threats is not a guarantee of safety from new dangers in new forms. Common ground can be found with a good will approach to taking advantage of advanced technology against today's savvy enemies subject to third-party review and allowing maximum access to a fair trial system without turning loose people bent on destroying our nation.
David Hornestay - DavidH began a career as a freelancer after 34 years in government management. Keeping a hand in as a consultant in federal human ...
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