CIVIL LIBERTIES

Unreasonable Burdens

by Henry Silverman

CIVIL LIBERTIES Henry Silverman

In a recent newspaper article Lansing area residents were interviewed concerning the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The comments ranged widely. Some called for all-out revenge attacks on a number of countries; others urged caution in pursuing military ventures; most revealed a deep sense of ambivalence toward how best to balance our concern for liberty and our need for security.

One citizen talked about the "unreasonable burden" put on us by paying attention to concerns for protecting constitutional rights or following rules of international law. Such concerns would only keep us from taking the necessary decisive action to punish those who supported the attackers and to prevent further terrorist attacks.

Unquestionably, security can be seen as a threat to liberty. Unquestionably, burdens are placed on us as a society when we try to balance liberty and security, especially in times of such emotional stress as we have been experiencing since that fateful Tuesday. Stress makes what at one time may seem "reasonable" unreasonable.

On the one hand, those who fear that we are opening the door to a weakening of our civil rights and an abuse of government power urge caution. On the other hand, those who fear inaction urge that we turn aside caution and take decisive steps to end terrorism. As a nation we seem immersed in flag displays and patriotism; some of us even seem to be reveling in the potential glories of war.

The administration has presented Congress with a series of proposals to strengthen the power of law enforcement, including making it easier to tap phones, to carry on Internet surveillance, detain immigrant suspects indefinitely—all of which stretch, if not break, traditional constitutional boundaries. Proposals have been made to strengthen airport security in a variety of ways, some minor and sensible, others threatening to invade our cherished privacy.

Americans of Arab descent report incidents ranging from hostile looks to physical threats and acts—here in our own community reports from the MSU campus and from local Arab groups confirm widespread ethnic and racial profiling of anyone who looks even vaguely Middle Eastern. Lansing Community College administrators, it has been reported, initially resisted FBI attempts to obtain general student records pertaining to the college’s aviation program until the FBI provided the necessary legal warrants.
On national television evangelist Jerry Falwell lashed out at his personal enemies: feminists, gays and lesbians, the ACLU and People for the American Way, along with pagans and abortionists, blaming them for the recent terrorist attacks. Later he apologized, calling his remarks "insensitive and ill-timed." Does this mean that for his kind of extremism there are appropriate times for such destructive and anti-American comments?

We seem to be rushing into military action, even a possible full-scale war, wherever and whenever we can find an appropriate enemy. In the process we also seem to be rushing to create a surveillance society, in which security is the goal and liberty creates "unreasonable" burdens.

The burdens facing us, however, are not unreasonable. On the contrary, they call for thoughtful and reasoned consideration and for good sense. The terrorist acts we have experienced created an understandable atmosphere of resentment, anger, and fear. But they also have provided us with a moment in our history when we can take stock and pay real attention to what we value the most, and these are our political and moral values.

We need to pause for a while to consider what kind of people we really want to be. We need to consider what kind of society we want to leave to our children and grandchildren.

We must seize this moment in history to reclaim our sense of national unity and purpose, our concern and responsibility for each other, our commitment to a democratic society in which the rights of each become the concern of all. We need to look at our own history, at those moments in the past like World War I treatment of anti-war protesters, the World War II internment of Japanese Americans, the anti-Communist crusade of the l950s, the Oklahoma City bombing when as a nation we overreacted and targeted groups of people for suspicion and guilt by association.

Times like these can reinvigorate our appreciation for our country’s more cherished values and ideals—those things we stand for as a nation and as citizens of a democracy. These are the values and ideals which we have inherited from our past and which we want to leave to our future.

Henry Silverman is a professor emeritus of history at Michigan State University. His specialty is 19th and 20th century civil liberties.