IT’S FOR SECURITY
It’s for security.
That’s what they’ll say when we ask why it takes three hours to board a plane, or when the airports are closed, or streets are blocked.
It’s for security.
The justification for radically expanding the government’s authority to watch us, to detain us, to prosecute us.
It’s for security.
How we’ll be convinced to present national ID cards in order to purchase a hammer at Wal-Mart, or condoms, or a book on Islam.
It’s for security!
The rallying cry of a frightened and grieving nation, a nation that has never before surrendered to fear and has only rarely struggled with such jagged, gaping sorrow. “Security” will be the unified chorus of a people who may, in their desperate quest for healing and safety, instead relinquish the very freedoms that make this country great.
How far, then, are we as a nation willing to go in the name of security? Should we deploy the military to guard our borders, our ports, our neighborhoods? Should we track every purchase each of us makes, searching for patterns, assessing the threat probabilities lurking in John Q. Public’s recent trip to Costco? How about travel papers to move from state to state, or even – because this is for security, after all – city to city? Should we confiscate firearms? Round up books that deal with unapproved topics? Censor the news media? Since we’re talking about National Security here, why not just reopen Manzanar and lock up the Arabs, the Muslims, and anyone else we think is a threat? That would keep us safe from them, and them from us. After all, these guys have nothing on the Japanese, and we rounded up tens of thousands of THEM after Pearl Harbor.
Obviously, these ideas (on the whole) are ridiculous. ‘These things would never happen here’, is the common refrain from around the country. This, not surprisingly, is exactly what we thought about terrorist attacks prior to September 11. But consider this: if they’ve happened before, they can happen again. Some of these security measures are happening even now.
The National Guard and other military/law enforcement agencies are securing the border with renewed vigor, patrolling airports, and guarding the skies. The Bush Administration is petitioning Congress for expanded or wholly new authority to wiretap, detain, prosecute, and seize. National Airport has been closed for weeks, with a scheduled reopening that will restore it to a mere shadow of its former self. Bill Maher of ABC’s Politically Incorrect has lost major advertisers and had his show cancelled in a number of domestic markets, essentially corporate retribution for arguably objectionable (perhaps, Politically Incorrect?) comments. He’s even been admonished by Ari Fleischer, the president’s spokesman, who went on to recklessly warn Americans that they should “watch what they say.”
In truth, we failed to imagine the deep hatred of terrorist groups and their determination to strike at the United States, instead allowing our naive optimism, innocence, and freedoms to be wielded against us. Though we failed to imagine and anticipate such barbarism, we must now redouble our efforts to ensure that this nation does not fall victim to a similar failure of imagination, one that allows the U.S. government – by accident or by design – to run rough-shod over our civil liberties, our freedoms, our hopes, and our dreams.
It is our right and responsibility as citizens to passionately debate these issues. We must, as members of a nation never before so wholly united, thoughtfully consider the challenges, and promise, of ensuring the values upon which this nation was founded. We must empower the President, the Congress, the Courts, and their agents with the appropriate tools to protect both the spirit and the reality of American life. At the same time, we must not fail in providing our government the requisite oversight, guidance, and support needed to ensure that our nation remains of the people, by the people, and for the people.