Fighting ourselves

The most damaging aspect of terrorism is its power to diminish our civil liberties

If we didn't know it before this past weekend, we know it now. Terrorism is an insidious, dangerous horror that's difficult to defend against. The mere threat of it can paralyze a city -- as happened in Seattle when long-planned millennial celebrations were canceled. Terror campaigns actually carried out can nearly cripple a nation -- as happened in India when Kashmiri militants hijacked an Indian Airlines jet two weeks ago.

But we can't let these events, or the threat of such events, set the tone for our new month, year, century, or millennium. Doing so cedes control to terrorists. As a free people, we have a choice. We can choose to create community around our common experience of working for a better future. Or we can create community around our common experience of living in fear that some lunatic somewhere is conspiring to take our future from us.

There are no easy answers to the threat of terrorism. Indeed, it's hard to come up with a precise definition of what it is. The Federal Bureau of Investigation says it's the "unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives." And yet when you look at the role the United States has played in countries throughout the world -- especially in Latin America -- you can't help but wonder whether there may be merit to the notion that one person's freedom fighter might be another's terrorist.

It has been shown that terrorism, no doubt because of its insidiousness, lives larger in our minds than it does in our world. David B. Kopel, a Cato Institute policy analyst who testified before Congress during hearings on the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Death Penalty Act, once compared the number of US deaths caused by terrorism (which have never exceeded 200 in any one year) to those caused by people falling off ladders (317 in 1995) and drowning in their own bathtubs (312 in 1995).

Regardless, in this climate of Y2K hysteria -- where the threat of technological breakdown may be more real than that of terrorism -- we are sure to witness outrageous attempts by politicians to deal with terrorist threats (GOP presidential candidate Gary Bauer has already called for easing restrictions on CIA operatives working in other countries). In the coming weeks, months, and years, we should be genuinely concerned about any official movement to crack down on anything as elusive as terrorism. More often than not, such legislation involves getting the public to cede civil liberties. That's what happened when Congress passed the Anti-Terrorism and Death Penalty Act in the anguished wake of the terrorist bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

That legislation allows authorities to deport immigrants living here legally who are merely suspected of terrorism, without providing evidence of their alleged crimes. (Anyone who thinks this is a good idea should recall the anti-Arab sentiment whipped up in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing.) The anti-terrorism law diminishes a defendant's ability to appeal a state-court conviction to federal court on the basis of violations of constitutional protections. (Anyone who thinks this is okay should keep in mind that 40 percent of state death-penalty convictions are overturned in federal court because constitutional protections were violated in state court.) It weakens the burden on the FBI to show an actual reason for conducting wiretaps of suspected terrorists. (Anyone who thinks this is okay should think about the range of people the FBI spied on during student protests of the Vietnam War.) It is at the core of our democratic imperative that we maintain our constitutional rights, even in the face of what frightens us or what is repugnant to us.

Here's what we gained from 1996's sweeping anti-terrorism law: nothing. That's right. Nothing. Our odds of being blown up in a terrorist attack are the same now as they were before President Clinton signed that legislation. Our rights as citizens, however, have been diminished.

There is one thing we know in the United States but continually forget: public policy should be made outside the realm of red-hot emotion. When our country was founded in revolution, our forebears wisely resisted the popular urge to re-create a monarchy. Today we know that we do not want public policy on terrorist attacks constructed in the hysterical state created by the mere threat of terror.

Benjamin Franklin said 200 years ago that people who trade liberty for security deserve neither. His words were true then. And, if it's possible, they are even truer today.

What do you think? Send an e-mail to letters[a]phx.com.