Attorney General John Ashcroft has been in rare form since Sept. 11. Unsatisfied with arresting more than 1,200 individuals under a cloak of secrecy to find out what knowledge they have of terrorist activities, Ashcroft's Justice Department has begun to question 5,000 Middle Eastern men throughout the country.
But a funny thing happened on the way to racial profiling in the name of state security: Local police chiefs said no.
The FBI had planned to outsource the work of randomly interviewing people without prior reason other than they held a temporary visa, but some police are weary of a practice they believe runs counter to state laws.
Portland, Ore. Assistant Police Chief Andrew Kirkland told The New York Times that he believed the interviews violated state law, which stipulates that immigrants may not be investigated if they are not suspected of a crime, and the only issue at hand is their foreign citizenship.
The FBI sent Portland, Ore., as well as other cities throughout the country, a list of people to be investigated and a list of inquiries concerning knowledge of terrorist organizations.
Over and over again since Sept. 11, Americans have been asked to return to normalcy and have been reminded of the eternal vigilance of the nation's cause. Absurdly, however, it appears vigilant normalcy means not second-guessing yourself when you pull out the credit card, and whenever something looks horribly wrong, pretending that it is justified by the current state of affairs.
Such is the case with the current assault on civil liberties, which has nothing to do with safeguarding the nation and everything to do with saving face and maintaining the administration's belief'entrenched well before Sept. 11'that knowledge does not belong in the public domain.
Soon after the attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., Congress, as part of the U.S. Patriot Act, gave the Justice Department sweeping powers to detain immigrants for indefinite periods of time. Under vaguely defined rules, the government can detain anyone who is considered a threat for as long as they want without telling anyone anything about the case.
But sweeping arrests are not enough.
Ashcroft has secured, without congressional oversight or prior knowledge, the power to detain noncitizens even after an immigration judge has ordered them freed. The Justice Department also now has the ability to eavesdrop on conversations between lawyers and clients as long as such an act falls within the vague realm of deterring \future acts of violence or terrorism."" Ashcroft also decided to take it upon himself to overrule the Freedom of Information Act in order to make sure that no oversight may be carried out.
Then there is President Bush's decree that secret military tribunals may be used to try suspected terrorists, which William Safire, a former Nixon speechwriter and current Times columnist, wrote was a ""Soviet-style abomination.""
Why is oversight important? Shouldn't we trust the Justice Department to protect America from future attacks? To the latter query: absolutely not. Oversight is important because it not only conveys respect for the political and justice system that has served this nation rather well, it exudes confidence in the actions of individual aspects of that system.
The war in Afghanistan is going remarkably well, and this is partly due to the administration's resolve to deal amicably with the concerns of foreign governments. At home, however, the administration has shown an eerie lack of self-confidence and has retreated behind fear and patriotism to avoid scrutiny.
Before these new powers were granted, a person could be deported or denied entry to the United States if he or she was involved in any of 28 designated terrorist organizations. The FBI could have conceivably, under its old surveillance powers, found that men associated with al Qaeda were living in this country. In an effort to deflect criticism from Justice's failings, the department has resorted to claiming that it needs more power and it needs to do it all in secret.
But secrecy is nothing new for this administration. Remember the energy task force or the ""bipartisan"" Social Security commission? Both operated as secret cliques.
And why does the increased security dragnet revolve around Middle Eastern men while the latest act of terrorism, anthrax through the mail, increasingly appears to be the work of deranged Americans?
Over and over again Americans are being told to simply ignore profound assaults on civil liberties and the American system of justice. We are asked to trust an executive that does not trust Congress, the judiciary or American citizens.
Last November the people of Missouri told Ashcroft that they did not want him to represent them. Bush barely won in the electoral college and lost the popular vote. Perhaps the administration has a vendetta against democracy.
