On Sept. 11, Americans watched in horror as prominent symbols of trade and national security collapsed with the World Trade Center and a section of the Pentagon.
With the confusion in reports immediately following the attacks and U.S. officials issuing periodic warnings about new threats of terror, government officials have argued that law enforcement agencies need stronger tools with which to combat terrorism.
President Bush and members of his administration have vowed to do what it takes prevent further attacks on U.S. citizens or interests.
Experts, however, are divided as to whether the president has gone too far in trying ensure the safety of American citizens.
UW-Madison political science Professor Howard Schweber said he is troubled by the lawmaking freedom granted to the president and his administration through the USA Patriot Act. The bill, which passed in the U.S. Senate with only one dissent and one abstention, received Bush's approval Oct. 26. Schweber added that the legislation opened the door to the Nov. 13 executive order reviving military tribunals for the trial of suspected terrorists.
The bill's only dissenter, U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said he thinks the attacks were still fresh in his colleagues' minds when they voted to approve the bill that some scholars say infringes on basic rights guaranteed to American citizens and residents.
\I think the atmosphere was one where, if they didn't vote for something called the USA Patriot Act, they wouldn't appear patriotic,"" Feingold said.
He added that he is concerned about provisions allowing law enforcement to search homes without notice and that there is an ""effort by the administration to tap in on attorney-client conversations,"" which have been traditionally viewed as privileged.
""It kind of points out the difficulty of drawing a border or a boundary between war and criminal justice,"" said Mike Tobin, director of the trial division of the Wisconsin public defender's office.
Tobin added that while it is important to prevent the conviction of innocent people, tighter restrictions and close monitoring can also be seen as ""a cost of doing war.""
""I do not think we are wholesale abandoning the Constitution,"" Schweber said. ""But I do think we have taken steps as a nation and as a government that are a serious abrogation of constitutional principle since Sept. 11.""
University of Pennsylvania law Professor Anita Allen-Castellitto said historically, civil trials involving sensitive information have been successfully prosecuted without leaking U.S. intelligence techniques.
""We have tried people for treason. We have tried people for the first World Trade Center attack, within the context of due process and in trials that were recently opened to the public and journalists,"" Allen-Castellitto said.
""If there's some specific state secret or private matter that needs to be kept that way, we have already procedures by means of which portions of procedures can be closed, or certain documents can be sealed,"" she said.
In light of the continuing risk of terrorist attacks, formalities may be less important than national security, according to a statement by the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, which is chaired by U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho.
""Congress understood all of the civil rights implications of the attacks of Sept. 11, and it took the big picture into account when it passed the anti-terrorism bill,"" the committee said, citing former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson's famous line, ""The Constitution is not a suicide pact.""
Schweber credits criticism of the military tribunals to the order's ill-defined subjects.
""First and foremost, I'm deeply disturbed by the scope of persons to whom the order applies,"" Schweber said. ""There is no country with whose citizens we are potentially not at war. That makes the scope of the order essentially universal. ... The problem is that the definition of who is and is not covered is left solely to the personal discretion of the president.""
The order states that it applies to any non-U.S. citizen who, by Bush's judgment, ""is or was a member of the organization known as al Qaeda,"" ""aided or ... conspired to commit, acts of international terrorism,"" in ""acts in preparation ... have caused, threaten to cause, or have as their aim to cause, injury to ... the United States, its citizens, national security, foreign policy or economy,"" or ""has knowingly harbored one or more individuals described in subparagraphs.""
Schweber added that the U.S. Congress can combat the order's ambiguity with a declaration of war.
""[This] is a different kind of war, and ... the nature of our enemy needs to be defined,"" he said. ""That's hard work, it's hard work Congress should have done, and it's hard work that Congress should do now in the form of a formal declaration of war that gives some description of with whom we are at war, if only so that we know with certainty with whom we are not at war.\
