U.S. democracy: civil liberties vs. national security
By Susan Evans
Since the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791, Americans
have constantly struggled to strike a balance between individual
civil liberties and the interests of national security. In times of
national crisis, such as the one precipitated by the act of
terrorism in Oklahoma City, this constitutional tug-of-war is
thrown into sharp relief: as threats to the nation’s internal
security escalate, our nation’s commitment to preserving civil
liberties declines.
Thus it should come as no surprise that President Clinton has
proposed, and Congress has rallied to support, the Omnibus
Anti-Terrorist Control Act of 1995. If passed, this would eclipse
individual civil liberties by radically expanding the FBI’s
jurisdiction over suspected terrorist activities and
organizations.
Our nation’s history is littered with instances in which the
federal government has sacrificed constitutionally enshrined
liberties and freedoms at the altar of national security. Our
history teaches us that present issues are not unique, but simply
the latest act in the continuing drama of American democracy.
During post-World War I years, for example, a wave of hysteria
swept across the nation because of the Bolshevik Revolution in
Russia and the perceived threat of a worldwide movement to
overthrow capitalism. Anxieties intensified in 1919 and 1920 when
bombs were discovered in packages addressed to such prominent
Americans as J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and Supreme Court
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. Then, in Sept. 1920, a bomb exploded
in Wall Street, killing 38 and injuring hundreds more.
On Jan. 1, 1920, Woodrow Wilson’s attorney general, A. Mitchell
Palmer, ushered in the new year by ordering raids on every
suspected communist cell in the nation. In all, more than 4,000
people were arrested and their property summarily confiscated.
Convicted of no crime, 56 individuals were deported.
Two decades later, the U.S. government once again trampled upon
the Constitution in the name of national security. In early 1942,
in the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, more than 110,000
Japanese Americans (two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens) were
forcibly removed from their homes and placed in internment camps.
It took our government nearly half a century to extend an official
apology when, on Aug. 10, 1988 President Reagan established a $1.25
billion trust fund for reparations to individuals who were interned
and their families.
Of all the constitutional invasions of our past, however,
perhaps none can compare to the political repression in the years
following World War II. As the U.S. engaged in Cold War politics in
the 1950s, the FBI implemented a series of counter-intelligence
programs, or COINTELPROs, to protect internal security from the
perceived threat of subversive groups.
Shrouded in secrecy, never formally authorized, the purpose of
first COINTELPRO in Aug. 1956 was simple: to "expose, disrupt,
destroy or otherwise neutralize" the Communist Party, U.S.A.
Under the justification of investigating possible violations of
the Internal Security Act of 1950, phones were tapped, offices
broken into, mail was censored, anonymous "poison pen" letters
mailed and a host of other extra-legal and illegal tactics used in
an attempt to confuse and factionalize the ranks of perceived
Communist groups and subversive organizations.
As the American social and political landscape changed, so did
the targets of the Bureau’s neutralization efforts. In Sept. 1964,
Hoover authorized the "White Hate, COINTELPRO," "a hard-hitting,
closely-supervised coordinated counterintelligence program to
disrupt and otherwise neutralize the KKK and other specified
groups" such as the American Nazi Party.
Three years later, in Aug. 1967, Hoover initiated the "Black
Nationalists Hate Groups, COINTELPRO" against such groups as the
Congress of Racial Equality, the Nation of Islam and the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
Today, as our country wrestles with widespread fears about the
nation’s internal security, the specter of constitutional
violations has again been raised. The question, however, is not
whether these fears are legitimate but whether our government will
let political pressures and anxieties lead it to sacrifice
constitutional liberties in the name of national security.
As policymakers in Washington deliberate over the merits of the
proposed Omnibus Anti-Terrorist Control Act of 1995, they would be
well-served to learn from the lessons of history. We, as U.S.
citizens, should remember the words of Justice Louis Brandeis:
"Experience should teach us to be on guard to protect liberty when
government purposes are beneficent. The greatest dangers to liberty
lurk in the insidious encroachment of men of zeal, well-meaning but
without understanding."
Evans is a UCLA alumnus.