Charles J. Ogletree,
Faculty Director

2001 OPINION EDITORIAL

Fighting a Just War Without an Unjust Loss of Freedom
By CHARLES J. OGLETREE JR.

October 11, 2001, Africana.com

The United States and its allies have made a measured and strategic attack on areas suspected to be under the control of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. This is an important first step in the necessary response to the terrorist acts of September 11. Not surprisingly, bin Laden immediately issued a tape-recorded message promising further assaults against America. This new round of threats has created a heightened sense of anxiety throughout the United States. It should also provide an opportunity for our national leaders to think hard and long about our external and internal response to Osama bin Laden and his ilk.

The dastardly attack of September 11, 2001 must be condemned in the strongest terms possible. Thousands of innocent victims, including children, died as the result of the acts of an invisible and cowardly group of terrorists. We must seek out and punish those responsible to the extent consistent with our laws. As citizens, we can expect that life will never be the same, and that our conception of liberty will change to accommodate our increased need for the protection of national security.

America has rallied to demonstrate its patriotism and commitment to democracy in response to these attacks. People have shown their support for the victims and their families by donating millions of dollars, participating in blood drives, and seeking to provide emotional support. Americans have indicated their willingness to live their lives in a way to ensure that these events do not happen again. However, as we mobilize to protect national security and identify those responsible, we must remember that in America, we are one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for ALL.

Although America's courage and resilience in such a time of crisis is commendable, certain actions on the part of the various parties, including the government and individual citizens, should give us great pause about the future. What we must avoid is the infringement of the constitutional rights of the innocent in the name of protecting national security.

The analogy between the surprise attacks of September 11, 2001, and the December 7, 1941, surprise attacks on Pearl Harbor is evident. We must remember, however, that following the attack on our military establishments in Pearl Harbor, our government endorsed measures in the name of national security that ultimately led to the internment of Americans of Japanese descent, people who had committed no crime other than possessing a certain ethnicity. It took us 50 years to recognize the wrong we permitted to occur following Pearl Harbor, and we cannot allow our justified goal of establishing new parameters for national security to lead to extreme measures that unfairly focus on impermissible assumptions based on race, ethnicity, religion or national origin.

In response to the September 11 terrorist attacks, Attorney General John Ashcroft proposed the Mobilization Against Terrorism Act, which is intended to aid in preventing future terrorist attacks. In its original form, it included provisions that expanded the intelligence gathering capabilities of the Department of Justice by increasing wiretapping and electronic surveillance powers, enhanced the authority of the Immigration and Naturalization Service to detain and deport suspected terrorists, increased prosecutorial power by eliminating statutes of limitations on terrorist acts and by increasing maximum sentences, imposed stronger civil and criminal forfeiture provisions in order to target terrorist resources, and provided for the sharing of law enforcement information among various organizations.

This proposed legislation contained many commendable provisions that would strengthen our national defense and give Americans comfort. As originally written, however, the bill raised serious issues concerning individuals' liberty rights and increased the possibility of ethnic profiling. Such concerns were quickly voiced by civil liberties groups, various members of Congress and others who value freedom and the rights of the innocent. Perhaps as a sign that constitutional protections have not been completely forgotten in this time of upheaval, both the House and Senate committees have proposed versions of the bill that limit its more troubling aspects. The House Judiciary Committee's "Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (PATRIOT) Act" made various changes in response to civil liberties concerns, including limiting to seven days the amount of time a foreigner suspected of terrorist activity could be detained without being charged. The Senate's proposed "Uniting and Strengthening America Act" or "USA Act of 2001" makes similar changes, including the same seven-day limit on detainment.

It is clear that we need new laws to give law enforcement agencies the necessary latitude to find the ones responsible and to prevent future terrorist attacks, and that time is of the essence. But this legislation carries serious ramifications that warrant full consideration before it is passed by Congress. Future revisions of the bill must reflect concern for civil liberties, even while we hasten to protect our national security.

Prior to the current military attack, not all government responses to the September 11 attack had shown such restraint. As part of its investigation, the Justice Department has detained hundreds of people, holding them on minor traffic and immigration violations. In New York, five men, who were in possession of box cutters and large sums of money on September 11, were detained as suspects and remain in custody today. As it turns out, they are not terrorists at all, but rather Israeli Jews who work for a local moving company. Nevertheless, they remain in custody today, ostensibly on immigration charges. Many others are being held without bond, denied access to lawyers, and in numerous cases, released days later without being charged with any crime related to the terrorist attacks. Furthermore, FBI agents have tried to conduct interviews during worship hours, interrupting Muslim prayer services. There have also been complaints that innocent Arab-Americans have been interrogated at their homes in the middle of the night. These actions have unfortunately resulted in a backlash, as certain Muslim leaders are encouraging Muslims and Arab-Americans not to speak to FBI or other law enforcement officers without a lawyer present.

In the educational community, many colleges have been requested to provide financial data on foreign students, purportedly in order to trace terrorist money trails. What is frightening is that many colleges have turned over the information without informing the students affected, possibly in violation of privacy laws, and sometimes without even waiting to be subpoenaed or consulting with university lawyers. The overbreadth of this investigatory tactic is further illustrated by the fact that some institutions have provided information on all foreign students, not just those from Arab countries. Educational institutions have been placed in the awkward position of attempting to protect students' privacy while aiding in the investigation.

In the commercial realm, the airline industry has allowed discrimination against innocent Arab-appearing persons. Recently, passengers who have appeared to be Arab or Muslim have been removed from airplane flights in cities across the United States at the insistence of the pilots or passengers, simply because of their apparent ethnicity. In one instance, a flight departing from Dulles Airport in Washington, DC, was detained because a Saudi pilot tried to fly in the cockpit jump seat, and the United Airlines pilot refused. The Saudi pilot, as well as two other men, were questioned for three hours before they were allowed to leave.

Since September 11, individual citizens have carried out vigilante actions against people appearing to be of Arab descent, who were engaging in no wrongful activity whatsoever, attacking, terrorizing, and even killing innocent people. The Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, DC, has received reports of more than 700 anti-Muslim incidents in the wake of the terrorist attacks. Verbal and e-mail threats against Arab-Americans have been made, and Muslim houses of worship and community centers have been targeted. In Chicago, a firebomb was thrown at an Arab-American community center. In Cleveland, a man drove his car through the front entrance of the Parma Mosque, the largest mosque in Ohio.

Some of the more vicious physical attacks on those perceived to be Arab include an attempt to run over a Pakistani woman in a parking lot in Huntington, New York. In Gary, Indiana, a man wearing a ski mask fired an assault rifle at a gas station where a man from Yemen was working. In Los Angeles, an Egyptian-American grocer was shot to death in his store. An Arab-American was also killed in Lincoln Park, Michigan, apparently because of his ethnicity. At least five other recent murders of Arabs and Arab-Americans may have been hate crimes.

One group that has been particularly singled out for persecution is the Sikhs. Because of their religion, Sikhs - who are not Muslim - do not cut their hair, and thus most men have long beards and wear turbans, which causes them to bear an unfortunate resemblance to Osama Bin Laden. In the two weeks following September 11, more than 200 assaults on Sikhs were reported, an extraordinary number given that there are only about half a million Sikhs in the United States. Some of the assaults were violent. In Mesa, Arizona, a Sikh man was shot to death by a man who claimed to be responding to the terrorist threat. In Queens, New York, a group of youths attacked a Sikh man with a baseball bat. Also in Queens, a group of men in a car chased a Sikh Columbia University graduate who was driving another car, and tried to run him off the road.

"The first casualty when war comes is truth," said Senator Hiram Johnson in 1917, as the United States prepared to enter World War I. I fear that the second casualty of today's war against terrorism will be individual liberty. If we as citizens are not wary of the increased government power that may be created through the proposed anti-terrorism bills, of the discriminatory actions of the government in conducting its investigation, and of the vigilante actions of individual citizens, then little stands between us and the loss of liberty. While we must surely protect our national security and respond appropriately to terrorism, we must never lose sight of the freedoms we cherish, nor shrink from our responsibility to promote democracy as the keystone of a civilized society.

First published: October 11, 2001

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