Civil Liberties and Terrorist Attacks - Essay Example

Civil Liberties and Terrorist Attacks It is generally observed that terrorist attacks result in a breach of civil liberties. Citizens feel wary of the newly enforced controls on civil liberties. In this context, it has become very important to analyze and find out whether any break to citizen rights to ensure national interests can be justified after the occurrence of a terrorist attack. People hold different opinions. Citizens are taken for granted to forsake their civil rights and compromise when there is a crisis situation, such as war or internal crisis. In my opinion, such an obstruction to a citizen’s civil freedom cannot be justified on the ground of ensuring security of the nation from any impending new danger. Those who favor stringent measures such as suspension of civil liberty, argue that it is necessary to keep the people safe and secure the nation from terrorism. It is suggested that citizens need not hide anything from the government agencies. A respectful life can be lived if nothing wrong is done by citizens. Those who favor suspension of civil liberties, argue that people do not hesitate unfolding their personal information on social media, but feel uneasy when questioned about their personal matters by government agencies. It is also argued that national security interests should be given top priority. 1 President Obama’s remark speaks about the two-mindedness of the approach towards civil liberties: “You can’t have 100% security and then also have 100% privacy and inconvenience. Those that sacrifice liberty for security will in the end have neither, nor deserve neither.” 2 Contrary to what President Obama remarked, it is rightly remarked by Benjamin Franklin that “When the government has a hold over its people such as the power to strip rights, it is oppressive and a type of tyranny.” 3 The police departments and security agencies are empowered with new legislation in many countries, including America, Britain, and Australia, with the sole aim of getting information from citizens to combat terrorism; police men detain and interrogate innocent people. Threat from terrorism is actually not a justifiable explanation to enact counterterrorism legislation, as it has increased the degree of risk to personal security of citizens. A situation has arisen when we are more at risk from counterterrorism than from terrorism. 4 Those who speak in favor of stringent measures in the name of controlling terrorism, leading to an attack on citizens’ civil liberties, offer two related assumptions for their stand. First assumption puts the risk from terrorism on top of other risks, as this risk is uncommon and more serious to other risks. Another assumption is based on the fact that reducing civil rights and safeguarding through legal amendments is highly efficient method of fighting terrorism. Public at large does not object to these assumptions, as these are taken to be understood. Seriousness of an act of terrorism is a reason enough to cut down on the legal safeguards available to doubtful extremists, roaming as innocent citizens. 5 It is not the case that majority of people and political big-wigs are in support of taking away certain legal powers from citizens in the name of safeguarding them from terrorism. For example, the German Interior Minister Otto Schily, countered that the government had a duty to “protect the “basic right to security” of all German Citizens.” 6 On the same lines, the Australian Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock commented that “I believe that some protagonists fail to recognise a national government’s obligation under Article 3 of the human rights convention—that is, that governments have an obligation to protect human life.” 7 As it is taken for granted that terrorism needs to be faced, which justifies the right of the government to put limitations on fundamental rights of the people, such as the right to privacy, the right to due process, and the right not to be put behind bars without reasonable offense. Irrespective of the powerful claims, no straight forward reasoning is offered regarding how and why terrorism risks lives, values, and liberty. It needs to be analyzed, although it is clear, how terrorism puts the security of a nation to risk and what type of security risks it presents. 8 It is in human nature to fear new risks relatively with alarming concern than traditional risks. Risk from terrorism is seen to be a relatively more alarming risk than other risks. It is because terrorist attacks highlight human weaknesses and susceptibilities. To prove the point, people were more frightful of getting attacked by SARS virus than getting afflicted by tuberculosis, a health ailment more life-threatening than SARS. In America, therefore, the risk from terrorism is comparatively new and impending, but for Israelis who have become accustomed of terrorist violence for long time, fear element is not as critical as for Americans. 9 After 9/11, the Muslim community has been increasingly targeted and victimized. Counterterrorism measures would further make things worse. Turning the Muslim community aloof won’t help in reducing the possibility of terrorism from the extremist outlook carrying Muslims. Such a chain of events has dehumanized the Muslims in Australia, Britain, and America, as only Muslims are made target of counterterrorism measures, such as arresting, questioning, and put behind bars over doubts only. According to a European Union report, the British media has inflamed the anti-Muslim feelings, creating hatred in the minds of people. This is not going to help control terrorism. 10 In the past, all information gathered by detaining people in America has not been substantiated; why and how the detention has helped the agencies. Actually, threat to the populations and other states is far more from counterterrorism activities relatively from terrorism. Example of Civil Liberties Lost Post 9/11 The right to civil liberty is one of the fundamental rights. The debate over detention and torture is arguably outside the purview of civil liberty. Nevertheless, making it an excuse, a more pernicious attack on civil liberty is happening. 12 The USA Patriot Act – An Attack on Privacy There should be no doubt that taking away of privacy rights makes citizens binding and increasingly insecure. In other words, it is an attack on citizens’ freedom in the name of defending it. Wide control measures, as stipulated in legislation, like the USA Patriotic Act, permits to track internet use and reach to a citizen’s academic, business, and money matters. The Patriot Act is purposed to get rid of the hurdles created by personal privacy rights. The Act allows the control and inspection of communications and communications information, and searches without informing and issuing any warrant. 13 ‘USA Patriot’ is an acronym for ‘Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.’ The tools are organizing of secret searches (section 213) and additional powers to record, intercept communications, using pen registers[21] and fix devices (section 216) and reach to earlier confidential information. 14 Senator Russ Feingold was the only Senator to criticize the Patriot Act, His statement at the Act’s Bill stage points to previous holds of civil liberties in the US, putting at stake the prestige of then governments for staining the history. 15 Conclusion There is no doubt to the threat from terrorism to people at large, but this necessarily does not mean that there is a current risk from terrorism. There may be a possibility of the terrorism strike in future, even more severe attacks than before, but such a possibility needs to be approximated genuinely. This assessment of terrorism threat is not in itself logic to prove the presence of such a risk in present and future. To authenticate the need of counterterrorism initiatives and preparing huge counterterrorism budgets needs more solid proofs; a straight forward measurement of its probability in relation to the probable occurring of other predictable risks is must. Just a projection of super terrorism risks is not an enough reason to cut down peoples’ liberties. The reasoning that such materials that help in committing of terrorism acts are in the reach of such people, like weapons and biological pathogens, could be true, but it is not a genuine threat approximation of terror acts. In actuality, such weapons and biological pathogens are relatively more in the reach of states than terrorists. In America, according to the Center for Disease Control’ statistics, there are “about 800 labs nationwide who work with so-called select agents, the 49 toxins, on the government’s bioterrorism list” and Federal officials have agreed that “policing these labs won’t be easy.” 16 Thus, when government agencies cannot check their own facilities for life-threatening toxins in government-operated labs, what moral right it has to take stringent counterterrorism measures that affect the freedom of citizens in the name of controlling impending terrorism acts. Considering the opposing and similar views of political bug-wigs and critics, one is inspired to believe that measures taken by government in the name of national safety are very aggressive to the extent of antagonizing the religious feelings of communities. Police departments do not always behave with a rational and human approach and in the name of disciplining citizens for imaginary or not based on reality, terrorist attacks, put the whole nation in an outfit, attacking their freedom where it is least required to take stringent measures. Need is to take a balanced approach between national interests and civil liberties so that citizens do not feel unnecessarily harassed. Notes 1. Lacie Ward, Civil Liberties and Terrorist Attacks, 5 December 2013, (27 May 2014), 1. 2. Ward, 1. 3. Ward, 1. 4. Jessica Wolfendale, “Terrorism, Security, and the Threat of Counterterrorism,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 30 (2007):75–92. 5. Wolfendale, 75-76. 6. ibid, 75-76 7. David Nason and Patrick Walters, “Security our UN Right: Howard,” News.com.au. 2 August 2005, (27 May 2014). 8. Wolfendale, 76. 9. Jackson, “War on Terrorism,” p. 92. 10. Ian Black, “Politicians, Media blamed for Rising Anti-Muslim Bias,” Sydney Morning Herald online edition, May 25, 2002, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/05/25/1022243271744.html 11. Guardian Unlimited, “People the Law Forgot,” December 3, 2003, http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1098604,00.html 12. James Hamilton, “The Delicate Balance between Civil Liberties and National Security,” August, 2006, , 5 13. Hamilton, 5. 14. ibid. 15. ibid. 16. Russell Gold, “With Bioterror Fears Rising, an Expert Winds Up on Trial,” Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2003, http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/expertwindsuptrial.html Read More