Is the police state here?

Josey1

Is the police state here? The American police state of the future may well work like Mexico, but with better plumbing Join the Discussion "Is the U.S. bypassing it's important tradition of civil liberties protections and due process?"Can't happen here? Since the bloody terrorist attacks of September 11, I've written a series of columns pointing out the dangers inherent in the government's new "war against terrorism." From military tribunals to national ID cards to expanded police power, it's grim stuff to write, and probably no more pleasant to read. It'd be nice if a column on civil liberties could be just a tad more upbeat. All of this unhappy news leads to a logical question: Is America becoming a police state? First off, while the term "police state" is tossed around with an intuitive understanding of what it means, it's rarely defined in a specific way. For what it's worth, my Random House College Dictionary defines a police state as "a nation in which the police, esp. a secret police, suppresses any act that conflicts with government policy." Well ... that definition obscures more than it illuminates, suggesting that perhaps it's time that I traded in the ratty old Random House for something with a bit more precision. After all, every government uses its police, secret or otherwise, to enforce its laws, since breaking those laws is against government policy. That puts every nation at risk of being defined as a police state. So much for the Random House College Dictionary. Let's instead suggest that a "police state" is one in which the police are given relatively free rein, with few restraints on their power. That may mean that they have blanket authority to be exercised over the hoi polloi, or it may mean that the laws are so all-encompassing that everybody is at risk of breaking some statute or other and so running afoul of the law enforcement authorities. In this sense, then, the United States are, indeed approaching police state status, if they're not already there. Since September 11, the thrust of the government's response has been to loosen restraints on law enforcement authorities. While the police have not been given carte blanche, they've certainly been handed greatly expanded authority to conduct wiretaps, detain suspects and demand private records based on a lower threshold of evidence than before. Of the obnoxiously named USA PATRIOT Act, an important piece of legislation that most members of Congress hadn't even read before they cast their vote, the Portland Herald (Maine) said: The act broadly expands domestic law enforcement surveillance powers, allowing the government to request information from companies during criminal investigations much more easily and for much less cause than in the past. Said "information" includes any data that the companies may have compiled on you in the course of doing business. Even in the absence of legislation, the Bush administration has been exercising rather broad power on its own say-so. In particular, many civil libertarians, immigration advocates and even members of Congress would like to know what's being done with the great many detainees who were taken into custody in the wake of the terrorist attacks, and have been held without charges. The Hill, which covers congressional doings, recently reported: The chairman and ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee are increasingly frustrated by the failure of Attorney General John Ashcroft to respond to any inquiries concerning his broad new powers in dealing with accused terrorists. ...Lawmakers want information about the more than 1,000 people detained in the criminal investigation, changes allowing law enforcement to listen in on lawyer-client communications in some cases, what law enforcement might have done to prevent the attacks, and how to ensure civil liberties under sweeping anti-terrorism legislation signed into law. Of course, these are the same legislators who voted for the USA PATRIOT Act without reading the damned thing, so don't expect too much. Without doubt, since September 11, restrictions on the police have been greatly loosened, and law enforcement authorities are exercising vastly more autonomy than before, Wherever you draw the line that defines a police state, America is closer to that point than it was just a few short months ago. Of course, the United States have been here before, in a worse way. Whatever you may think of my warnings about expanded government power during our rather vague "war on terrorism," at least I can issue such warnings. My ramblings might've landed me in prison during the Civil War or World War I, and would likely have gotten me mysteriously fired and rendered unemployable during World War II (when the authorities had grown more sophisticated about such things). The United States have certainly been through more authoritarian times. We can be thankful that the reaction to September 11 has been relatively mild. The reason that I and others like me can speak our seditious minds now is that the restrictive powers assumed by governments during past emergencies were repealed after the emergency was over. Mostly repealed, that is. Some extra powers were left over after each incident. And the actions of the past have always been used to justify the excesses of the present. President Bush's executive decision, without congressional input, to try accused terrorists before military tribunals has been justified by references to the military trial of German saboteurs during World War II. That the trial of the saboteurs was legally and ethically shaky at the time is irrelevant now; it provides a handy hook on which to hang new suspensions of the usual rights to due process. The risk in all of these "emergency" police powers and extraordinary exercises of authority isn't that the Constitution will be completely suspended or that troops will close the door of Congress and turn the U.S. into a banana republic. The real risk is that existing legal barriers between the population and the government will be further eroded. The emergency powers of today build on the precedents set during the last emergency and will be used to justify actions taken during the next. The police state that politicians are building isn't some cartoony reproduction of Nazi Germany; it's an America of the future that looks much like the United States of today, but works as if the whole country has been turned into an airport security checkpoint. It'll be like Mexico, with everybody averting their eyes as the cops stroll by, but with better plumbing. It's a country that has a familiar flag, regular elections and outraged civil liberties columnists, but where it's easier than ever to get yourself arrested for things that our parents wouldn't have considered crimes -- or just for annoying the wrong people. Yes, America is becoming a police state. But unless you pay attention, you might not notice until it's too late. http://civilliberty.about.com/library/weekly/aa112601a.htm