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The Loss of Freedom: Anti-Terror Laws (by Mark Cavdar)

Your presence at this website singles you out as an individual with an interest in the preservation of universal human rights. You are relatively aware of the world around you, what civil injustices plague the third world and the aid that never quite seems to remedy enough. You enjoy the relative freedom of a democratically-governed society, one wherein privacy and freedom of speech are steadfast concepts upon which administrative systems are structured upon. The thoughts of domestic civil injustice seem almost unfathomable. This doesn’t change the fact, however, that your actions online, your verbal and non-verbal communications, personal records and a gaggle of other personal and assumed private information are available and ready at the government’s disposal. The catch, you may ask? What could possibly give your governing system the ability to blatantly violate your constitutionally guaranteed civil rights? You’ve got to be a suspected terrorist, or someone with a particularly ghastly beard.

In the wake of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City, an insatiable need for heightened national security has swept through many administrations, agitating the creation of legislature to stifle the growing problem of terrorism. These new “anti-terror laws” give national governments more creative license in weeding out potential terrorists, bestowing upon them more sizable powers in respects to search and seizure and privacy infringement. While sounding like a noble premise on paper, the problem with this type of legislature lies in the fact that rather than amplifying and adding to a nation’s perceived security, the constant abuse and misuse merely robs the common populace of their guaranteed freedoms, causing general feelings of distrust towards governing bodies.

While the United States government has come to the forefront of advocacy on behalf of anti-terror laws, several other countries have followed suit in passing their own, equally intrusive yet seemingly necessary forms of legislature. The governments of the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, China, Peru and Turkey all have established anti-terror legislation in place. Even more countries have anti-terror bills pending approval by respective legislative bodies, spelling out a disheartening social trend in which governments of the future are heading in regards to the civil liberties of their citizens.

The grandfather of contemporary anti-terror laws, the innovative legislative fabric from which all forthcoming anti-terror laws will be cut, is the USA PATRIOT Act. Signed into law on October 26th, 2001, not more than two months following 9/11, the USA PATRIOT Act introduced privacy infringement to established Western society. The USA PATRIOT Act, labeled such as a seemingly desperate attempt for a patriotic and evocative acronym (the bill is actually entitled the “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism” Act of 2001), gave the government of the United States a backdoor into legitimate civil rights violation. The circumstantial nature of the bill gives the government an almost free-wheeling license to intrude and impose upon the freedoms of Americans, taking widely accepted illegal practices and legalizing them given certain circumstances. If, for example, there was any suspicion of an individual having links to a terrorist organization, the FBI could tap the individual’s phone, gain access to their recent cellular conversation records, and have that person followed. All completely unbeknownst to the individual, who goes about their daily activities completely oblivious to the extra attention lavished upon them. 

Although the contents of the bill seem disheartening to a society that already struggles to find common ground with its government, it is the way with which the USA PATRIOT Act was passed into law that raised more eyebrows than the bill’s proposed amendments. Although the PATRIOT Act made substantial changes to more than 15 important statutes, it was passed through the House and the Senate with relatively little debate in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, conveying a sense of urgency and showcasing an administration’s hasty reaction to the imminent dangers on the home front. As a result, the act lacks a sense of legitimacy earned through trial-and-error legislation drafting, coming off rather as a hasty patchwork fix to a looming problem that demanded years of more careful attention.

But the USA PATRIOT Act was just the beginning in a seemingly endless slew of new legislature passed by the governments of the world with the same communal goal: to make the world a safer place by eliminating the ominous terrorist menace. But where does one draw the line between protecting global security and simply infringing upon basic legal rights. 

Talk of extremist amendments to England’s criminal justice system in regards to homeland security has pushed the boundaries of anti-terror laws even further. The inclusion of wire-tap evidence in trials as well as the introduction of special anti-terror courts exclusively presided over by a judge and lacking a jury are some of the proposed amendments. While these pieces of legislature still hang in the developmental stage, the English parliament is optimistic to the ideas. However, it is these harsh and draconian laws that exemplify the seemingly insidious underlying intent of anti-terror legislation: rather than heightening security, their aim is to further blur the state’s powers in privacy infringement. Each small step made in furthering anti-terror legislation further spells the death of the individual’s freedom, with civil liberty serving as the first casualty. 

What purpose do international governments have in passing harsh, undemocratic anti-terror laws? Is it to protect the individual’s security, or simply to sway the power of civil liberties away from the public and back into the hands of those in power? Find out if your country has any anti-terror laws in development, and see for yourself whether these laws serve a righteous and just purpose. Don’t like the idea of being detained indefinitely under the suspicion of terrorist connections? Miss the good old days when telephone conversations were a private affair between two consenting parties? Feel like growing out a particularly bushy beard over the icy winter? Then you need to further educate yourself on your respective government’s slate of proposed terrorism-stifling criminal code amendments. Freedom is a relative term as is, and with the sudden voyeuristic need to monitor the populace coming to the forefront of global priorities, the concept of “freedom of the individual” will soon be antiquated and non-existent.

Sources

Sengupta, Kim. “Anti-Terror Laws 'Mean US No Longer has Moral High Ground'.” Common Dreams. 17 February 2004. 1 December 2004. <http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0217-01.htm>.

“The USA PARIOT Act.” Electronic Privacy Information Center. 1 November 2004. 1 December 2004. <http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/usapatriot/>.

“Tougher anti-terror laws proposed.” BBC. 21 November 2004. 1 December 2004. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4029507.stm>.

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