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How Do We Balance Liberty vs Security?

For five years, the NSA has been reading email and tapping phones without a warrant, forbidden activies according to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. Bipartisan Congress passed the "Protect America Act" (already nicknamed the "Police America Act") before the summer recess, to make such spying on citizens legal. (The latest excuse was that FISA had a backlog of foreigner-to-foreigner calls to approve.) The President can open the mail of private citizens, and the CIA can look at their financial records. National Security Letters can be sent requesting information on citizens from organizations such as libraries, under the Patriot Act. Organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union have filed lawsuits in federal court and filed Freedom of Information requests repeatedly, to expose wrongful spying. According to what they have found, files are kept by the FBI and Pentagon on peaceful activists and groups like Greenpeace and PETA are infiltrated by informants.

A study called Civil Liberties vs. Security: Public Opinion in the Context of the Terrorist Attacks on America was done at Michigan State University, funded by the National Science Foundation. The study surveyed Americans shortly after 9/11/01. The study found that the greater people's sense of threat, the lower their support for civil liberties. This effect interacted, however, with trust in government. The lower people's trust in government, the less willing they were to trade off civil liberties for security, regardless of their level of threat.

It is in this context that I read about what the British government is doing - treating climate change protesters using their law designed for terrorists. What do you think would happen in the US in a similar situation? What is the best balance between civil liberties and security in an era where terror attacks are a possibility yet we have a tradition of free speech and assembly as well as personal privacy and liberty? Are there not laws for when civil disobedients get out of hand, without resorting to "terror" law?

According to a document from Scotland Yard, obtained by The Guardian:

Police to use terror laws on Heathrow climate protesters
Government has encouraged use of stop and search and detention without charge

Armed police will use anti-terrorism powers to "deal robustly" with climate change protesters at Heathrow next week, as confrontations threaten to bring major delays to the already overstretched airport.

Up to 1,800 extra officers will be drafted in to prevent an estimated 1,500 people disrupting the airport over the period of the camp for climate change, which is due to begin on Tuesday. The police have been told to use stop and search powers against the protesters, who have pledged to take direct action on August 18 and 19 but not to endanger life.
(snip)

"Should individuals or small groups seek to take action outside of lawful protest they will be dealt with robustly using terrorism powers. This is because the presence of large numbers of protesters at or near the airport will reduce our ability to proactively counter the terrorist act [threat]," the document says.

The police report makes it clear that the government has encouraged police forces to make greater use of terrorism powers "especially the use of stop and search powers under s44 Terrorism Act 2000".

The law gives police powers to:

Stop and search people and vehicles for anything that could be used in connection with terrorism

Search people even if they do not have evidence to suspect them

Hold people for up to a month without charge

Search homes and remove protesters' outer clothes, such as hats, shoes and coats.

The civil rights group Liberty said it was alarmed at the police use of the anti-terrorism powers to deter peaceful protest. "Stop and search powers created to address the threat of terrorism should not be used routinely against peaceful demonstrators," said James Welch, Liberty's legal director.

(read the rest of the story below & see photo of armed airport cop)

The police tactics have echoes of the 2003 anti-war demo at RAF Fairford where law lords eventually ruled police had acted unlawfully in detaining two coachloads of protesters, who were stopped and searched and then turned back even though they were on their way to an authorised demonstration. Police used section 44 of the act 995 times at the Fairford peace camp, even though there was no suggestion of terrorist overtones.

The Guardian has established that at least two climate change campaigners have been arrested recently at Heathrow by officers using terrorism powers. Cristina Fraser, a student, was stopped when cycling near the airport with a friend and then charged under section 58 of the Terrorism Act. This makes it an offence to
make a record of something that could be used in an act of terrorism.

"I was arrested and held in a police cell for 30 hours. I was terrified. No one knew where I was. They knew I was not a terrorist," she said.

Ms Fraser, a first-year London university anthropology student, has been on aviation demonstrations with the Plane Stupid campaign group, but claims she was carrying nothing at all. The police later recharged her with conspiring to cause a public nuisance.(Getty Images)

102 Comments

August 13, 2007 10:52 AM

not my president said:

Opening my email, late here on the west coast, I heard from several people that Rove had resigned. Haven't read about it yet but am disappointed not to see the Frog March as I'd worked on my costume for several years!