BCT Editorial – 7/8/08

This page was last updated on July 10, 2008.

Who’s next?; Editorial; Beaver County Times; July 8, 2008.

The editorial subtitle is “Americans must be vigilant to protect their civil liberties.” Further, the first paragraph says, “Three recent items in the news should concern Americans who are interested in preserving our civil liberties.” The editorial concludes with, “Americans must be alert to the slow erosion of their civil liberties in the name of protecting our nation from terrorism. Who’s to say that one day they might not come for you?”

This editorial is misleading pretty much from beginning to end in that “civil liberties” of “Americans” is barely discussed.

Here are my points about the editorial’s “second point.”

· The editorial failed to note the detainee (a Chinese citizen who previously fled Red China) fled Afghanistan for Pakistan after the U.S. attacked the camp where he was living post 9/11. Pakistan officials captured the detainee and turned him over to the U.S. The detainee is not a U.S. citizen and to the best of my knowledge has never been on U.S. soil.

· The editorial leads us to believe the court ruled, “the legality of [the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA)] was seriously flawed.” Not so. The Lewis Carroll quote cited (page 28 of the ruling) referred to evidence the U.S. used to classify the detainee as an enemy combatant, not the DTA.

· It was the DTA that gave the DC Court of Appeals the authority to hear the case. In other words, the “seriously flawed” DTA is what gave the detainee the ability to challenge his detainment.

Given the above points, the “second point” clearly has nothing to do with “civil liberties” of “Americans.”

The third point also has nothing to do with “civil liberties.” It was all about nosy “contract workers” wrongly falling prey to their curiosity. Even the editorial conceded the snoops did so “without authorization.” Sadly, this always has and always will go on in both the private and public sector and must be punished, but it’s not about “civil liberties.” If the Times is really concerned about privacy, why not lobby against programs like income taxes, government healthcare, et cetera that collect the really personal info in the first place.

The first point actually wanders into “civil liberties” and deserves considerable observation. That said, the editorial was still a tad misleading regarding the proposal. According to an AP article, “Currently, FBI agents need specific reasons — like evidence or allegations that a law probably has been violated — to investigate U.S. citizens and legal residents. The new policy, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press, would let agents open preliminary terrorism investigations after mining public records and intelligence to build a profile of traits that, taken together, were deemed suspicious. Among the factors that could make someone subject of an investigation is travel to regions of the world known for terrorist activity, access to weapons or military training, along with the person’s race or ethnicity.”