LOST LIBERTIES: Ashcroft and the Assault on Personal Freedom

Most Americans are probably unaware of the scope of the 2001 U.S.A. PATRIOT Act, an attempt to safeguard the country against future terrorist attacks. In contrast, each of the 13 authors of this series of essays, many of whom are lawyers with groups devoted to protecting civil liberties such as the Center for Constitutional Rights, is totally immersed in the act's most arcane provisions. Animated by passion, and informed by considerable intellect, the essays catalogue a long list of civil liberties central to a democratic society that, in their view, have been sacrificed in the Bush administration's haste to strengthen national security. The list of casualties includes both collective rights (the rights to political dissent, to an open government and to be free of government surveillance) and individual rights (such as the right to a lawyer and trial when charged with a crime). Many of the essays recognize that the U.S. government has at times suspended civil rights, as with the internment of Japanese in WWII and during the McCarthy hearings, but they argue that these policies were wrong and ineffective, and should serve as cautionary tales, not models. The most effective essays are about people caught in Kafkaesque detentions and procedures by various administration policies. The essays, gathered by Brown, former program director for Human Rights Watch, are explicitly designed to provide arguments to those who agree that the forfeiture of civil liberties presents a greater long-term danger to our freedom than terrorism. Readers sympathetic to the Bush Administration may find the essays naïve and infuriating. (Sept.)