Abstract

Unimagined Communities

The author refutes claims by U.S. government officials that it is necessary to violate civil rights in order to protect the country against terrorist attacks. All those agencies, bureaus, offices and teams clearly had information, knowledge, intelligence. What seemed to be missing was any ability to interpret what they had. Yet media summaries of the commission's inquiry seemed to drift away from questions of effective coordination and move toward granting greater "war" powers to law enforcement. Repeatedly, there were references analogizing the war on terror to the war on drugs--which has not been particularly distinguished either by its regard for human rights or by anything like success. Media commentators from various think tanks hypothesized confidently on TV and radio: If only the government didn't have to apologize for compiling lists of people based on membership in suspect political organizations. Anticipating criminality and deciphering intent will always be the most difficult and uncertain of endeavors. But haphazard, wide-net suspicion is no substitute for less intrusive, more practical safeguards. We Americans have always prided ourselves on being a mobile society. A police state is not the same as a neighborhood watch. Police make mistakes, and when they are licensed to act ungoverned by due process, they are unaccountable to the public for their "decisive lethal action."