Constitutional Crisis?
Calhoun, Craig
FACED WITH genuine and serious threats, George W. Bush's administration took prompt actions. It curtailed civil liberties, gave new powers to intelligence agencies, enhanced mass surveillance of...
...But these trade-offs must be made within the framework of constitutional democracy...
...Trade-offs between security and liberty are necessary, not only in current difficult circumstances...
...As a result, it has become harder for the public to be well informed...
...When an American citizen is detained as an "enemy combatant," it may seem that the most important question is whether the charge is accurate...
...It limited its commitment to Homeland Security, preferring to make symbolic announcements that we the people should be frightened and to impose burdensome but largely symbolic security checks 6 n DISSENT / Fall 2004 rather than to address the vulnerabilities of our water, power, and transport systems...
...And administration leaders have lied...
...Intelligence" depends not just on such agencies but on scientific research, open debate among proponents of different perspectives, and an informed public...
...It has promoted and sometimes acted on deeply suspect research...
...CRAIG CALHOUN is president of the Social Science Research Council and University Professor of Social Sciences at New York University...
...Rule of law is fundamental...
...efforts to bypass it damage it deeply...
...jailers...
...And it is not good for soldiers and officers any more than presidents and cabinet members to think that the requirements of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are optional...
...Constitution and the rule of law, claiming that the president's right to wage war in the national defense exempted most of the executive branch and even the military from U.S...
...At the same time, strengthened state power only protects citizens when it is used intelligently, honestly, and wisely...
...But when the administration arrogates to itself the right to say who is an "enemy combatant" without any open hearing or appeal and on this basis denies citizens their rights to due process, it is not only the individual but our entire constitutional system that is damaged, and the precedent is damaging whether the charge is true COLLOQUIUM in any individual case or not...
...At the same time, the Bush administration did limit itself...
...Beyond this, massive use of computerassisted surveillance without serious legal safeguards makes citizens vulnerable to errors that are notoriously hard to correct, and to leaks and thefts of data that are notoriously hard to prevent...
...It limited its promised reforms of the nation's disorganized and dysfunctional intelligence agencies...
...The Bush administration has acted to restrain good science in a variety of fields, by actively intervening, not just dubiously allocating funds...
...DISSENT / Fall 2004 n 7...
...It also limited its commitment to the U.S...
...It curtailed civil liberties, gave new powers to intelligence agencies, enhanced mass surveillance of the American people, made America a less attractive destination for international students, and created an offshore prison complex where it held that U.S...
...When members of the U.S...
...law need not restrict U.S...
...Underfunding local government, it funded expensive and counterproductive international war—and accordingly limited its commitment to a balanced budget...
...It has sought to limit public debate— and found a surprisingly willing accomplice in an ostensibly free press that has spent most of the last three years tethered to the administration's preferred story lines...
...Moreover, we must ask not only about the balance between the two but also about the effectiveness with which security and liberty are provided...
...Damage to basic procedural guarantees can be long-lasting and hard to repair...
...These actions did not make Americans safe...
...For one thing, it makes citizens more vulnerable to abuses by government officials...
...It unilaterally invaded a country that did not pose an imminent threat, undermining the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and relations with our long-standing allies...
...They caused Americans to be killed, and will cause more Americans to be killed...
...armed forces are told that in their actions in Iraq they may disregard clear legal restrictions, this amounts to telling them to disregard their oath to "support" and "bear true faith to" the Constitution...
...This last is perhaps the greatest threat to constitutional democracy of all...
...Failure to reform the CIA, FBI, and other intelligence agencies or to demand effective relations among them, reveals the extent to which liberties are traded away without a serious commitment to increasing security...
...The Bush administration has been more willing to sacrifice liberty than to provide security Strengthening the coercive and surveillance powers of the state does not necessarily enhance security...
Vol. 51 • September 2004 • No. 4
