Upping the ante

Vancouver - - Three countries, three people, and three different fights on how best to reform society and laws in order to deal with the threats posed by terrorism. In the new 2001 forward of his 1995 book Fighting Terrorism, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that, “We have received a wake-up call from hell. Now the question is simple: Do we rally to defeat this evil, while there is still time, or do we press a collective snooze button and go back to business as usual?”

The three ‘westest’ of the west nations on board in fighting terrorism are responding as quickly as they can. Old habits die-hard and Britain, Canada, and the United States are desperately trying to up the ante and fight terror. But are they doing enough?

In Canada an unlikely figure has emerged. Justice Minister Anne McLellan has found herself at the center of the fight between those who think that the new omnibus anti-terror legislation goes too far, and those who think it doesn’t go far enough. She has slam-dunked this useless piece of legislation. This easy time that both bill and minister have gotten is a shame, because without this legislation who knows what Canada’s tired government would have done for the rest of its third mandate.

In short, the bill concentrates even more power in the hands of an already powerful Prime Minister and cabinet with no discernable effect on terrorism. There is no effective opposition left in the country to dispute the bill on those grounds to say nothing of offering a bill that would deal with the actual problem.

In Britain, it is Home Secretary David Blunkett, a very liberal and possibly future Prime Minister, leading a fight against a broad coalition of political interests to implement their new anti-terror legislation.

He hit a snag when the coalition of opposition ended up defeating successive amendments on provisions Blunkett thought would be needed. Some of the provisions were designed to give more power to law enforcement’s ability to gain information on suspects. The problem for Blunkett has become that he is so adamant about passing the law before Christmas that he is unwilling to compromise. The opposition rightly points out that it is the Home Secretary, not they, that is holding up the bill’s passage.

Not to be outdone is the US Attorney General, John Ashcroft. You may remember him from such Senate Confirmation hearings as earlier this year, when he was attacked by opposition Democrats for being, well, conservative.

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