Fighting Terrorism While Protecting Civil Liberties

“[W]e’re likely to experience more restrictions on our personal freedom than has ever been the case in our country” as an effect of the horrific events of September 11, 2001, warned U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in a speech she made to a law school audience at New York University on September 28.

That prediction, which should not be taken lightly, is an example of how law-related education lessons are learned.

While most Americans, of any heritage, are willing to make sacrifices, the extent to which they will willingly accept restrictions to their personal freedoms remains to be determined. After all, it is those freedoms that distinguish the U.S. from most other nations. It is why the United States of America was founded and why its founding fathers so deliberately drafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights—seeking to balance individual freedoms with the good of the nation as a whole. It is why, for two and a quarter centuries, people from all over the world have emigrated here.

As others have pointed out, civil liberties necessarily ebb and flow in times of war and peace. History, always clearest in hindsight, has shown how our nation and its zealots have overreacted in periods of turmoil and how, in the midst of it, the voices crying out for reason, were usually not heard. Among events in recent history: During World War II, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, 120,000 Japanese Americans, most of whom were U.S. citizens, lost their personal property and their lives of freedom when they were sent off to internment camps. During the Vietnam War, the FBI had no qualms about using its surveillance tactics against civil rights leaders, anti-war activities, and other “subversives.”

If these examples do not speak strongly enough, then surely the Alien and Sedition Acts do. Under the threat of war with France, Congress in 1798 passed four laws in an effort to strengthen the federal government. Known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts, the legislation sponsored by the Federalists was also intended to quell any political opposition from the Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson.

* The Naturalization Act required that aliens be residents for 14 years instead of 5 years before they became eligible for U.S. citizenship.

* The Alien Act authorized the President to deport aliens “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States” during peacetime.

* The Alien Enemies Act allowed the wartime arrest, imprisonment, and deportation of any alien subject to an enemy power.

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