Public Opinion

 

Columnist Maureen Dowd pointed out at the end of November 2001 that "stunned by terrorists, abroad and in our midst, the country is seized by contradictory impulses.  On the one hand, we have to trust Mr. Ashcroft. Four thousand people are dead. We are at war with anthrax. But even as we cut the guy some slack, we have to be really skeptical about his assertions of power...continue" 

 

Skepticism was the dominant note in The New York Times op-ed on "Justice Deformed: War and the Constitution." 

 

    The inconvenient thing about the American system of justice is that we are usually challenged to protect it at the most inopportune moments. Right now the country wants very much to be supportive of the war on terrorism, and is finding it hard to summon up much outrage over military tribunals, secret detentions or the possible mistreatment of immigrants from the Mideast. There is a strong temptation not to notice. That makes it even more important to speak up.

     

    After the brutal attacks of Sept. 11, the Bush administration began building a parallel criminal justice system, decree by decree, largely removed from the ordinary oversight of Congress and the courts. In this shadow system, people can be rounded up by the government and held at undisclosed locations for indefinite periods of time. It is a system that allows the government to conduct warrantless wiretaps of conversations between prisoners and their lawyers, a system in which defendants can be tried and condemned to death by secret military tribunals run according to procedural rules that bear scant resemblance to normal military justice...continue. 

     

The police department in Portland, Oregon, decided not to participate in the interrogations of Arab Americans.  Journalists found more mixed reactions among Portland residents in early December 2001: "The truth is, I have really mixed feelings," said Lisa Ritchie, 28, a designer who was strolling in Pioneer Courthouse Square this morning with her 2-year-old son. "I look at all these innocent people being detained these days and it reeks of what happened in World War II to Japanese-Americans. And yet there's a small percentage that may be guilty, that may be terrorists, that may be planning things. Well," she added, her voice trailing off, "I just don't know...continue"

"There's a lot of racial profiling going on these days," says Tim Irwin, "and it's wrong. It was wrong before Sept. 11, and it's still wrong."

 

Patting down airline passengers is fine with Steve Graham. But patting down one group and not others, he said, "that's discriminating."

At the same time in Beaufort, SC, people were reported to go along with antiterrorism measures. "At a time when your whole security is in doubt," said Sherwood Fender, 61, a lawyer, "your pendulum has to swing to the greater good."  "A visa," Mr. Fender said, "is a privilege, like a driver's license. You don't have a right to drive on the road. It's a privilege." State troopers looking for drunken drivers sometimes stop him at roadblocks, and he goes along with that.  But privacy at home and the privacy of a lawyer's conversations with his client are rights, not privileges, Mr. Fender said. "If the trooper comes into my house," he said, "that's going too far. Wiretapping's the same thing...continue." 

 

A national survey conducted in early December found the public "wary but supportive."  "In general, they remain overwhelmingly supportive of the administration's handling of the war on terrorism. But . when asked what worried them more - that the government would fail to enact strong antiterrorism laws or that the government would enact new antiterrorism laws that excessively restrict the average person's civil liberties - Americans were evenly divided, 43 to 45 percent . In general, Americans were willing to give the government substantial leeway in dealing with foreigners suspected of terrorism.   But they do express anxiety about their own rights: 65 percent said they were concerned about losing some of their rights. Thirty-six percent said they were worried that some of these law enforcement changes might end up applying to them. Blacks were nearly twice as likely as whites to have that fear...continue"