But what is going on off screen?
by Tom Roberts, editor of NCR
We’re nearing the end of a jolting week during which we
were treated, almost as if it were some new network pilot, to the invasion of
Baghdad and the overthrow of the regime of Saddam Hussein. It was great live theater, and in some ways just as
scrubbed as normal TV fare.
Only the slightest hint began to come through in the
papers of the truly awful trail of dead humans upon which the conquest rested.
The number of Iraqi dead will probably never be totaled up, but the original
estimates were beginning to grow to staggering proportions.
While
neither the U.S. nor Iraq was bothering to count the dead, some calculations
began to become apparent. Whole Iraqi divisions had been obliterated, that we
know, but where were the bodies? How many had paid the price?
What
was the count of civilians in all of the towns and small cities in which
fighting had been described as “fierce” on the way to Baghdad. And what of the
hospitals that the International Committee of the Red Cross claimed were being
overrun with patients?
Toward
week’s end I began to think more and more about what was happening off camera,
not only in Iraq, but, perhaps more figuratively, off our screens at home.
It
seems the Bush administration has succeeded, in the absence of proof, in
lumping together in the public imagination Saddam Hussein and the invasion of
Iraq with Osama bin Laden and Sept. 11. That success presumably has added to
the American public’s hesitation at questioning the creeping assault on civil
liberties that is being carried out in the name of fighting terrorism.
With
alerts at code orange and troops in the field and the air alive with warnings
and cautions, who can raise questions?
Some
groups, thankfully, are not only raising questions but also meticulously
documenting the erosion of civil liberties. One good source for such information
is the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. That group’s report,
“Imbalance
of Powers: How changes to U.S. law and policy since 9/11 erode human rights and
civil liberties”, is available from the committee’s Web site at
www.lchr.org.
The
secrecy fostered by the Bush Administration is extreme. In the last 18 months,
it has spearheaded a rollback of federal open-government statutes. The Congress
fought hard in 1977 to pass an update to the Freedom of Information Act. Over
the veto of President Ford the Congress made it clear that all Americans are
entitled to know what information the federal government retains on them and to
whom it was communicated. In 1972, the Congress passed the Federal Advisory Committee
Act requiring the government to disclose the minutes of almost all committees
within the federal structure.
Granted,
few average citizens would have reason to seek information under the acts, but
this is a case of not appreciating what you’ve got until it’s gone.
With
the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, 22 agencies were folded
into an enormous federal bureaucracy, but the amount of information available
to the public shrunk. Any information about the “critical infrastructure” can
be withheld.
Under
the war on terrorism, the FBI has permission to engage in domestic spying; its
power to conduct surveillance and detain people has expanded. And the federal
government’s authority to execute its powers in secret has also expanded.
The
right to privacy is slowly being eroded, with the patriot act providing the
power to compel banks, libraries and health facilities to furnish personal
records.
The
list of threats is long and complex. The Lawyers Committee details the threats
in its report.
The dangers that remain in Iraq and the
uncertainty about what might follow the military operations will continue to
draw our attention and concern. But we should be diligent in tracking the
dangers at home that grow out of measures enacted ostensibly to protect us.
Democracy suffocates on secrecy and the violation of civil liberties.
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