From the issue dated September 28, 2001
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Balancing Rights and Public SafetyBy AMITAI ETZIONI
At the same time, we should not automatically reject any and all new measures to enhance our safety. The Constitution has always been a living document that has been reinterpreted in line with the needs of the times. Without such reinterpretations, African-Americans would not be counted as full persons, the First Amendment would hardly be viewed as a strong safeguard of free speech or the separation of church and state, and above all, there surely would be no constitutional protection of privacy, introduced only in 1965. I realize that the notion of a carefully crafted sense of balance between our rights and our needs for public safety is not as sexy as one-sided railing about potential threats to our rights -- or calling for the suspension of the Constitution until we hang the bastards. But it is such a balance that reasoned people aspire to find. Indeed, the Fourth Amendment explicitly states that there shall be no unreasonable searches and seizures, thus recognizing that there are reasonable ones. Those in the public interest, the courts have long and often ruled for. Where is the point of balance? As I see it, when there is a compelling public need (stopping attacks of the kind we just experienced surely qualifies), and if there are no effective treatments that could deal with the need at hand without some reconfiguration of our policies and laws, new measures should be considered -- but only as long as their intrusion is minimal. For instance, preventive detaining of Muslim Americans (in the way we mistreated Japanese-Americans during World War II) is not even discussable. ID cards, which other democracies use liberally, insult our sense of anonymity too much to be introduced. In contrast, using computers and cameras to scan crowds to locate people who have been reliably identified as threats to public safety should not be dismissed out of hand. The people who are being scanned are in public spaces. The cameras scan only what they display publicly and do not explore the insides of their briefcases or pocketbooks or look under their garments (as X-rays introduced at some border points do). And the police quite legally scan crowds anyhow. Moreover, computers are not ill disposed toward any racial group. One may disagree about this particular example. This is the way of thinking I'm advocating. We should avoid claiming that every limited change in our policies and laws drives a stake through the heart of our Constitution or allows terrorists to destroy what America is all about. We should recall that totalitarian governments arise not when a country somewhat adjusts its policies when faced with a major new threat -- but when it ignores such a threat, which leads the public to favor a strong, armed government. Amitai Etzioni is a university professor and director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies at George Washington University. http://chronicle.com Section: The Chronicle Review Page: B13
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Copyright © 2001 by The Chronicle of Higher Education
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Reflections on the Fractured Landscape |
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