Thomas Friedman is correct:
…since 9/11, we’ve become “The United States of Fighting Terrorism.” Times columnists are not allowed to endorse candidates, but there’s no rule against saying who will not get my vote: I will not vote for any candidate running on 9/11. We don’t need another president of 9/11. We need a president for 9/12. I will only vote for the 9/12 candidate.
What does that mean? This: 9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 — mine included — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.
It is not that I thought we had new enemies that day and now I don’t. Yes, in the wake of 9/11, we need new precautions, new barriers. But we also need our old habits and sense of openness. For me, the candidate of 9/12 is the one who will not only understand who our enemies are, but who we are.
The United States is not a country that hides behind walls. The United States is not a country that lives in fear. The United States is not a country that sacrifices liberty for security. The United States does not replace the Statue of Liberty with Guantanamo Bay.
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the people of the United States and Western Europe needed to make a choice:
- Sacrifice some liberty for security; or
- Keep our liberties and accept that we will live with a higher level of risk
The governments of the United States and Great Britain decided to choose the former themselves. They did not ask the people. Of course, the people would have immediately chosen the first option out of shock – but now, six years later, we can view the issue more soberly. An increased level of surveillance is normal, but George W. Bush has gone overboard. As this transcript states, the federal government can:
- Wait months before telling people that their homes or offices have been searched.
- Monitor everything you read, write and send from your computer.
- Get warrants without probable cause through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) to “conduct secret searches, obtain bank records, tap into phones and computers, gather medical, student and library records. All without having to show evidence of a crime.”
- Prosecute librarians for telling anyone information has been supoenaed in a terror investigation.
- Search and seize Americans’ papers and effects without cause, and the new enemy combatant designation allows the government in secret with no oversight to jail anyone, including Americans, and hold them indefinitely without a trial.
- Obtain materials held by third parties – airlines, trains, hotels, car rental companies and libraries – and obtain a broad sweep of information concerning people who may have absolutely nothing to do with terrorism.
Things are even worse in Britain:
- In Britain, information on every phone call (landline and mobile) made and text message sent will be stored and provided to the government upon request. The information will include “what calls were made, their time and duration, what calls are made, their time and duration, and the name and address of the registered user of the phone. The files will even reveal where people are when they made mobile phone calls.”
- In 2009, these rules will apply to the Internet: “the websites we have visited, the people we have emailed and phone calls made over the [Internet].”
- Telephone companies will be required to keep all of this information for a year.
- In addition, Britain already has more than 4.2 million surveillance cameras. (Chicago and Baltimore, among other U.S. cities, are headed that way as well.)
Osama bin Laden did not destroy our way of life. We allowed the government to do it. I’d rather live completely free and with a higher level of risk, but the government never asked me.
Earlier: The (Exaggerated) Significance of 9/11 and September 11 Essay: The Causes of 9/11
