Remember the civil libertarian and techie cavils about counter-terrorism investigations based on use of incendiary Internet search terms? Probably not, because the powers have not been abused. We all recall the controversy over legal wiretapping of domestic-international phone calls between suspected terrorists, powers which contrary to charges from critics, have failed to engender a feared police state or anything remotely like that. Fresh enough in the memory too, are public librarians waxing righteously indignant about USA Patriot Act provisions giving authorities the right to review records of public computer usage and books checked out by potential terrorist suspects.

Never mind that these powers have never been shown to have been abused, and were clearly auxiliary to larger and wholly justified changes in the security environment after al-Qaeda operatives secreted in our society were able to hijack and pilot commercial passenger jets into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Never mind, I suppose, that sadly there are some books which if privately purchased - or certainly if checked out of a library - should occasion the alert of all hands on deck. Never mind that there are suspected terrorists conducting systematic surveillance of Washington State Ferries so as to quite possibly attempt to blow up some of the fleet's boats, with hundreds of cars and people aboard.

I don't know about you, but generally speaking, the threat does not seem to me to be sworn officers of the U.S. government. No, not exactly.

Granted, "we have seen the enemy and he is us" has a certain fetid appeal to certain fetid types. But long-standing Democratic hostility to U.S. intelligence gathering seems ever more misguided as the continued work of jihadists around the globe has highlighted the need for strengthened anti-terrorism efforts. England in particular has been forced to reckon more seriously with jihadists within, following the July, 2005 London subway bombings. In today's Guardian, British Home Secretary Charles Clarke explains why post-9/11 "police state" alarmists of the Left aren't right.

intellectual laziness...seeks to slip on to the shoulders of modern democratic states the mantle of dictatorial power. Some of this flows from criticism of the US, particularly the policies of the Bush administration, notably in relation to Iraq, but more generally it is in criticism of the response of the US and UK to 9/11. Such criticism fails to understand the immense significance of 9/11.

...as democracy has advanced so powerfully across the world, other rights become important too. The right to go to work safely on the tube. The right not to be killed by someone who has served his sentence for violent crime but remains dangerous. The right to live at home without being disturbed by antisocial behaviour outside the front door. None of these removes the right of any individual to exercise their freedoms in relation to the state. None of them removes the obligation on the state to operate in accordance with its national and international obligations under law. But when we respond, for example, with counter-terror legislation or proposals to control those criminals who are dangerous to society, many in the media retort that we are destroying democracy and constructing tyranny.

...my appeal is to urge our media to come to terms with a modern concept of rights and responsibilities; to continue their historically important campaign to replace dictatorship with democracy; to applaud the differences between democratic states and dictatorships; to accept the modern reality that human rights are wider than those that the individual possesses in relation to the state; and to work with politics to consider how best those rights too can be fulfilled.

Multi-culturalist rhetoric cannot be allowed to provide cover for terror cells. Aggressive investigations and harsh punishments for those found guilty of plotting attacks and preaching jihad are a moral necessity. Anything less comprises slow surrender to the forces of evil among us.

TECHNORATI TAGS: TERRORISM, COUNTER-TERRORISM, ENGLAND, CHARLES CLARKE, UNITED STATES, NATIONAL SECURITY

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at April 25, 2006 12:20 PM