Zagora
03-10-03, 22:43
ENEMY ALIENS:
Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism
By David Cole
In Guantánamo Bay approximately 650 "enemy combatants" are being held without trial, without charges, and without access to their families or legal representation. They are as young as thirteen and as old as eighty. They have attempted suicide twenty-seven times. Since the war on terror began, over 5000 people in the U.S.–nearly all Arab American and Muslim men– have been detained in antiterrorism initiatives, yet only five have been charged with a terrorist crime and only one convicted. Why has the government locked up so many with so little to show for it? Are these sweeping ethnicity-based detentions effective security measures? In ENEMY ALIENS (The New Press; Pub. Date: September 26, 2003; $24.95 Hardcover), a landmark exploration of the danger to civil liberties posed by the war on terrorism, award-winning author and civil rights lawyer David Cole answers these vitally important questions.
Many have claimed that the terrorist threat warrants sacrifices in liberty in order to achieve greater security. David Cole argues that for the most part, we have not made that difficult choice; instead, the government has selectively sacrificed the liberties of foreign nationals for the purported security of citizens. Foreign nationals have been subjected to preventive detention, secret arrests and secret trials, ethnic profiling, searches and wiretaps without probable cause, and sweeping new laws imposing guilt by association. Cole contends that such sacrifices of immigrant’s liberties are not only wrong as a constitutional matter, but ineffective as security measures. In addition, he refutes the government’s claim that only foreign nationals’ rights are at stake, showing that as a historical matter, what the government does to foreign nationals today will pave the way for similar measures applied to citizens tomorrow
Through powerful case studies and legal analysis, including an account of his own two-decade experience defending immigrants in "terrorism" cases, Cole shows that we have adopted an illegitimate double standard in the treatment of immigrants, imposing measures on foreigners that we would not accept if they were applied more broadly to U.S. citizens. This is a politically tempting trade-off, since the twenty million immigrants in the United States do not have the right to vote. But Cole issues a timely warning that in the long run, both our security and our freedoms depend on respecting the human rights of foreign nationals as we do our own.
In the wake of Inspector General Glenn A. Fine’s report documenting extensive abuse of detained immigrants in the wake of September 11, there is mounting pressure for the recognition of the human rights and civil liberties of foreign nationals. In this milieu, David Cole’s constitutional expertise, personal litigation experience, and lucid analyses are ever more relevant. ENEMY ALIENS reminds us that we jeopardize our heritage and our fundamental rights when we curtail the liberties of the twenty million immigrants living among us.
About the Author:
David Cole is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and a volunteer staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. He is also legal affairs correspondent for The Nation, a commentator on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, and author of No Equal Justice and Terrorism and the Constitution (both from The New Press). He was named one of the top forty-five public sector lawyers under forty-five by The American Lawyer.
Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism
By David Cole
In Guantánamo Bay approximately 650 "enemy combatants" are being held without trial, without charges, and without access to their families or legal representation. They are as young as thirteen and as old as eighty. They have attempted suicide twenty-seven times. Since the war on terror began, over 5000 people in the U.S.–nearly all Arab American and Muslim men– have been detained in antiterrorism initiatives, yet only five have been charged with a terrorist crime and only one convicted. Why has the government locked up so many with so little to show for it? Are these sweeping ethnicity-based detentions effective security measures? In ENEMY ALIENS (The New Press; Pub. Date: September 26, 2003; $24.95 Hardcover), a landmark exploration of the danger to civil liberties posed by the war on terrorism, award-winning author and civil rights lawyer David Cole answers these vitally important questions.
Many have claimed that the terrorist threat warrants sacrifices in liberty in order to achieve greater security. David Cole argues that for the most part, we have not made that difficult choice; instead, the government has selectively sacrificed the liberties of foreign nationals for the purported security of citizens. Foreign nationals have been subjected to preventive detention, secret arrests and secret trials, ethnic profiling, searches and wiretaps without probable cause, and sweeping new laws imposing guilt by association. Cole contends that such sacrifices of immigrant’s liberties are not only wrong as a constitutional matter, but ineffective as security measures. In addition, he refutes the government’s claim that only foreign nationals’ rights are at stake, showing that as a historical matter, what the government does to foreign nationals today will pave the way for similar measures applied to citizens tomorrow
Through powerful case studies and legal analysis, including an account of his own two-decade experience defending immigrants in "terrorism" cases, Cole shows that we have adopted an illegitimate double standard in the treatment of immigrants, imposing measures on foreigners that we would not accept if they were applied more broadly to U.S. citizens. This is a politically tempting trade-off, since the twenty million immigrants in the United States do not have the right to vote. But Cole issues a timely warning that in the long run, both our security and our freedoms depend on respecting the human rights of foreign nationals as we do our own.
In the wake of Inspector General Glenn A. Fine’s report documenting extensive abuse of detained immigrants in the wake of September 11, there is mounting pressure for the recognition of the human rights and civil liberties of foreign nationals. In this milieu, David Cole’s constitutional expertise, personal litigation experience, and lucid analyses are ever more relevant. ENEMY ALIENS reminds us that we jeopardize our heritage and our fundamental rights when we curtail the liberties of the twenty million immigrants living among us.
About the Author:
David Cole is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and a volunteer staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. He is also legal affairs correspondent for The Nation, a commentator on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, and author of No Equal Justice and Terrorism and the Constitution (both from The New Press). He was named one of the top forty-five public sector lawyers under forty-five by The American Lawyer.