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Thursday October 04, 2012

Presidential Debate Sidesteps Civil Liberties

Posted by Samer Araabi at 4:03 pm

Last night’s presidential debate focused on a wide range of important political issues, and displayed many of the significant differences – and similarities – between the two candidates. However, the issues ignored by the debate were equally illustrative.

President Obama and Governor Romney debated key problems such as the economy, health care, government regulation, and many of the other central matters of their campaign. But they also ignored some of the most important issues facing our country today, particularly in the realm of civil liberties.

Perhaps the reason for the lack of debate time on civil liberties is that the candidates largely agree on many of these core questions.

Surveillance

The past decade has produced what may well be the worst assault on American civil liberties in modern history, a product of rollbacks at the hands of both presidential administrations. The USA Patriot Act, first signed into law by President Bush in 2001, has been reauthorized on three separate occasions since its passage, including through recent legislation by President Obama that stretched the authorizations for an extra year to provide “certainty and predictability” for intelligence agencies.

Romney has explicitly supported these positions, and has justified his stance by saying that “the most important civil liberty I expect from my government is my right to be kept alive.”

Profiling

Though President Bush had initially expressed support for the End Racial Profiling Act of 2001, the 9/11 attacks changed the political calculus of that decision forever. Since that time, government-sanctioned profiling against Arab Americans and American Muslims has ballooned to remarkable proportions. The NYPD’s infamous Demographics Unit, which failed to produce a single credible lead in its history, produced detailed descriptions of Arab American restaurants, social spaces, and places of worship. The FBI has similarly infiltrated mosques, student associations, and activist groups to “ferret out” terrorist sympathizers, a strategy which often resulted in community members reporting the FBI’s own informants to the Bureau for suspicious behavior. Obama has quietly supported most of these measures.

Romney has also stated his approval of tactics that single out ethnicities and religions, arguing that “preventing an attack means good intelligence work…and if it means we have to go to a mosque to wiretap… that's where we're gonna go.”

Indefinite Detention & Enemy Combatants

The past year also brought forth the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, which contained provisions allowing for the indefinite detention of American citizens without trial if a person is considered to be an “enemy combatant.”

The designation was also used to target and assassinate American citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki, along with his son Abdulrahman, for their affiliations with Al Qaeda.

When asked whether he would have made a similar decision on the NDAA, Romney went beyond the policy and defended President Obama himself: “There are a lot of things I think this president does wrong, lots of them, but I don’t think he is going to abuse this power.”

Though most of these policies have been proven to be offensive, costly, and often counterproductive, candidates have every right to hold these positions. The problem we have faced is that these assaults on our civil liberties – along with the potential consequences of these policies – are almost never discussed in the light of day. The campaign websites of both Obama and Romney have avoided these issues altogether, and yesterday’s debate allowed them to maintain their deafening silence. Americans have a right to know where their candidates stand on balancing national security and freedom, and candidates have a responsibility to defend their views in a public setting.

Tagged as Issues, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, FBI, NYPD, PATRIOT Act, Profiling, Posted by Samer Araabi, Yalla Vote, Democrat, Election Central, Republican