Level-headed Response
Steve Farrell & Steve Montgomery
Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001
In the wake of the most terrible terrorist attack in this nation's history, every American would do well to insist that our nation's leaders
prepare a strong response, yet an intelligent one, one which punishes our enemies while protecting our liberties.
We would do well to remember and guard against the power-grabbing fiasco that began but two weeks after the Oklahoma City
bombing, under the leadership of President William Jefferson Clinton, when he unveiled the 118-page Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of
1995 (S. 390 in the Senate and H.R. 896 in the House) and its 18-page Anti-terrorism Amendments Act as an addendum.
It was on May 3 of that year that the president sent the act to Congress for its "immediate consideration and enactment." The pressure
was applied to, in essence, act now and think later. Mr. Clinton assured Congress that the bill would "provide an effective and
comprehensive response to the threat of terrorism, while also protecting our precious civil liberties." White House deputy chief of staff
Harold Ickes stood by the president's assurance: "This president is well familiar with the Constitution. He has taught constitutional law
and he is very concerned that whatever is submitted conform to the Constitution."
No doubt, Mr. Clinton knew all about the Constitution, for this act did so much in the way of intentional subversion. A few of its
major problems:
- It federalized a host of crimes properly restricted to state jurisdiction.
- It struck a dangerous breach in our posse comitatus law, which prohibits the use of the military in law enforcement.
- It granted vast discretionary power to the president to apply the "terrorist" label to organizations and, thereby, subject the members and
associates of those groups to federal prosecution.
- It broadened the "interstate commerce" clause to establish federal authority over virtually everybody and everything that moves.
- It permitted law enforcement agencies much greater access to private financial and credit reports.
- It allowed much wider use of wiretaps.
The bill attacked our liberties with such a wide brush that political action groups ranging from the ACLU on the left, to the John Birch
Society on the right, raised a sustained and significant protest that eventually reined in some of its more obnoxious clauses. Liberal
senator Russ Feingold, D-Wis., who voted against the Senate's more ominous version of the act, regarded the bill as "a vehicle to undo
some of the traditional barriers which separate the federal government from state and local law enforcement." That is, an attack on states'
rights, a commitment to centralize authority.
As for its call to nullify posse comitatus guidelines, Feingold called it "a dangerous precedent, as well as one of the most dangerous
departures from the protection of civilian law enforcement in this history of our country."
There was also peripheral damage, lest we forget. Clinton blamed the right for the bombing and initiated a campaign against conservative
talk radio, with a solution, in part, of regulation of free speech on radio and a reversal of the Fairness Doctrine, a reversal which would
have been the death knell to conservative talk radio.
Crisis, war, criminal behavior, emotionally charged events present moments of temptation for presidents. Appearing on MTV's "Enough is Enough"
Forum on April 19, 1994, Mr. Clinton offered the most candid glimpse of his totalitarian philosophy:
"[W]hen we got organized as a country [and] wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of
individual freedom to Americans, it was assumed that the Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly. ... When personal
freedom is being abused, you have to move to limit it. That is what we did in the announcement I made last weekend on the public
housing projects, about how we're going to have weapon sweeps and more things like that. ..."
More things like that is precisely what Clinton gave us in response to terrorism at Oklahoma City. Lovers of American liberty must with
vigilance insure that the current occupant of the White House does not repeat the favor in response to the heinous acts of terrorism
inflicted upon us this day. America must guard against and punish her enemies. But she must do so with an eye single to the
Constitution. In times of crisis it is belligerents who must maneuver, must run and hide, must when caught suffer the consequences. Free
nations and their loyal citizens should not.
Please send your comments to Steve and Steve at stiffrightjab@aol.com
Bibliography
William Norman Grigg. "Liberty Under Law." The New American, June 12, 1995.
William F. Jasper. "Battling Terrorism With Tyranny." The New American, May 29, 1995.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
War on Terrorism
