“If we abandon the liberties we cherish, the terrorists will have won.”
-Senator Chuck Hagel, R-NE, September 12, 2001
The events of September 11, 2001, have had a direct impact on the relationship between the government of the United States and its citizens. The most basic civil rights are civil liberties; those rights that protect people from their own government. Civil liberties protected in the United States include the right to due process, the right to free speech and assembly, the right to privacy, and the right to equal protection under the law. One of the many tragedies of 9/11 has been the government’s widespread disavowal of these civil liberties. The Bill of Rights, the founding document of the U.S. government which speaks most directly to the issues of civil liberties and human rights, has been shuttered for nearly a decade now by the USA Patriot Act, passed one month after 9/11. Those rights which went unquestioned at the close of the 20th century have since been jeopardized with practices such as unreasonable search and seizure, government spying, closure of government proceedings and documents, and the encouragement of pointing fingers. Where they have taken place, these practices have largely been justified with reference to the USA Patriot Act, some of the provisions of which will expire at the end of this year. Both Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union have active campaigns for turning this into an opportunity for a revision of the Act in its entirety.
September 11 is now a national holiday called “Patriot Day;” let us not forget that true regard for one’s country means the preservation and defense of the rights we call civil liberties.