Hang together on American civil liberties despite Aschcroft's policies By Marwan Kreidie

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In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the US, this phrase by Benjamin Franklin seemed apt: “(T)hey who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Although the Bush administration must be familiar with the words uttered by one of America’s most distinguished statesmen, it apparently hasn’t taken them into consideration. That’s because there are no signs that the assault on civil rights mounted by President George W. Bush and Attorney-General John Ashcroft in recent years have made the US any safer.
In reaction to Sept. 11, Ashcroft announced that over 1,200 people of Arab or Muslim origin had been detained. This was followed by “voluntary interviews” of Arab and Muslim males, including some American citizens, which were anything but voluntary. Then he initiated a program of “special registration” requiring that almost 80,000 people visiting the US, all of them male nationals principally from Arab and Muslim countries, be photographed, fingerprinted and interrogated upon arrival or, if they already were in the US, at designated immigration offices.
In early December the Justice Department announced the suspension of some of the requirements of the special registration program.
Many American citizens knew about the well-publicized detention program, but had little reason to be aware of its results, or of the existence of the special registration program. However, most Arab- or Muslim-Americans were highly conscious of both, regarding them as egregious examples of ethnic profiling and intimidation. The question is: Have these programs made the US any safer?
First, the detention program. Not one of the 1,200 individuals held by the authorities has been charged with anything more than visa violations. The Justice Department’s inspector-general, Gerald Fine, has stated that the detainees were incarcerated for too long (an average of over 80 days without charge), were kept in harsh conditions (shackled and in solitary confinement), and were often denied contact with relatives or lawyers. In many cases their families were not even told they were being detained or where they were being held.
Some detainees were jailed for far longer than the 80-day average. For example, Nabil Ayesh was picked up near Philadelphia on Sept. 11, 2001, for having an Arabic bumper sticker on his car and held for over a year with no charges filed against him. He was finally deported for visa violations. If any terrorist connection had been discovered, Ayesh would never have been deported; he would have been put on trial.
As if detentions without charge were not enough, the Justice Department started its “interview project” in winter 2001-2002. The goal was to interview 5,000 Arabs already living inside the US, and even some Arab-Americans. All the signs are that not a single terrorist was discovered through the process, and little about terrorism was learned from others who were questioned. Yet the program was repeated, targeting an additional 5,000 men, again with no acknowledged results.
The Justice Department claimed these voluntary interviews were not discriminatory, even though they had selectively targeted Arabs and Muslims. In fact, they did indeed lead to discrimination after law enforcement officials showed up at the workplaces of interviewees across the country. Soon, Arab and Muslim men reported harassment while at work and many were dismissed from their jobs.
What of the special registration program? Its suspension speaks volumes, but it should also be noted that the program’s rules were so unclear that Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) officials were unsure who was required to register. Some INS officers actually turned away people who were supposed to register. Because the authorities were unprepared to deal with the large influx of people registering, many of these were again detained in harsh conditions.
The program’s value was illustrated by the fact that no charges of terrorism or terrorist connections were filed. Of the almost 85,000 people designated for registration, nearly 15,000 found themselves in deportation proceedings, mostly for technical visa violations.
These massive intrusions on civil liberties have been both costly and ineffective in achieving their intended purpose of increasing public safety. Instead of providing comfort to Americans, they have understandably enraged Arab-Americans and American Muslims. Furthermore, the behavior has provoked outrage among Arabs and Muslims living abroad. Tens of thousands of hours of potentially valuable law enforcement time were wasted, including at least 62,000 annual hours now gained by the suspension of the special registration program, according to Department of Homeland Security figures. And this is not to mention the impact in terms of the lost trust felt by large segments of the Arab and Muslim community in America
One can imagine tart-tongued Ben Franklin taking note of the contradiction between these actions and the Bush administration’s stated foreign policy goal of making the Arab world democratic and respectful of the rule of law. Can the US really achieve that high-minded objective by saying: “Do as we say, not as we do?”
Americans should demand that Bush take on the role of champion of civil liberties. Remember, Franklin also famously observed: “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Marwan Kreidie, executive director of the Philadelphia Arab-American Development Corp., teaches political science at Villanova University and is a civil service commissioner for the city of Philadelphia. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR