Civil liberties: expendable or not during war?

Modest steps

(CNN) -- As workers sift through the rubble that was the World Trade Center in New York City just weeks ago, many Americans are asking themselves how many personal liberties they are willing to sacrifice to prevent more terrorist attacks.

The question is not a new one. Throughout American history, civil liberties have been shoved aside, or at least altered, in favor of more security.

During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended the basic right of habeas corpus, or the right of someone being detained to come into court and challenge his detention.

When Socialists tried to persuade Americans to peacefully oppose the draft during World War I they were convicted under the Espionage Act.

The case made it to the Supreme Court, where Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes issued his opinion that the defendants had no more right to oppose the draft in wartime than a person has the right to shout fire in a crowded theater.

Modest steps

Today, advocacy groups, legal experts and some members of Congress are concerned that a proposal to expand law enforcement powers in order to ratchet up the fight on terrorism could end up treading on rights that all Americans enjoy.

Some of the government's proposals include the detention and deportation of immigrants, the expansion of the government's wiretapping authority, and the easing of grand jury secrecy laws.

Attorney General John Ashcroft and other Justice Department officials have called the package a series of "modest steps" that give the government the tools it needs to effectively fight terrorism. The Bush administration has urged quick legislative approval.

David Cole, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said a basic problem with the package is that it is too sweeping. "It is not in any way carefully calibrated to the threat that we are facing," said Cole, an expert in constitutional law.

Cole said he is most troubled by proposals affecting immigrants that could lead to the deportation of law-abiding, peaceful non-citizens merely because of "guilt by association." And, he said, the proposals give the attorney general the power to place immigrants in detention merely because of suspicion, without any evidence against them.

The administration also sees wiretapping as a way to better track suspected terrorists.

"We must give the FBI the ability to track calls when they make calls from different phones, for example," President Bush said last week.

There are other concerns. Privacy groups have said the proposals increase the government's power to monitor online communications, for example. They also fear that provisions ensuring the secrecy of information uncovered in grand jury proceedings -- meant to protect innocent individuals from the release of embarrassing information -- would be loosened.

The American Civil Liberties Union has spoken out over provisions in three broad areas. They include provisions affecting immigrants, changes to surveillance and wiretapping powers, and several other criminal justice measures, such as the expansion of the government's authority to request secret searches.

ACLU President Nadine Strossen says both liberals and conservatives have expressed concern for the preservation of civil liberties, giving her some reason to believe that changes will be made to those provisions.

"I'm cautiously optimistic that when Congress takes a closer took at these provisions they will not be passed, or not in the form that they were proposed," she said.

"We have to struggle constantly to maintain civil liberties," defense attorney Alan Dershowitz said on CNN last week.

"The battle for civil liberties never stays won ... and we shouldn't give it up even at a time when we know we're going to have to have somewhat greater intrusions on personal privacy."

He calls for a time limit on legislation that would limit or revoke civil liberties under the current terrorism threat.

"When we suspended civil liberties during (World War II) ... some of those suspensions lasted for 20 or 30 years," he said.