How many civil liberties are we willing to give up in order to protect ourselves?

Congress currently is fast-tracking many bills aimed at protecting both the government and the citizenship of America. Many anti-terrorism bills that in the past would have come under heavy fire from Congress as violating civil liberties have been passed with little or no dissent. One of the concerns is that these bills simply are not going to go away when this crisis comes to an end. The new laws will still be there, and their original intent may not be considered in their future use.

The citizens of the U.S. need to pay attention to what their government is doing.

The Senate endorsed the “Uniting and Strengthening America Act” on Thursday and passed it with little discussion. The bill was passed by the Senate in a 96-1 vote.

A similar bill has been passed by the House, but maintains wording calling for an expiration in five years of its wiretapping provisions. This kind of streamlined legislation is what Americans should be supporting. With additions of limitations and expirations, the provisions will be subject to review and analysis after the expiration dates and assure that these laws are examined in the future in regards to how they have been used, and whether they would be reinstated.

The bill that has been passed by Congress has no such limitations, and likely will be passed into law indefinitely.

The only vote cast against the Senate bill came from Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis. Feingold offered several amendments to the bill aimed at maintaining a suspect’s rights and liberties, including eliminating a provision allowing police to secretly search a suspect’s home, reduce allowances for wiretaps and reduce the amount of personal information the FBI is allowed to access, according to “The Nation.”

The bill was passed without the amendments proposed by Feingold.

America’s embracement of “innocent until proven guilty” is being pushed by the wayside in our pursuit of security. Meanwhile, we are turning our backs on the very liberties guaranteed us by the U.S. Constitution.

In Monday’s Northern Star column, Barbara Bystryk stated “We can’t compromise democracy. The democratic process is being compromised in the face of a country frightened and in desperate need of security.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Although it’s obvious that there was a major breakdown of our intelligence-gathering services that allowed the Sept. 11 attacks to occur, we must be cautious in what we do to avoid another incident. Allowing these agencies more power to maintain a safe country is important. We have spent billions of dollars on these agencies expecting them to protect us, and rightly are angered that this incident occurred with little or no warning.

However, the American people must be wary of fast-tracked legislation that comes in direct response to events such as this in order to protect our rights. The best way to do so is to demand that these kinds of laws have restrictions and limitations. They need to be reviewed at a later date and reevaluated as to their effect and legitimacy.

Bureaucracies and legal actions generally lend themselves to slow processes. Although sometimes government can be seen as moving at a snail’s pace, there is a reason these kinds of actions take so long. All ramifications and effects must be considered, along with the legalities and constitutional justifications. Many of the provisions included in the bill have been introduced by law enforcement to legislators before and have been removed from amendments due to constitutional concerns.

The American public must demand that laws drafted in response to major events and are passed with little or no discussion are worded in such a way that they must be revisited and assessed to insure that they are not simply reactionary, but just and applicable to changing times.