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Introduction
- Russell Sage Foundation
- Chapter
- Additional Information
1 introduction t he terrorist attacks on the World trade Center and the Pentagon carried out by al-Qaeda operatives on September 11, 2001, were shattering events. they fueled widespread anger, a desire for revenge , and a new sense of threat and vulnerability among most americans . Powerful and deep-seated responses coincided with unprecedented , blanket media coverage of the attacks in the days following 9/11. this coverage featured seemingly endless loops of planes crashing into buildings, speculation about the source of the attacks and the possibility of further terrorist activity, and news conferences in which political leaders vowed revenge. one day after the attacks, a New York Times editorial referred to the specter of “more lethal nuclear, biological or chemical attacks by terrorists,” arguing that “this cannot be just another moment when the president declares that the united States is unbreakable . . . . it must be the occasion for a fundamental reassessment of intelligence and defense activities” (“the War against america: the National defense,” September 12, 2001). the response of the Bush administration and Congress was rapid and far-reaching. at a press conference just days after 9/11, President George W. Bush announced that america was facing “a new kind of evil,” and CNN reported that the administration anticipated a new war on terror that could “take years” (“administration Predicts the Fight Will take Years,” CNN Online, September 16, 2001). Referring to the american public, a Time magazine article proclaimed that “if ever there was a time when they might be receptive to trimming their accustomed freedoms, that time is now. and whether they are receptive or not, the changes have already begun” (Richard Lacayo, andrew Goldstein, Chris taylor, and elizabeth Bland, “terrorizing ourselves,” September 24, 2001). under the leadership of Vice President dick Cheney and defense Secretary donald Rumsfeld, the Bush administration began preparations for war, first in afghanistan and later in iraq. on the home front, a wide-ranging policy response to the attacks Brooks.indb 1 11/27/2012 9:55:19 AM 2 Whose Rights? quickly unfolded. measures such as the Patriot act, in conjunction with newly implemented electronic intelligence-gathering and surveillance programs, vastly expanded the domestic reach of the Central intelligence agency (Cia) and the National Security agency (NSa). abroad, a dramatic increase in military special operations and covert Cia actions included the seizure—or “rendition”—of terrorism suspects without due process, the use of torture to extract information, and targeted killings of specific individuals. there can be no question that the new counterterrorism laws and policies adopted by the federal government in the wake of the September 11 attacks had major impacts on american society and politics. Legal scholars have noted that these policies altered long-standing interpretations of the Constitution, generating new debates surrounding america’s relationship to international human rights agreements (american Bar association 2003; Cole and dempsey 2006). to this point, post-9/11 counterterrorism policies have largely survived the transition from Republican congressional majorities during the presidency of George W. Bush to democratic congressional majorities established after 2006 through 2010, and the presidency of Barack obama. they appear poised to become lasting institutional features of american government. a quick examination of the most important of these policies attests to their importance. Consider first the 2001 Patriot act. Signed into law forty-five days after the attacks, the Patriot act enables law enforcement agencies to more readily obtain phone, email, and financial data. in doing so, the act significantly weakens the protections created by the Fourth amendment’s prohibition on unlawful search. Before its passage, for instance, agencies such as the Federal Bureau of investigation were required to obtain court warrants for searches and provide documentation to the accused. the Patriot act’s “sneak and peak” provisions dispensed with this protection, making it unnecessary to establish probable cause as a precondition to the surveillance of individual suspects. the Patriot act presents a new trade-off on a second constitutional protection. the act’s broad definition of terrorism appears to have unintentionally facilitated the wider use of ethnic profiling. after the 9/11 attacks, the mere suspicion of a connection to terrorism, or even immigration violations, was enough to prompt interviews and aggressive requests for information by law enforcement agencies. in this way, the Patriot act butts up against the Fourteenth amendment’s guarantee of equal protection. according to some observers, traveling, studying, or doing a charitable activity while arab or muslim has become a new source of discrimination and political...