But how does the importance of those rights stack up when placed next to what now seem like life-and-death issues? Forget racial profiling -- according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, 58 percent of Americans support the notion that all Arabs, including U.S. citizens, should "undergo special, more intensive security checks before boarding airplanes in the U.S." Forty-nine percent think all Arabs, including U.S. citizens, should have to carry a special ID card.
Moreover, with news of various individuals of apparent Middle Eastern descent being detained and escorted from aircraft, it seems as though there is at least some type of ethnic profiling going on, albeit a type that most of us might find reassuring. On Fox News Sunday, correspondent Brit Hume, noting that all 19 of the suspected hijackers were Arab or Muslim, asked Attorney General John Ashcroft if "is it not the case that necessarily innocent people may have to be detained because of certain characteristics about them, not detained in any permanent sense, but given a special measure of scrutiny just in the interest of public safety?"
"Well, we are scrutinizing all individuals who are boarding aircraft," Ashcroft allowed. "And when there are factors that elevate that any suspicion that there's a problem, we take action."
"But," he said, "we are not at the place of saying that people are suspects based solely on their race or ethnic origin."
Asked Monday about reports that in the course of its investigation the FBI has been questioning individuals "based solely on their ethnic background," FBI Director Robert Mueller said that wasn't true. "If that is a perception out there, I would like to dispel it," he said. Individuals selected for questioning are picked "based on predications that the individual may have information relating to the acts that took place last week. We do not, have not, will not target people based solely on their ethnicity, period, point-blank."
But even if law enforcement isn't engaging in ethnic profiling during its investigations, there may be public support for the practice. According to a Los Angeles Times poll released Monday, there is overwhelming support in the wake of the attacks for "allowing law enforcement to randomly stop people who may fit the profile of suspected terrorists," 68 percent in favor, 29 percent opposed.
Of course, that is exactly what leaders of American Arab and Muslim groups fear. "No one traveling should be stopped because he's wearing a beard or kufi or because he has a darker complexion," Bray of the Muslim Public Affairs Council says. "Certainly, I'm a realist, and I realize this is a trying time. I understand we need to strengthen our vigilance in terms of national security," but that needs to be done without giving up "the precepts we find in the Constitution in terms of equity and fairness."
After all, he says, "did we take that same attitude [in the past] when we had domestic terrorism? Did we say, 'From here on out we're going to stop every good ol' boy who might have a militia bumper sticker on his truck'?"
No, but in the wake of the April 1995 bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, the U.S. Congress did pass sweeping anti-terrorism legislation that enabled INS agents to detain non-U.S. citizens without the same due process afforded U.S. citizens, citing "secret evidence." The U.S. government has defended the practice, saying that when it comes to international terrorism, law enforcement officials need to keep their information secret in order to protect their intelligence sources.
But until last Tuesday, there was a growing impression among lawmakers -- including conservative Republicans -- that such practices might be an encroachment on the civil liberties of non-citizens who were being detained, most of whom were Arab or Muslim. The House bill against the practice of secret evidence, supported by the American Civil Liberties Union and sponsored by Reps. David Bonior, D-Mich., and Bob Barr, R-Ga., has 101 cosponsors and was building momentum, House sources say -- until last Tuesday.
On June 22, 2000, the House passed a measure 239-173 cutting Justice Department funding for the detaining of immigrants based on "secret evidence." But that seems like a lifetime ago. A knowledgeable House source says the bill is not likely to become law in the current climate.
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