The forum in Richmond on September 17, sponsored by ACLU-VA and the RPEC, explored how the events of September 11, 2001, and policy decisions in its aftermath have changed the direction of our society. The past 15 years was the focus because anti-democratic activities seriously increased at that time.
The morning plenary session of the conference featured a panel of speakers addressing the topic, “What Have We Lost, Why It Matters, What Can We Do.” The panel provided a broad overview of issues, including but not limited to problematic surveillance by the government.
Kate Gould, of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, advanced their position that our national security policy led to a dramatic militarization both at home and abroad, compromising civil liberties and violating international law. A lobbyist for civil liberties and civil rights, she provided background on various bills and dispositions of Congresspersons. She advised the audience to support the bi-partisan bill in Congress designed to block the Saudi Arabia Arms deal (which failed on September 21) and requested more of us to advocate for a more sensible policy in the Middle East.
Hugh Handeyside, staff attorney on ACLU National Security Project (NSP), described the NSP as dedicated to ensuring that U.S. national security policies and practices are consistent with the Constitution, civil liberties, and human rights. Consequently, the ACLU filed several lawsuits against federal agencies. The ACLU holds that
“after the attacks of September 11, 2001, our government engaged in systematic policies of torture, targeted killing, indefinite detention, mass surveillance, and religious discrimination. It violated the law, eroded many of our most cherished values, and made us less free and less safe.”
Some of these policies, such as torture and extraordinary rendition, are no longer officially condoned. However, many other policies–indefinite detention, targeted killing, trial by military commissions, warrantless surveillance, and racial, religious, and other forms of profiling–remain core elements of U.S. national security strategy today.
As a participant on this panel, I argued that we should have seen these anti-democratic policies and practices coming. Some of the provisions of the Patriot Act were what state and federal officials had advocated since the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, especially expanding electronic surveillance.
I suggested this national change of direction was part of a trend starting two or three decades earlier, such as the escalation of aggressive policing of black Americans since 1980. Aggressive policing was evidently based on the false argument that crime was increasing, false narratives being a common thread underpinning several of these violations of civil liberties and civil rights. Moreover, there had been a growing militarization of the police for decades. In a later session, an NAACP lawyer reminded the audience that African Americans had experienced the militarization of the police for more than a generation before 9/11.
Also on the plenary panel was retired U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, a Washington insider who made some dire pronouncements about the goings-on in high levels of the federal government. He was an assistant to General Colin Powell when Powell was Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and later when Powell became Secretary of State. Thus he was involved in some of the problematic policies and practices, including writing Colin Powell’s speech to the UN (in essence making the false case for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq), an act for which he is still trying to atone.
Colonel Wilkerson warned us about the culture of war that controls much of our national government (reminiscent of what President Eisenhower forewarned). Wilkerson also warned that our unquestioned support of the oppressive Israeli government is leading inevitably to a disastrous conclusion for the U.S. as well as Israel. Previously he had revealed what many of us had assumed, that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was highly influential in the Bush Administration’s decision to go to war in Iraq.
How can we begin to reverse the anti-democratic changes in our society? Many solutions were offered during the conference; however, it was eminently clear that we–concerned citizens–must support the legal, legislative, and lobbying efforts of those organizations that are trying to limit the effects of these policies on all human beings—here and abroad.