Politics and Terrorism: The Government’s View on Civil Rights
Politics and Terrorism: The Government’s View on Civil Rights
Terrorism has been a turning concern in society for some old ages now. Despite the fact that terrorist act is non a new phenomenon, the authorities still does non hold a good method to cover with it. This causes people to experience insecure in the United States. Many have attempted to do their voices heard through authorship. Edward W. Said is an writer that wrote about terrorist act in 1986 when terrorist act was a reasonably new issue for the United States. He claims early on that because there is non a clearly stated definition of what terrorist act is, there will be issues make up one’s minding how to cover with it. On April 15, 2013, During the Boston Marathon, a bomb went off wounding and killing many civilians. Although there were multiple people involved, merely one, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was captured after the bombardment took topographic point. The intervention that Tsarnaev received from the authorities was highly controversial. Glen Greenwald, a political journalist, wrote an article concentrating on whether or non the authorities handled the state of affairs the manner it should hold. Greenwald’s article focused on whether or non the authorities handled the state of affairs the manner it should hold. They did non let Tsarnaev to be protected by Miranda rights. Alternatively they interrogated him without reading him his rights at first. Said predicts the reverberations of non understanding terrorist act and Greenwald confirms this by demoing how Tsarnaev’s civil autonomies were violated. Said’s claim that our definition of terrorist act is fuzzy has caused the government’s definition of civil rights to go equivocal in the Tsarnaev instance.
Evidence shows that Muslims have been below the belt treated in the yesteryear. The writer Irum Shiekh wrote a book with digests from many Moslems who had been below the belt treated and their journeys as they experienced our authorities. In chapter 4 Shiekh negotiations about a adult male who was arrested on 9/11. Even though he was non responsible for the incident he was still treated below the belt. In this history the immature adult male was non given entree to his attorney: “I grabbed the phone so that when the guards turned the switch on, I had the receiving system in my manus. “I am naming foremost, ” I told him. The Indonesian cat protested, but I didn’t attention and called my friend. He told me that the attorney came yesterday, but the guards told him that I wasn’t there” ( 129 ) . The authorities was non even leting this adult male to hold entree to a attorney when he deserved it, merely because there is no set protocol for covering with such an exigency state of affairs. This is why terrorist act needs to be defined. The adult male was originally arrested for running a ruddy visible radiation, non for being the terrorist who caused 9-11. But because the authorities was in such shambles at that point in clip he ended up being accused of a offense he did non perpetrate for some clip before the authorities was eventually able to draw itself together plenty to recognize that they were incorrect about him. Even after the authorities figured out that he was non the individual who did it, in the terminal he was deported to Israel.
Greenwald claims that the authorities is below the belt compromising the minorities of Muslim and Arabic peoples now, and if Said’s anticipations of general stereotypes and deficiency of cognition about minorities are accurate, this tendency could go on to compromise even the mean citizen’s rights unless the authorities is forced to specify terrorist act in a clear and precise manner. Ralph E Shaffer wrote an article entitled Profiling Muslims? : A Turning Menace to Civil Liberties in which he states: “But as in waterboarding, all the authorities need state is that ‘We don’t anguish, ’ or in this instance, ‘We don’t violate the Constitution.’ Unless the public applies force per unit area on a Senate ready to go through this Meleagris gallopavo, what LAPD’s Toss offing tried to accomplish here will be implemented nationwide” ( 2 ) . Shaffer’s point is that we as the populace can non merely let the authorities to implement whatever regulations they want. The citizens of the United States need to understand the full state of affairs that they are in and do their voices heard. In his article Greenwald states that there have been many marginalized groups that have been hated before the Muslims and Arabic peoples: “But that’s ever how rights are abridged: by aiming the most marginalized group or most despised person in the first case, based on the outlook that cipher will object because of how marginalized or hated they are” ( 19 ) . Greenwald’s point in this paragraph is that the mean citizens are non immune to being discriminated against. Certain it may non be a certain cultural group now but it could be different in the hereafter.
Greenwald makes the point that our deficiency of cognition about the minority groups may besides be a conducive factor to the manner that we handle the Tsarnaev instance. Cipher truly seems to care about what the accused terrorists are like as people because they merely seems so distant: “As a consequence, as Bazelon noted, non many people will care what is done to [ Tsarnaev ] , merely like few people care what happens to the accused terrorists at Guantanamo, or Bagram, or in Yemen and Pakistan” ( Greenwald 19 ) . Dawn Perlmutter wrote an article trying to assist the general public addition more of an understanding about what the group that we call terrorists today are like outside of being accused of terrorist act. In her article she states: “The radicalization of the Tsarnaev brothers and Todashev needs to be understood in the context of tribal shame civilizations. The work forces were all cultural Chechens, a tribal society characterized by blood dealingss, common lineage, un-wavering trueness, solidarity, conformance, and most significantly an ‘us versus them’ philosophy” ( Perlmutter 30 ) . In the instance of Tsarnaev he had household that he was really close to and would decease for. This meant that if a relation was making something, he was traveling down with the ship even if he wasn’t needfully responsible. It besides opened up many possibilities for Tsarnaev to be pressured into making something that he may non needfully hold wanted to make. As citizens of the United States and as a authorities, it is the people’s duty to cognize the background of what may hold caused terrorist onslaughts and to cover reasonably with these actions as a consequence.
Said’s claim that the authorities has a fuzzed definition of terrorist act consequences in confusion among the citizens and confusion of the authorities, which is an unorganised and helter-skelter system. Said shows how difficult it is to understand what terrorist act is because of the many different ways it is defined by different people: “So great is the figure of subscribers, so exhortative the tone, so confident and many the averments, that in the terminal you retain small of what has been said, except that you had better get on with the battle against terrorist act, whatever Netanyahu says it is” ( 829 ) . Harmonizing to Said there seem to be so many different definitions of terrorist act that everyone is confused about what it is. So they all merely randomly travel along with whatever the so called “educated” individual says it is and what he or she says they should make about it to assist win the war against terrorist act.
Because terrorist act is non good defined the authorities is beliing itself and seems to fall apart from the nucleus when there is a terrorist menace. In theEncyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issuesthe subdivision on terrorist act shows how tests for people who were by and large declared terrorist ended up traveling in favour of the terrorist who was being prosecuted. This was because there was so much confusion as to what the protocol was. For illustration, in a instance called Hamdan v. Rumsfeld the authorities ruled that the captive be set free because president Bush did non follow “proper protocol” for confining the captive: “In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ( 2006 ) , the Court further ruled that a military committee that President Bush had created to seek detainees at Guantanamo Bay violated the Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Convention” ( Terrorism 4 ) . The authorities seems to pretty much be beliing itself. Even though this adult male was a known terrorist, the justness system claimed that the authorities did non hold a right to handle him the manner they did. Andrew Rudalevige wrote an article about the toll that the war on terrorist act is holding on the United States. In this article he states: “But [ John Yoo ] saves much anger for tribunals that do merely this, decrying, for illustration, the ‘judicial micromanagement’ of the determination in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, in which the Supreme tribunal, in his position, both misread the Detainee Treatment Act and misunderstood the proper range of the president’s wartime powers when it ruled that the Bush disposal should non hold set up military committees to seek Guantanamo detainees” ( 4 ) . This shows that because there is confusion about the term “terrorist” , sometimes tests for people called terrorists end up traveling in favour of the terrorist being prosecuted.
Because terrorist act is non good defined it is possible for the authorities to manage state of affairss, such as the Tsarnaev instance, in a manner that would usually be considered illegal. This behaviour of the authorities was predicted by Said in his article when he said: “Past and future bombardment foraies aside, the terrorist act fad is unsafe because it consolidates the immense, unrestrained pseudopatriotic self-love we are nourishing” ( 832 ) . In Tsarnaev’s instance he was accused of a offense and questioned without holding his Miranda rights read to him. He was forced to speak unconstitutionally. Some agreed that this was something that needed to be done while others struggled with the unconstitutional behaviour by the authorities. Greenwald states in his article: “First the Obama disposal has already rolled back the Miranda rights for terrorist act suspects captured on US dirt. It did so two old ages ago with about no contention or even notice, including from many of those who so vocally condemned Graham’s Miranda tweets yesterday” ( 5 ) . The authorities seems to be showing obscure information to its citizens about terrorist act. They allow the citizens to cognize merely what they need to in order to acquire people to vote for something that they would wish to see put in topographic point. In this instance the Obama disposal gave the people information about a jurisprudence that sounded like it would protect them when in world it gave the authorities permission to compromise any civilians rights if the authorities deemed appropriate. The issue with this, aside from it being unconstitutional, is that there is no head authorization who makes the call as to whether or non a citizen deserves to hold their Miranda rights read to them: “Worse, as Bazelon noted: ‘Who gets to do this finding? The FBI, in audience with DoJ, if possible. In other words, the constabulary and the prosecuting officers, with no 1 to look into their power’” ( Greenwald 9 ) . It seems instead scaring that any police officer rolling the street could potentially interrogate a citizen about something without reading them their Miranda rights and still be able to prosecute them with that information. The fuzzed definition of terrorist act is leting the authorities to do these determinations by simple use.
There is a batch of confusion about terrorist act merely because it is non good defined. If we took the clip to understand what the minority groups truly were and how they functioned we would be able to understand terrorist act more. Merely because person is from a certain group does non intend they are a terrorist. Because we have non defined terrorist act good, the authorities has no protocol for covering with it. This causes many issues such as tests being judged in favour of the terrorist, the authorities holding the power to make what they please with terrorists and set us at hazard for being treated below the belt every bit good. We need to recognize, as Said claimed, terrorist act is non ever person else. If we are non careful we could stop up being the one’s having unjust intervention. As Greenwald stated, we need to happen a manner to handle even terrorists with the rights they deserve. As we reflect on the many ways that we could better our system of covering with terrorist act, allow us retrieve that in order to cover with something we must cognize its definition. As Said points out so good, we need to specify our job and get down aiming it at the nucleus instead than leting our fuzzed definitions to go on. Greenwald supports this thought by demoing us recent events that have been handled ill. If the United States of America is genuinely to stay a free state it needs to acquire this issue under control. It is critical that the citizens learn about the background of terrorist act and attention about the fringy groups who are stereotyped into being terrorists. If the authorities continues to be in pandemonium so will the remainder of the state. It will non be a safe topographic point, if we allow this deficiency of definitions to go on.
Plants Cited
“ Civil Rights, Uncivil Wrongs: The War on Terrorism ‘s Toll on the U.S. Fundamental law. ”Foreign Affairs. 1 Jan. 2007. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
Perlmutter, Dawn. “ Prelude to the Boston Bombings. ”Middle East Quarterly20.4 ( 2013 ) : 67-77.Academic Search Premier. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
Shaffer, Ralph E, and Robinson, R William. “ Profiling Muslims? : A Turning Menace to Civil Liberties. ”Daily News1. ( 2007 ) : n.pag.Western Newsstand. Web. 25 Feb 2014. & A ; lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //search.proquest.com.ezproxy.wallawalla.edu:2048/docview /282605402/2F134F4B97D24E03PQ/9? accountid=1170 & A ; gt ; .
Shiekh, Irum.Detained Without Cause: Muslim ‘ Narratives of Detention and Deportation in America After 9/11.New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011. 123-149. Print.
“ Terrorism. ”Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-2010.John R. Vile. 3rd erectile dysfunction. Vol. 2. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2010. 475-476.Gale Virtual Reference Library.Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
