Antiterrorism Bill Would Violate Human Rights
by David Cole

The House bill would have made pure speech a deportable offense, for example. Any immigrant who ''endorsed terrorist activity,'' broadly defined as virtually any use or threat to use a weapon against person or property, could be expelled. So, too, could any foreign national who advocated support for a ''terrorist organization,'' even more broadly defined as any two or more people who have ever engaged in such activity. The bill also would have made mere membership in or support of any such ''terrorist organization'' a deportable offense, even when the government had not identified the group as off-limits, and even if the person could prove his activities didn't further any terrorist activity whatsoever.

Under this law, a South African immigrant who supported the African National Congress's lawful, nonviolent antiapartheid work during the 1980s would be deportable today, and it would be no defense to show that the support was legal at the time.

Yet these measures inspired little comment, much less opposition. So close to the election, neither party wanted to be portrayed as ''soft on terrorism.'' In this campaign, it was considered political suicide to express concern for civil liberties -- Dick Cheney would immediately portray you as inviting a nuclear attack. In December 2001 Attorney General Ashcroft was roundly criticized for testifying in Congress that those who raised civil liberties concerns ''only aid terrorists.'' But this fall most politicians acted as if they were under Ashcroft's orders. If this is what the pressure of a presidential campaign does to civil liberties, just imagine what the next terrorist attack will do.

Full story here.