Trading freedom for temporary security
Because I returned from a family vacation in England exactly one week before the awful terrorist bombings, the senseless violence that struck London felt a little bit personal to me.
Although Islamic extremists were successful in altering the outcome of the Spanish elections by bombing Madrid, the British are more likely to rally around the war on terror as a result of the attacks. After all, if nightly bombing of London by the Nazis and years of terror by the IRA failed to dent their resolve, the latest episode should certainly fail. One British politician even said of the terrorists, "Is this the best you can do?"
Unfortunately, however, the terrorists may provide the rationale to further undermine the freedoms that the British people cherish. While the reality of living with terrorists necessitates the loss of some freedoms (for example the loss of some privacy for those who wish to fly), free people should be cautious when agreeing to curtail their civil rights in the name of security. A careful balance must be reached.
Historically, the British have been much more willing to trade away their personal freedoms than Americans. In a search for security, the British have traded away their right to self-defense. Farmer Tony Martin learned this the hard way -- being convicted of murder for shooting and killing an intruder that broke into his house.
The result of this miscalculation has been a steady increase in crime rates. While crime rates in the United States have been decreasing, particularly in areas where citizens have been given increased rights to carry concealed weapons, crime in England has steadily increased since handguns were banned there in 1998.
The Edmonton Journal reported in May 2004 that gun crimes doubled from 1998 to 2003 and firearms murders increased by 65 percent. Britain's Home Office reported robberies "rose by more than 28 percent in 2002 alone and, since 1998, there has been an increase in the average of muggings of more than 100,000. England alone has nearly 400,000 robberies each year, a rate nearly one-quarter higher per capita than that of the United States."
The British response is to rely more on surveillance and their overworked police department. The British are the most surveilled people in the world--cameras are everywhere; but as one waitress told me in London, "The police may see a crime take place, but they always get there too late. And what good are they anyway? They haven't got a gun. I feel much safer in America."
Post 9/11, things have gotten worse. According to Amnesty International, the 2001 British Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act removes the presumption of innocence, removes habeas corpus and allows the home secretary to detain people without a jury trial for years because they are suspected of terrorism. The secret proceedings are effectively impossible to dispute.
The latest diminution of freedom comes from the innocuous sounding "national ID card." On its face, it sounds pretty innocent: the government seeks to create a national ID card that will initially be voluntary, but eventually compulsory. The plan has set off a firestorm of opposition and has created a rare alliance between conservatives and liberals. However, it appears that the government has the necessary votes to pass it.
While in London, I watched the ID card debate in Parliament. The opposition fears that it will be come a multi-billon pound white elephant that costs every citizen hundreds of pounds (a pound is worth about two dollars), but has no effect on terrorism. More importantly, it will likely bring to the British the spectacle of police asking "papers please," reminiscent of the fascist Nazis 60 years after they were defeated.
According to the Right Honorable David Davis (the Conservative Party's shadow home secretary), the real problem is not the ID card itself; it is the associated "massive database containing detailed personal information about every person in the country -- a database that can be accessed by officials and public bodies without permission and without the person whom they are looking up ever knowing that it has happened."
The plan envisions creating a permanent record every time the card is used. Connecting the dots with some other proposals in the works paints a potentially worrisome picture. By combining data from the cards with CCTV cameras that use automatic plate recognition and even proposals to use satellite tracking of vehicles for road use charging, the government could create a detailed chronology of a citizen's movements. David Davis opined, "[George Orwell's "1984"] was supposed to be a warning, not a textbook."
I agree with President George Bush who said after 9/11, "America has no greater friend in the world than Great Britain;" but I hope we reject their trend toward Big Brother. As Benjamin Franklin, said, "People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both."
Dr. Friedman is a professor of mechanical engineering at UMass Dartmouth. His e-mail address is ConservativeCorner@hotmail.com
This story appeared on Page A16 of The Standard-Times on July 21, 2005.
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