LESS MAY BE MORE (DANGEROUS) :

With each war, civil liberties are curtailed less (Terry Eastland, July 31, 2002, Jewish World Review)

The belief that the government is engaged in a substantial and unjustified curtailment of civil liberties - by monitoring attorney-client phone calls, detaining Muslims on immigration violations, denying Americans who fought with the Taliban access to counsel, etc. - is not a majority sentiment but certainly one that has its adherents, especially in the mainstream media and the legal academy. Just the other today the New York Times opined that "the Bush administration's assault on civil liberties reached a new low." It's a safe bet that the Times will see more "new lows."

What the Times and company typically fail to offer is historical perspective. For that, I recommend an essay by Jack Goldsmith and Cass Sunstein, both professors at the University of Chicago law school. Their paper is "in progress" but thankfully available at www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/goldsmith/resources/60.doc.

Noting the particulars of the civil-libertarian complaint against the administration (but declining to judge them), the authors observe that "compared to past wars led by [Abraham] Lincoln, [Woodrow] Wilson, and [Franklin] Roosevelt, the Bush administration has diminished relatively few civil liberties." If they are right about that, as I think they are, the question arises as to why the civil libertarians are so upset by the administration's war effort. Messrs. Goldsmith and Sunstein offer analysis that helps with the answer.

It's interesting, and somewhat frightening, to think that the civil liberties of potential enemies within are better protected now than at any other time of war in our history, even though, for really the first time, they may present a large-scale lethal threat. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 31, 2002 10:38 AM