Editorial

The events of Sept. 11 have changed people's perception of freedom. Americans are balancing their rights to privacy with governmental surveillance.

In doing so, several questions need to be answered. How much are we willing to give up in order to prevent another horrific terrorist attack in the United States? Do people accomplish anything by purposefully targeting people of another race and religion? Will privacy be something of the past?

Prior to the terrorist attacks, governmental agencies peeking through our files would have been considered an invasion of our privacy. George Orwell's gripping book "1984" references such intrusions. According to Orwell, Big Brother is always watching what we do and hearing what we say.

The people in this story are constantly under surveillance by an anonymous agency that knows everything about everyone, and if they step out of that boundary they disappear. Now, fiction is becoming reality. The House of Representatives and Senate have both passed versions of a bill giving police remarkable eavesdropping capabilities. The Senate's bill is titled The United and Strengthening America Act; the House bill is the Patriot Act.

Once signed into law, the Act will make it easier for the government to gain confidential records of foreign students, authorize searches of property without notice, and expand the FBI's wire-taping authority.

It would make it easier for government agencies to share intelligence information among themselves, allow law enforcement to subpoena e-mail records from Internet providers and allow the attorney general to detain suspected foreigners for a week before charges are filed.

The legislation will expire in two years, unless Congress opts to renew it.

Privacy should not come at the expense of protection. Changes in our existing laws will have economic and legal effects on our society.

Moreover, while protecting ourselves, we should not target people by using racial profiling. Racial profiling has taken a front seat in the political and legal systems. In the difficult times that lay ahead of us, Americans need to join together and fight the people who terrorize its citizens, not people who fit a specific racial profile.

America is a place where people flee to gain freedom that is denied in their country.

Crossing the Atlantic Ocean and seeing the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, future citizens breathe a sigh of relief because they are now in the land of the free and home of the brave.

America is about freedom from persecution, a right to privacy and tolerance.

Americans should stand together against racial profiling, fight for our individual freedoms and protect their rights to privacy.

Top of Page | Front Page