Civil Rights and Terrorism, Research Paper Example

National Reforms to counteract terrorism have attempted to protect our civil rights but still are not completely legitimate because national security is still taking priority over the protection our human rights. Foreign policy measures are still infringing upon people’s civil rights despite anti-terrorism legislature adopted during the Bush administration. Quite often seen in government, counterterrorism government action infringes upon civil rights/ human rights despite attempting to protect the community, hence legislation needs to be re-addressed specifically to counter these illegal infractions of the law.

Introduction

Since the attacks on New York of 9/11 the American government has vehemently adopted stronger foreign policy measures to keep the terrorists’ out of the United States through measures such as tougher immigration laws and anti-terroristic laws which would justify terrorism under no pre-determinate. Further the US government states that no political grievances will justify terroristic acts. Surprisingly there was a United Kingdom case in which a known terrorist from Iran was captured in the United Kingdom and was deported. The terrorist filed an action with Strasbourg for infringement of his human rights and actually was successful on the legal basis that he could not be deported because of ‘suspected terroristic activity in other countries’. The citizens of the UK were very upset because the court even awarded the terrorist £500 to compensate for his human right infringement. He was protected under the Human Rights Act, Section 6(1) through his Judicial Review filing. If this case would have been brought forth in the United States for infringement of constitutional rights, it would have been brought to the highest court which is the US Supreme Court for a violation of civil rights.  Studies recently have shown that the United States presented proper reporting procedures to combat terrorism as per the General Accounting Report (GAO). It was further stressed that cooperation through civilian and international military forces would be needed to combat terrorism.

Terrorism and the Law

Protecting the United States from terroristic threats does not come in a single day rather it takes efforts of timely and adequate planning in order to do so effectively. The Rule of Law by Dicey needs to be used in advance to keep terroristic threat out of our nation. This principle states that the law applies to everyone and no one is above the law. With this rule incorporates a system of checks and balances to protect against arbitrary rule. Further addressing political and socioeconomic conditions in advance seem to be a viable strategic to prevent terroristic threat.

An example of an anti-terrioristic situation being used against a person’s inalienable rights is when the Guantanamo Bay area was opened in 2002 to detain war criminals from Al-Qaeda and Taliban. What made the detentions illegal were the fact that they were extremely ‘lengthy and without trial’. Every person captured under US Law has the right to a ‘fair and speedy trial’ as afforded the Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution. Further a person is innocent until proven guilty and the burden of proof is on the Plaintiff to prove the Defendant is guilty beyond all reasonable doubt especially if the accused crime is murder.

There must be an afforded balance between the security and constitutionality with regards to responding to national threats of security and protecting a person’s civil rights and freedoms. Under the US Patriot Act, issues such as immigration, racial profiling and employment discrimination must be properly addressed as well as the President’s executive powers of war. Justice Rehnquist suggests that the powers of the President during wartime shift to the government in order to properly deal with situations that may affect our countries national security. The Patriot Act has been criticized by some saying it is a ‘convention right type of power’ in that it gives the executive branch the power to abuse rights. Though this may be true in many facets, government contends there can be no other way to address the terrorism policy especially in times of war or threats to war for there are other ways to reduce the infringement of civil liberties and keep anti-terroristic acts out of our country such as keeping a close and legal eye on these rights and allowing protagonists for civil rights to be a part of terroristic threat policies. There should be no primary change to the chain of command in the executive because such a change would allow for terroristic threat to infringe upon the safety of our democratic nation.