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Cato Daily Dispatch for September 18, 2001

Groups Ban To Temper Calls For Enlarged Police Powers

Groups Ban To Temper Calls For Enlarged Police Powers

A coalition of public interest groups from across the political spectrum has formed to try to stop Congress and the Bush administration from rushing to enact counterterrorism measures before considering their effect on Americans' privacy and civil rights, according to The Washington Post.

Tentatively named In Defense of Freedom, the group is concerned about everything from expanded electronic surveillance measures sought by the Justice Department to possible ethnic profiling in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks. The group's members include the Center for Democracy and Technology, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Free Congress Foundation and Arab-American organizations among others.

Various coalition members stressed yesterday that they want vigorous investigation and prosecution of the terrorists and effective tools for law enforcement to minimize the risks of future attacks. But the group was galvanized by Thursday's late-night action in the Senate, which passed on a voice vote several counterterrorism measures as an attachment to the regular appropriations bill for the Commerce, State and Justice departments. Normally, such amendments would be the subject of separate hearings.

In "Cyber-Surveillance in the Wake of 9/11," Cato technology and telecom experts Adam Thierer and Wayne Crews warn that the challenge is to assure that citizens enjoy the same protection from unwarranted digital surveillance that they enjoyed prior to last week's attacks.

They write: "Technology always has potentially bad uses that go along with the good. Trying to put the technological genie back in the bottle is not a constructive way to start this debate. Calls for global prohibitions on encryption products, for example, is a non-starter, in the sense that trying to prohibit bad actors from getting their hands on computer hardware or software will be futile in today's global, integrated marketplace."