News Release

June 21, 2002

Bush, Ashcroft Run Roughshod Over Bill Of Rights, Study Says
Policymakers brush aside accountability, history, reality, and liberty

WASHINGTON--On Sept. 11 of last year, President Bush declared, "Freedom has been attacked, but freedom will be defended." However, a new Cato Institute report shows that Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft have supported measures that are antithetical to freedom, such as secretive subpoenas, secretive arrests, secretive trials, and secretive deportations.

In "Breaking the Vicious Cycle: Preserving Our Liberties While Fighting Terrorism," Timothy Lynch, director of the Cato Institute's Project on Criminal Justice, explains that lawmakers too often respond to terrorist attacks "by rushing to enact more antiterrorism legislation in a desperate attempt to give police and intelligence agencies additional powers to stop the killing."

According to Lynch, lawmakers made a dreadful mistake by rushing to enact new legislation before launching an inquiry to hold government officials accountable for negligence or incompetence. The new homeland security department is simply the latest turn in a cycle of terrorist attacks followed by freedom-stifling legislation, the study shows.

In the hurry to appear to be doing "something" about a threat facing the nation, policymakers too often overlook accountability, history, reality and liberty, Lynch says. Because another terrorist attack is a virtual certainty, "It is vitally important for policymakers to break the recurring cycle of enacting antiterrorism legislation before the pillars of our constitutional republic are completely undermined."

In the report, Lynch surveys the different antiterror measures that have been proposed, including those following the first World Trade Center bombing, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the September 11 attack. Among other things, he shows that military trials of American citizens are unconstitutional and that "the most recent antiterrorism legislation will allow the police to compel records from any business regarding any person, including medical records from hospitals, educational records from universities, and even records of books that have been checked out from the local library or purchased from the bookstore."

"If present trends continue, it is likely that America will drift toward national identification cards, a national police force, and more extensive military involvement in domestic affairs," Lynch writes. "That ought to give pause to people of goodwill from all across the political spectrum--Since those are telltale signs of societies that are unfree."

"Breaking the Vicious Cycle: Preserving Our Liberties While Fighting Terrorism"