Stop Terrorism... cancel Civil Liberties?
President Bush, being a goal oriented achiever plans to treat the intelligence community more like a corporation that should have goals and a way to measure success or failure against those goals. In May, Bush created a high-level presidential commission panel chaired by retired Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft in May to conduct comprehensive reviews of the intelligence system. The panel was asked to produce plans for a reorganization of the system to meet the challenges of new threats and technologies. Scowcroft is the chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. He served as national security adviser for Presidents George H. W. Bush and Gerald R. Ford and he will get serious attention from the White House. For months, the House and Senate intelligence committees have been pushing for greater authority for the CIA director over intelligence-collection operations, are expected to support the plan. The Senate panel said in a report this year that a consolidation of the intelligence system would add a greater degree of accountability.

Under the urgency of war, the Scowcroft panel will recommend that the Pentagon's three largest intelligence-collection agencies be transferred to the director of central intelligence. This would be a major restructuring of the USA intelligence community. According to recommendations of the plan, the National Reconnaissance Office, which develops, builds and manages intelligence satellite systems, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, which handles imagery intelligence systems and mapping, and the National Security Agency, which is responsible for electronic intercepts, would each come under the control of the CIA director.

President Bush last week signed a bill to Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (Patriot), the USA Patriot Act. It gives the government a freer hand to conduct searches, detain or deport suspects, eavesdrop on Internet communications, monitor financial transactions and obtain electronic records on individuals.

The administration promised to crack down on immigration violations. Under pressure, the State Department agreed to slow the granting of visas to Arab and Muslim males, ages 16 to 45, from 25 countries so the FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization Service can conduct security checks.

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft announced that he is reorganizing the Justice Department and FBI to concentrate on terrorism. The Justice Department will listen to conversations of lawyers and their clients in federal custody whenever it's deemed necessary to prevent violence or terrorism.

Civil Liberties
Critics in Congress, legal scholars and spokesmen for the nation's Arab American community have voiced misgivings about the new anti-terrorism laws, passed last month as the USA-Patriot Act. But they are far more vocal about what the administration has done since then.

A growing chorus on the political left and the right is accusing the Bush administration of ignoring civil liberties. The latest focus of the debate is an order signed by President Bush this week that empowers him to order military trials here and abroad for international terrorists and their collaborators and that the FBI questioned 5,000 foreign nationals who recently entered the country; and made visits to hundreds of college campuses to check on the records of foreign students, mostly from Middle Eastern countries; and that foreign business people are being delayed from normal business with the US for background checking.

Americans must never ignore the rights of citizens and of foreigners in our country. While it is true that there is a declaration of war against terrorism, civil rights abuses must not become a way of solving problems.

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Human Rights
Human rights concerns for Afghanistan are well founded. One of the key commanders entering Mazar-i-Sharif was Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, renown for human rights abuses when his forces were in city from 1992-97 and fought on the outskirts of Kabul. His followers were accused of rape, torture, murder, theft, thereby paving the way for the Taliban. Last week, at least 100 youth were slaughtered there as a school was attacked and the students were killed. Other abuses include theft and property damages. This occurring well after the town was secured from retreating Taliban forces.