No one wants terrorist activities in their country, right? Of course! Therefore, it’s time to make harsh anti-terrorism laws, right?
Hold your horses!
What laws would you put into place? Are you telling me that, until such laws are put into place, terrorism is legal? “Obviously not.”
Then what is it that you want? “The ability to prevent terrorism.”
How? Stricter gun laws? “No. Gun laws only hurt the innocent. If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.”
More use of surveillance? “Now you are talking! I like that! Yes, if we are given a freer hand with surveillance, we can make some headway in the fight against terror!”
Um, that sounds like a frightful prospect. What exactly do you have in mind? “Well, the ability to listen on to any telephone conversation would be nice. Well, we do have that ability already, and we do use it from time to time. But we want to be more open about it, and to be given a freer hand to use wire taps on the general populace. You would be surprised at what they reveal! We would have information on everyone, and we would be able to use profilers to determine which citizens would be a danger to society. Isn’t that great?! And secondly, we need the ability to detain those we suspect might be a terrorist and the freedom to interrogate them in whatever way we see fit! That would be very nice. We can guarantee confessions that way! Wouldn’t that be nice? Proof positive we would get terrorists off the city streets. Give us these two things, and terrorism will go down! We are quite sure your life will be safer!”
What checks and balances would you put in to make sure the innocent are not hurt in the process? “Don’t you trust us?”
This debate is becoming a world-wide debate; thankfully Catholic leaders are getting wise to the implications and challenging anti-terrorism laws when they are ripe for abuse, such as the case in the Philippines.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In