Year after Osama’s death, American values still at risk

When Osama bin Laden was killed last year by a daring Navy SEAL raid, some dared hope that the bloody end of the despicable al Qaeda leader would signal a return to cherished U.S. traditions of respect for privacy and the rule of law that existed before the 9?/?11 attacks.

By that measure, bin Laden's spirit is alive and well. The erosion of American values continues, even worsens.

Consider: As we hail the killing of this reprehensible enemy of freedom, a former CIA official, Jose Rodriguez, is promoting a book in which he flat-out admits, even brags, that in 2005, he destroyed 92 videotapes of the waterboarding — that is, torture — of terrorism suspects in direct defiance of several court orders to preserve that very evidence. Rodriguez apparently has no reason to fear that admitting to several felonies, not to mention war crimes, will garner him anything but increased royalties. Cry "terrorism" and all is forgiven.

But that's just the most recent evidence that the death of Osama not only did not produce a civil-liberties "dividend" but, if anything, Americans have become even more desensitized to the systematic reduction of liberty in the name of national security.

The Patriot Act, which legalized several intrusions into privacy, was rushed into law in 2001 while the remains of the World Trade Center still smoldered and the shape and extent of al Qaeda was undetermined. But even after bin Laden was dead — and al Qaeda declared on the run — the Patriot Act was extended for four years without significant changes.

Then last fall, the president ordered the killing of a U.S. citizen, Anwar al Awlaki, in Yemen without presenting any evidence to a court to justify the execution. Attorney General Eric Holder later asserted that this was somehow constitutional because the guarantee of "due process" doesn't necessarily mean a "judicial process." And people who would have gone nuts to hear Bush's Attorney General John Ashcroft say something so breathtakingly nonsensical simply shrugged.

In January, President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act, which gives the president the power to indefinitely detain, without charge or trial, an American citizen who is suspected of "association" with terrorists.

In addition, the administration has found a way to utilize the 1917 Espionage Act passed during World War I to intimidate "whistleblowers" with information that might prove embarrassing to the administration. In the 72 years before Obama took office, the act was invoked just three times. Since then, six people have been charged under the act, including Thomas Drake, a former employee of the National Security Agency, who faced 35 years in jail for telling a reporter that his agency was about to waste millions of dollars on a software program when a cheaper one was available.

Even though Osama bin Laden sleeps with the fishes, his legacy of fear and panic continues to haunt us. n