[118401] in Cypherpunks
IP: Panel sees danger ahead for America
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Hettinga)
Sun Sep 26 18:31:40 1999
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Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 10:54:05 -0400
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From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
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From: believer@telepath.com
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 08:38:15 -0500
To: ignition-point@precision-d.com
Subject: IP: Panel sees danger ahead for America
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Source: WorldNetDaily
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_dougherty/19990923_xnjdo_panel_sees.shtml
Panel sees danger ahead for America
Domestic threats seen likely to increase
By Jon E. Dougherty
© 1999 WorldNetDaily.com
Over the next 25 years the U.S. will increasingly
become less secure domestically against a range of
terrorist attacks, forcing people to expand their
"concept of national security" while testing individual
political values, according to a report authored by the
U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century.
The commission, headed by former senators Gary Hart
and Warren B. Rudman and staffed by business,
academic and former military leaders, is currently
studying the issue of national security in preparation of a
three-part report to be completed by April 2001. Of
their most significant findings, the panel believes that
"America will become increasingly vulnerable to hostile
attack on our homeland, and our military superiority will
not entirely protect us" over the next quarter century.
The first report, entitled, " New World Coming:
American Security in the 21st Century," concluded that
the U.S. will remain "both absolutely and relatively
stronger than any other state or combination of states."
However, the panel said "emerging powers -- either
singly or in coalition -- will increasingly constrain U.S.
options regionally and limit its strategic influence."
Consequently, the commission believes "(the U.S.) will
remain limited in our ability to impose our will, and we
will be vulnerable to an increasing range of threats
against American forces and citizens overseas as well as
at home."
"States, terrorists, and other disaffected groups," the
report said, "will acquire weapons of mass destruction
and mass disruption, and some will use them. Americans
will likely die on American soil, possibly in large
numbers." The commission also believes "rapid
advances in information and biotechnologies" will also
"create new vulnerabilities for U.S. security." And, the
panel said, advances in communications and information
technology will make national borders "more porous;
some will bend and some will break."
The notion that American citizens will someday be
subjected to varying forms of terrorism on their own turf
is garnering increasing concern from military and political
leaders as well. In February, Defense Secretary William
Cohen even told the Senate Armed Services Committee
that Americans might have to surrender some civil rights
in order to gain more security in the fight against
domestic terrorism.
"We need greater intelligence and that means not only
foreign-gathered intelligence but here at home," Cohen
said. "That is going to put us on a collision course with
rights of privacy. And it's something that democracies
have got to come to grips with -- how much are we
going to demand of our intelligence agencies and how
much are we willing to give up in the way of intrusion
into our lives? That is a tradeoff that is going to have to
come."
Already lawmakers are considering legislation that
would enhance the use of military forces in domestic law
enforcement capacities. The FY 2000 Defense
Authorization Bill, already passed by the House,
includes provisions that would provide local law
enforcement agencies increased access to military assets
without necessarily having to compensate the Pentagon
for their use.
But critics have dismissed the idea as a blatant violation
of the Posse Comitatus Act -- which prevents U.S.
military forces from engaging in most domestic law
enforcement activities -- as well as a recipe to invite
more military involvement from civil authorities no longer
concerned about "paying the government back."
Greg Nojeim, Washington legislative counsel for the
ACLU, said, "The defense authorization bill promises
more military involvement in civilian law enforcement at
virtually the same time Congress is investigating the role
of the military units at Waco."
"We're particularly concerned that the bill effectively
removes any requirement that military units be relied on
only in an emergency," he added.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John
Warner, R-Va., denied that, saying, "There is no Posse
Comitatus exception contained in this provision. The
fact is this provision specifically prohibits military
personnel from engaging in 'search, seizure, arrest or
similar activity.'"
Nevertheless, the panel's belief that more domestic
terrorism will hit the U.S. over the next quarter century
is a theme popular in the nation's capitol, and the most
dangerous aspect of the report, others say, is that it will
only serve to reinforce the notion among lawmakers that
decreasing civil liberties to enhance security is the only
viable solution.
The report -- the panel's second of four planned reports
-- was released September 20 and provided supporting
research and analysis of the commission's earlier
predictions that the U.S. will eventually be attacked
domestically, "the survival and security of the United
States" remains a priority among national leaders.
The 151-page report also discusses the nature of global
economics -- a contributing factor to potential unrest --
and how peoples and nations will be governed over the
next quarter-century. The panel believes more
"international and improved regulatory regimes" in the
future may translate "into less capacity for states to
manipulate national economic policy." The report said
"ties that bind individual or group loyalty to a state can
change and even unravel, and the next 25 years portend
a good deal of unraveling."
"In all cases," the commission said, "the changes ahead
have the potential to undermine the authority of states."
Some experts cited by the panel, such as Wolfgang H.
Reinicke, suggest that the principle of state sovereignty
itself, "and the state system, is wasting away."
But the panel countered this view with supporting
commentary from other experts who see inherent
danger in losing sovereignty. In any case, the
commission believes state sovereignty will survive the
"next 25 years, and probably long after."
© 1999 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
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-----------------
Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
