CONSEQUENCES (Autumn, 2001)
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It takes an event of great magnitude to really put things into perspective, to
make us realize how insignificant our daily concerns can be. At the same time,
such an occurrence can trigger a chain of events that wind up magnifying these
concerns.

It's hard to imagine anyone who hasn't felt the horrible weight of September
11. There, before our eyes, was all the confirmation we needed to see how
uncivilized the human race could be and how vulnerable we, as individuals and a
society, really are to those who value neither.

We feel the outrage along with everyone else. Anyone responsible for such
heinous acts, whether directly or by helping to organize them, deserves no
mercy from any court in the world.

Rage, however, often makes us lose sight of some of the important things that
we re supposed to be defending in the first place. And we have to be extremely
careful not to add additional loss of freedom to the loss of life that is the
legacy of terrorism.

What perhaps is most disturbing is the speed with which things began to change
after the attacks. It was as if members of Congress and lawmakers were poised
to spring into action the moment public opinion began to turn and before common
sense had a chance of regaining its dominance. Within hours of the horrific
events, new restrictions on everything from encryption to anonymity along
with broad new powers allowing much easier wiretapping and monitoring of
Internet traffic were being proposed-all with initial overwhelming support from
the terrified public.

We find it absolutely unconscionable that anyone would use such a tragedy to
further their own agenda whether it be by selling a product or enacting a wish
list of legislation. We've witnessed a good amount of both recently and it's
all pretty repugnant. Almost every new law that's been proposed is something we
ve already seen in the past and rejected. And there is very little contained
within them that would have been helpful in preventing the terrorist attacks in
the first place.

Our concerns can best be summed up by this quote: "Maybe the Senate wants to
just go ahead and adopt new abilities to wiretap our citizens. Maybe they want
to adopt new abilities to go into people s computers. Maybe that will make us
feel safer. Maybe. And maybe what the terrorists have done made us a little bit
less safe. Maybe they have increased Big Brother in this country. If that is
what the Senate wants, we can vote for it. But do we really show respect to the
American people by slapping something together, something that nobody on the
floor can explain, and say we are changing the duties of the Attorney General,
the Director of the CIA, the U.S. attorneys, we are going to change your rights
as Americans, your rights to privacy? We are going to do it with no hearings,
no debate. We are going to do it with numbers on a page that nobody can
understand."

Those remarks came from Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, one of the few who
seem to actually comprehend the serious risks we re facing. And when a senator
expresses these kinds of fears, it's a good idea to pay attention. The
consequences of not thinking this through are so great that they're difficult
to even grasp.

Before any of the really bad stuff started to happen, we were already asking
ourselves if things could possibly get any worse. It almost seems as if there
is no limit as to how bad it can get.

We lost some architectural pillars and a whole lot of innocent lives on
September 11. Now the pillars of freedom and justice which remain must be saved
from destruction as well.