Less Safe, Less Free

In George Orwell’s novel 1984, the superpower state of Oceania — a totalitarian regime marked by the constant surveillance of its people — is in a state of perpetual war with Eurasia and Eastasia. Big Brother, the leader of Oceania’s repressive regime, tells his citizens that the nation is better than its enemies, which at any given time may be Eurasia, or Eastasia, or both, and that it is winning the war against its rivals. Meanwhile, the people of Oceania really do not know for certain that Oceania is winning the war, or that the war actually exists, or even that Eurasia and Eastasia actually exist.

America’s so-called war on terror reminds me of this Orwellian concept of perpetual war. One can make the argument that both are used to manipulate the citizenry through secrecy and coercion, justify a waste of precious resources, and rationalize the purging of basic civil liberties.

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Under the preventive paradigm, nations are attacked and suspects are kidnapped, tortured, detained and prosecuted, not based upon what they have done, but on what they could do in the future. Under this warped logic, the usual cost and benefit analysis is eschewed on the grounds that the stakes are too catastrophic. In other words, as its proponents would argue, we must do whatever is necessary in order to prevent deadly terrorist attacks and fight the people who commit them. Decisions to take action are the result of a warped calculation based on hunches, driven by suspicion and hysteria, and rife with abuse.

But perhaps the most troubling aspect of the preventive paradigm is its disdain for the rule of law. The legal process, both domestic and international, is viewed not merely as passé and an inconvenience, but a strategy for the weak and an anathema. Americans are subjected to illegal wiretaps. People are held indefinitely, based on questionable evidence, evidence obtained through torture, or no evidence at all. They are deemed terrorists because they have a certain political or religious affiliation, or belong to a certain racial or ethnic group, or because the president says so.

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