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Guest Commentary October 20, 2001
Protecting America
The Honorable Jon Kyl
Attorney General John Ashcroft has recommended a package of legal reforms that will give law- enforcement personnel additional tools to wage an aggressive battle against terrorists within the United States. The vast majority of these reforms have been accepted by the Congress and we should have them signed into law within the next week or so.
In the face of the greatest attack on America since Pearl Harbor, we can and must give our law- enforcement personnel the tools they need to do their job. Just as we would not send our men and women in the military into battle without the best equipment, we cannot ask our intelligence and law enforcement personnel to perform their missions with inadequate and outdated capabilities. That's why I support what the President is trying to accomplish with the reforms he's recommended to Congress.
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In the past, Congress has delayed acting on anti-terrorism legislation, often under the misguided premise that giving more power to law enforcement somehow means Americans must give up some of their civil liberties. But securing our safety and protecting civil liberties is not a zero-sum game. That is, you do not have to increase one at the expense of the other.
For example, wiretapping legislation I authored in an amendment that recently passed the Senate would simply update current laws so that what federal agents already have the power to do to investigate other federal crimes, they could also do to investigate terrorist activities within our borders. Simply put, we would give the FBI the same authority to go after terrorists that they already have to go after suspected drug dealers or money launderers.
Shouldn't we treat terrorism at least as seriously we do crimes such as mail fraud?
Another of my amendment's most important features is to update current laws to take into account advances in computer technology. Under present law, for example, the FBI can quickly track the source of telephone calls threatening the President, hopefully in time to catch the caller. The FBI does not have the legal authority to trace a threat over a computer nearly as quickly, however. My amendment would change that by allowing law enforcement to trace the source of computer transmissions the same way they currently trace phone calls.
My amendment also dropped a senseless policy at the CIA that blocks our agents from making contact with and recruiting people who have committed human rights abuses in their past. We have to accept the fact that America must deal with unsavory people in order to infiltrate terrorist cells and gather crucial intelligence information.
One of Senate's first actions after the terrorist attacks of September 11 was to unanimously adopt my amendment. Fortunately, many of these measures are also included in the Attorney General's reforms which he later proposed to Congress.
We cannot afford to wait for another tragedy to strike before we give law enforcement the tools it so clearly needs. We also must recognize that we can increase our ability to go after terrorists while protecting Americans' civil liberties.
Jon Kyl, a Republican, is a U.S. Senator from Arizona. The above commentary has been adapted from Sen. Kyl's weekly column, October 5, 2001. To contact him, Click Here.
The above column has been distributed by PoliticsOL.com.
