What hath our ‘love of nation’ wrought?

It’s been a year since that horrible day when America woke up to the reality of global terrorism. In these 365 days, a wave of patriotism brought the country closer together to cope with disaster.

We faced the initial shock together, we faced the anthrax threat together and during that time we also supported one of the most threatening piece of legislation to our Constitution ever.

While America was wrapped up in a sometimes xenophobic and jingoist fervor six weeks after Sept. 11, Congress, who had just been evacuated from its anthrax-infected halls, overwhelmingly passed the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act. In a nation that prides itself on being based on a philosophy of law that includes protection of basic rights such as due process, protection from warrantless searches and that old favorite, freedom of speech, these laws threaten the security of that philosophy in the name of its protection.

Now that the president’s approval ratings have returned from deific heights and we seem to have regained our national cynicism, let’s return to examine what our “love of nation” hath wrought.

Chief among the statutes is a stipulation that sets aside due process allowing the Immigration and Naturalization Service to detain aliens without charge for up to 48 hours and without limit in a vaguely-defined “state of emergency.” It is under this statute that 1,200 Arabs and Muslims were held in the days after the attacks. None of them have yet been charged with terrorist activities. Many are still being held.

“Let the terrorists among us be warned, if you overstay your visas by one day we will arrest you,” said Attorney General John Ashcroft, taking a moment to clear up any doubts that in America being a foreigner might as well be just as bad as being a terrorist.

And to combat those terrorists who also happen to be American citizens, Ashcroft’s office also sought the Supreme Court’s advanced approval to suspend the Fourth Amendment in investigations of a foreign threat to domestic security.

And as if our xenophobia weren’t already clear, the act allows foreigners to be denied entrance to the country based on their ideology. Anyone “whose public endorsement of acts of terrorist activities” will be turned away.

How long will it take before we turn away not only those who have outwardly supported terrorist causes but also those who support causes that have been linked to terrorism? Should we turn away all Palestinian nationals based on the actions of a small faction of the movement’s supporters?

And this is only the worst of it. Other statutes give almost free reign in intercepting e-mail and Internet use.

Back in the heady days after Sept. 11, the bill’s supporters argued that we were living in a new reality. The United States is vulnerable to attack and we can no longer hide our head in the sand. We have to accept these precautions and model our world outlook accordingly.

But this isn’t a new argument. It’s been used before with infamous results. Remember the Alien and Sedition Acts, which allowed for rapid deportation of aliens as well as outlawed speech against the government? They were pushed into law by the Adam’s administration in 1798 as a defense against the threat of war with France, but were soon turned to systematically jail the opposition to the Federalist Party.

In the past, we have relied on the Supreme Court to protect us from questionable laws, but the Court is also susceptible to jingoist ferment. They approved of the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. (I must give a nod here to U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler who ruled that the government must release the names of the 750 detainees still being held for questioning regarding the attacks.)

But the PATRIOT Act means more than just a few violations of the Constitution; its passage was a sly shift in our national philosophy. For a country founded on the universal rights outlined in the Constitution, this act and the record of the Bush administration seem to say that such human rights don’t apply unless you’re an American citizen.

Sure, a logical case can be made that if you are not a citizen of this country, you don’t enjoy its rights. But when these rights are constantly touted as inalienable to all humans when it serves our political purposes, America looks hypocritical in the eyes of the world.

This bald duplicity is the agitating factor for the anger against our country that set the Sept. 11 attacks into action.

At home we tout ideals such as freedom, democracy and tolerance, but in the region, we’ve supported a repressive shah, a royal family allegedly responsible for numerous human rights abuses and a nation that is systematically working for the expulsion of an entire people based solely on their race. No wonder Middle Easterners look at the “land of the free and home of the brave” and laugh!

Our hypocrisy is obvious to them because they see it played out every day on their doorsteps. Can the Bush administration risk taking that hypocrisy to our own stoop, provoking such thoughts among our own citizens?