SECURITY VS. LIBERTY

Chicago Tribune: Figuring out the rights of detained illegal immigrants in the wake of Sept. 11 has all the makings of a first-class argument about the need to find a balance between national security and civil liberties. A federal judge in Newark who ruled last week against the government's blanket policy of secret trials and detentions got the balance exactly right.
Chief U.S. District Judge John W. Bissell rejected the government's policy of holding secret deportation hearings for illegal immigrants who have been detained in the wake of the terrorist attacks. In issuing a preliminary injunction, Bissell ruled that such hearings may be closed, but only on a case-by-case basis when the judge who is conducting the proceeding determines that secrecy is warranted.
The Justice Department expressed concerns that open hearings could reveal valuable information to terrorists. Bissell found that those concerns are legitimate, but the decision to hold hearings in secret should be based on the circumstances of each case.
When 1,200 people were rounded up on immigration violations after Sept. 11, there were some early fears that this would turn into a mass internment, much like the misguided U.S. policy in World War II. Those fears were unfounded. The great majority of those detained have been released, although some 200 to 300 remain in custody. The identities have been withheld while the government has investigated whether they had a connection to terrorist activities.
Suicide pact
To use a line that has often been quoted in recent months, the U.S. Constitution is not a suicide pact. Security concerns must be weighed. That's all Bissell has demanded: That security concerns, indeed, be weighed. A policy that automatically permitted extraordinary secrecy failed to do that.
The blanket recommendation to convene hearings in secret was contained in a memo distributed to immigration courts by Michael J. Creppy, the nation's chief immigration judge, 10 days after the attacks. Creppy's memo prohibited the listing of cases on a court docket, prevented immigration judges from sharing information about the proceedings outside the court and closed the hearings to visitors, family and reporters. Two New Jersey media organizations brought suit after they were barred from covering the hearings. The Justice Department is expected to appeal Bissell's ruling.
That ruling is the latest in a series of court decisions against the government's detention policy. Other rulings in Detroit, Cincinnati and New York have repudiated aspects of the government's tactics for holding material witnesses, withholding names or holding closed hearings.
Some of those rulings have been curious, if not downright dangerous. That is, they all but ignore the ongoing security threat posed by terrorist organizations and missed the delicate balance between security and liberty. What Bissell recognized is that the government has the task of protecting national security, and that when the government in that pursuit deprives people of their liberties, it must have a very strong reason for doing so. That's not a threat to this nation. That is this nation.