INVASION OF A DIFFERENT SORT

I hope our new war on terrorism isn't filled with the ambiguous goals,
outrageous spending and systematic abuses that have been the hallmarks
our long-standing but ineffective war on drugs.

President Bush has announced that America is declaring war on
terrorism. Good. Like most Americans, I want to see Osama bin Laden
and whoever else was involved in these attacks brought to justice.
That justice may be served in a courtroom or from the belly of an Air
Force plane. Either way is fine with me.

But I worry that it won't be bin Laden who will suffer. It'll be
innocent people in Afghanistan who will die in the bombings that are
sure to come, and innocent people in the United States who will lose
their freedom.

The new war on terrorism has a lot in common with the war on drugs.
Both seek to eradicate the same type of indistinct enemy that moves in
the shadows and infiltrates our country to do damage. In both cases,
the enemy isn't limited to a particular, place, and he's difficult to
locate and destroy.

Both wars require congressional financing, which amounts to trillions
of dollars being spent indiscriminately with no clear plan of attack
and nebulous results. Already Congress has cut the first check for $40
billion to be spent on "whatever is needed," and there will be many
more to come.

The war on drugs has caused the expansion of our prison population so
that it's now the largest in the world. It's restricted our basic
civil rights and it has increased the power of police to make stops,
conduct searches, use wiretapping and other invasive surveillance
technology and perform dangerous no-knock raids.

We've seen property confiscated and/or condemned because of drug use,
neighborhoods turned into deadly battle grounds, and high speed chases
on our highways, all in the name of the drug war.

Now we have a war on terrorism, which is a laudable goal, but I worry
that it will be us, not the terrorists, who pay the price.

On Page 2A of yesterday's Denver Post, a headline read, "Bush alters
law to assist terror probe; Legal immigrants may be held indefinitely
if suspect."

Already it begins. As the law stood before this change, police could
arrest any legal immigrant they suspected, but they had 24 hours in
which to charge him with a crime or with violating the terms of his
visa. Maybe 24 hours was too short. Given the nature of he current
investigation under way, I think we can all agree that an extension
may have been warranted. Give the police 48 hours, 72 hours or even a
week. But indefinitely?

We've already seen this approach taken with illegal immigrants, some
of whom sit in jails for six to nine months without ever being charged
with a crime. Now we're going to do the same to people who are in the
country legally. "Indefinitely" means they could be held for months or
years, despite the fact that there's not enough evidence to charge
them with a crime.

This is an executive order from the president, but Congress will have
its turn at the wheel in a few days when it considers anti-terrorism
legislation. Last week, the Justice Department announced that it would
ask Congress for expansive new surveillance authority to place
wiretaps on phones and computers and a variety of other powers to
combat terrorism, and I'll bet the Justice Department will get
everything it wants.

On Page 1A of yesterday's Denver Post was the headline, "Face-ID
technology gains new support; Colorado legislators rethinking
opposition." Our legislators were planning to restrict its use for
reasons of privacy, but in the new war on terrorism will there be any
privacy left?

Our new laws may become a more enduring form of terrorism than the
crimes they purport to prevent.