Panel sees danger ahead for America

Over the next 25 years the U.S. will increasingly become less secure
domestically against a range of terrorist attacks, forcing people to
expand their “concept of national security” while testing individual
political values, according to a report authored by the U.S.
Commission on National Security/21st Century.

The commission, headed by former senators Gary Hart and Warren B.
Rudman and staffed by business, academic and former military leaders, is
currently studying the issue of national security in preparation of a
three-part report to be completed by April 2001. Of their most
significant findings, the panel believes that “America will become
increasingly vulnerable to hostile attack on our homeland, and our
military superiority will not entirely protect us” over the next quarter
century.

The first report, entitled, ”

New World Coming: American Security in the 21st Century,”
concluded that the U.S. will remain “both absolutely and relatively
stronger than any other state or combination of states.” However, the
panel said “emerging powers — either singly or in coalition — will
increasingly constrain U.S. options regionally and limit its strategic
influence.” Consequently, the commission believes “(the U.S.) will
remain limited in our ability to impose our will, and we will be
vulnerable to an increasing range of threats against American forces and
citizens overseas as well as at home.”

“States, terrorists, and other disaffected groups,” the report said,
“will acquire weapons of mass destruction and mass disruption, and some
will use them. Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in
large numbers.” The commission also believes “rapid advances in
information and biotechnologies” will also “create new vulnerabilities
for U.S. security.” And, the panel said, advances in communications and
information technology will make national borders “more porous; some
will bend and some will break.”

The notion that American citizens will someday be subjected to
varying forms of terrorism on their own turf is garnering increasing
concern from military and political leaders as well. In February,
Defense Secretary William Cohen even told the Senate Armed Services
Committee that Americans might have to surrender some civil rights in
order to gain more security in the fight against domestic terrorism.

“We need greater intelligence and that means not only
foreign-gathered intelligence but here at home,” Cohen said. “That is
going to put us on a collision course with rights of privacy. And it’s
something that democracies have got to come to grips with — how much
are we going to demand of our intelligence agencies and how much are we
willing to give up in the way of intrusion into our lives? That is a
tradeoff that is going to have to come.”

Already lawmakers are considering legislation that would enhance the
use of military forces in domestic law enforcement capacities. The FY
2000 Defense Authorization Bill, already passed by the House, includes
provisions that would provide local law enforcement agencies increased
access to military assets without necessarily having to compensate the
Pentagon for their use.

But critics have dismissed the idea as a blatant violation of the
Posse Comitatus Act — which prevents U.S. military forces from engaging
in most domestic law enforcement activities — as well as a recipe to
invite more military involvement from civil authorities no longer
concerned about “paying the government back.”

Greg Nojeim, Washington legislative counsel for the ACLU, said, “The
defense authorization bill promises more military involvement in
civilian law enforcement at virtually the same time Congress is
investigating the role of the military units at Waco.”

“We’re particularly concerned that the bill effectively removes any
requirement that military units be relied on only in an emergency,” he
added.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., denied
that, saying, “There is no Posse Comitatus exception contained in this
provision. The fact is this provision specifically prohibits military
personnel from engaging in ‘search, seizure, arrest or similar
activity.'”

Nevertheless, the panel’s belief that more domestic terrorism will
hit the U.S. over the next quarter century is a theme popular in the
nation’s capitol, and the most dangerous aspect of the report, others
say, is that it will only serve to reinforce the notion among lawmakers
that decreasing civil liberties to enhance security is the only viable
solution.

The report — the panel’s second of four planned reports — was
released September 20 and provided supporting research and analysis of
the commission’s earlier predictions that the U.S. will eventually be
attacked domestically, “the survival and security of the United States”
remains a priority among national leaders.

The 151-page report also discusses the nature of global economics —
a contributing factor to potential unrest — and how peoples and nations
will be governed over the next quarter-century. The panel believes more
“international and improved regulatory regimes” in the future may
translate “into less capacity for states to manipulate national economic
policy.” The report said “ties that bind individual or group loyalty to
a state can change and even unravel, and the next 25 years portend a
good deal of unraveling.”

“In all cases,” the commission said, “the changes ahead have the
potential to undermine the authority of states.” Some experts cited by
the panel, such as Wolfgang H. Reinicke, suggest that the principle of
state sovereignty itself, “and the state system, is wasting away.”

But the panel countered this view with supporting commentary from
other experts who see inherent danger in losing sovereignty. In any
case, the commission believes state sovereignty will survive the “next
25 years, and probably long after.”