[IP] DHS Intel Chief Warned Civil Rights Would Need to Be 'Abridged' t o Prevent Terror
Begin forwarded message:
From: Justin Rood <jrood@xxxxxx>
Date: October 28, 2004 8:21:43 AM EDT
To: "'dave@xxxxxxxxxx'" <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: DHS Intel Chief Warned Civil Rights Would Need to Be
'Abridged' t o Prevent Terror
Oct. 28, 2004
Homeland Intelligence Chief Hughes Warned Civil Rights Would Have to Be
'Abridged' to Prevent Another Terror Attack
By Justin Rood, CQ Staff
Eight months before the White House appointed him the Homeland Security
Department's top intelligence official, retired U.S. Army Gen. Patrick
M.
Hughes told a public forum at Harvard last year that the government
would
have to "abridge individual rights" and take domestic security measures
"not
in accordance with our values and traditions" to prevent terrorist
attacks
in the United States.
"What I'm about to say is very arrogant - arrogant to a fault," said
Hughes,
a former chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), in previously
unreported remarks at a March 2003 Harvard University forum on "Future
Conditions: The Character and Conduct of War, 2010 and 2020."
"Set aside what the mass of people think. Some things are so bad for
them
that you cannot allow them to have them. One of them is war in the
context
of terrorism in the United States," Hughes said, according to a
transcript
obtained by CQ Homeland Security.
"Therefore, we have to abridge individual rights, change the societal
conditions, and act in ways that heretofore were not in accordance with
our
values and traditions, like giving a police officer or security
official the
right to search you without a judicial finding of probable cause," said
Hughes.
"Things are changing, and this change is happening because things can be
brought to us that we cannot afford to absorb. We can't deal with them,
so
we're going to reach out and do something ahead of time to preclude
them.
"Is that going to change your lives?" Hughes asked rhetorically. "It
already
has."
Neither the department nor Hughes would comment for the record on
whether
Hughes stood by his comments in the year he has held the senior DHS
intelligence post.
At the time of his remarks, Hughes was a private consultant whose
clients
included the CIA, the FBI, the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency,
DIA, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Booz Allen Hamilton,
Science Applications International Corp., SRI International, Anteon,
Boeing,
Rand Corp., and others, according to the Web site for his company, PMH
Enterprises, LLC.
In his current position, Hughes heads up DHS' intelligence analysis
efforts
and coordinates with the other members of the intelligence community, as
well as with such interagency intelligence efforts as the Terrorist
Threat
Integration Center.
Conspiracy Theories
Roger Cressey, who ran the Transnational Threats unit of the National
Security Council in the Clinton administration, took issue with Hughes'
remarks.
"It's a little surreal. I don't agree with that," Cressey said. They
"fuel
the conspiracy theorists and those on the extreme left and right who
believe
the government is only out for one thing: to screw with the American
people.
I don't think it's a helpful way of advancing the discourse."
An official with the 9/11 Public Discourse Project - the lobbying effort
created by the former members of the 9/11 commission - drew a stark
contrast
between Hughes' reflections and the 9/11 commission's position.
"The choice between security and liberty is a false one," said the
official,
who agreed to talk only on condition of anonymity to protect the
project's
efforts from charges of partisanship.
"Our history has shown us that insecurity threatens liberty. Yet if our
liberties are curtailed, we lose the values that we are struggling to
defend," the official said.
"The Fourth Amendment is pretty clear, said Timothy Edgar, legislative
counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, when asked about Hughes'
comments. "In general, the rule is that you do need a warrant and
probable
cause" to search someone.
Edgar said there are numerous exceptions to that requirement, but it
was not
clear that those were what Hughes was referring to.
" 'We have to abridge individual rights' - that's a very disturbing
thing,
coming from the head of intelligence at the Homeland Security
Department,"
Edgar said.
Former Democratic Sen. Gary Hart (1974-86) of Colorado, co-chairman of
the
U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st Century - which first
called for the creation of a homeland security department - called
Hughes'
remarks "a dangerous misunderstanding of the United States
Constitution, our
history and our political culture."
"It's the same kind of thinking that caused Abu Ghraib," Hart said,
referring to the recent scandal in which U.S. Army personnel abused
Iraqi
prisoners. "This thinking applied to this country will cause Abu
Ghraibs in
the United States."
Since taking his position with DHS last November, Hughes appears to have
tempered his comments.
In May, he told the Associated Press that "we are trying to make
ourselves
more secure in a way that is palatable and constitutionally right."
The White House did not return calls seeking comment.
Justin Rood can be reached via jrood@xxxxxx
Source: CQ Homeland Security
© 2004 Congressional Quarterly Inc. All Rights Reserved
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