Also this issue: Censored News -Bruce Schimmel The Burden of Memory -Howard Altman Letters to the Editor

September 5-11, 2002

slant

Where Do We Go From Here?

by Howard Altman

Where do we go from here? One year after Sept. 11, it’s a question we should all be asking ourselves. Where do we go from a smoldering city now missing its two most visible buildings? Where do we go from a punctured Pentagon? Where do we go from the Shanksville crater? Where do we go with the memories of thousands of lost lives?

We all remember where we were on Sept. 11, 2001, when we heard the news, who we were with when we watched Flight 175 hit the South Tower, the horror of the moment.

A year later, we are at war with Afghanistan. But Osama bin Laden has yet to be captured. Al-Qaeda has yet to be dismantled. And back home, we have an administration fractured in any vision other than curtailing civil liberties in the name of national security.

Do we go to war with Iraq?

Do we not?

Depends on who you ask. And on what day.

Where do we go from here?

This week, City Paper -- with reports from staff and freelancers -- takes a look ahead in an effort to begin to answer that question.

Ted Rall, a nationally known writer and cartoonist, has a number of questions for our government. John Timoney, the former police commissioner, calls for John Ashcroft to be fired. Staff writer Deborah Bolling asks local and national journalists to talk about media in the age of terror. Editor In Chief David Warner looks at how artists are changing to deal with the 9/11 muse.

A year ago, our headline was "Nothing Will Ever Be The Same." In many ways, the headline still rings true. When we hear an airplane, we look up and wonder. When we walk by Independence Hall and see it blocked off, we are angered. When we think of the lives lost, we are outraged. When we see the lot that was once the World Trade Center, we remember that we are not always invincible. But we have also since learned that, in many ways, the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. We still use up far too much of this planet's resources. We have slowly sunk back into a national complacency that existed until Flight 11 hit the North Tower. We are, again, quick to forget the lessons of history and what our place is in this world.

Sept. 11 was a horrible day that should never be forgotten. But in our zeal to prosecute the war against our attackers, we must remember to protect that which makes this country so great. To ensure that where we go from here is not the darkest depths of human depravity.

To that end, consider the words of U.S. Sixth Circuit Court Judge Damon J. Keith. Judge Keith recently ruled that, under the First Amendment, the government has no right to keep the identities of the people it deports in the name of security from the public.

In his introduction to the majority opinion in an appeal of a case brought by newspapers around the country, Keith, a long-time advocate for civil rights and civil liberties, argues that a government operating in secret is no democracy.

"The political branches of our government enjoy near-unrestrained ability to control our borders. Since the end of the 19th century, our government has enacted immigration laws banishing, or deporting, non-citizens because of their race and their beliefs. While the Bill of Rights jealously protects citizens from such laws, it has never protected non-citizens facing deportation in the same way. In our democracy, based on checks and balances, neither the Bill of Rights nor the judiciary can second-guess government's choices. The only safeguard on this extraordinary governmental power is the public, deputizing the press as the guardians of their liberty. (ŒAn informed public is the most potent of all restraints upon misgovernment[.]' Grosjean v. Am. Press Co.) (Œ[They] alone can here protect the values of democratic government.' New York Times v. United States.)

"Today, the executive branch seeks to take this safeguard away from the public by placing its actions beyond public scrutiny. Against non-citizens, it seeks the power to secretly deport a class if it unilaterally calls them Œspecial interest' cases. The executive branch seeks to uproot people's lives outside the public eye, and behind a closed door. Democracies die behind closed doors. The First Amendment, through a free press, protects the people's right to know that their government acts fairly, lawfully and accurately in deportation proceedings. When government begins closing doors, it selectively controls information rightfully belonging to the people. Selective information is misinformation. The Framers of the First Amendment Œdid not trust any government to separate the true from the false for us' (Kleindienst v. Mandel). They protected the people against secret government."

Where do we go from here?

Ultimately, that's up to you.

If you would like to respond to this Slant or have one of your own (850 words), contact Howard Altman, City Paper executive editor, 123 Chestnut St., third floor, Phila., PA 19106 or e-mail altman@citypaper.net.