If this were a private tort case, would not the occurance of a previous incident in an area of your responsibility increase your culpability if you failed to recognize an increased liklihood of hazard and did not take preventive action?

Just by the way, I personally think the better solution to the airline hijack problem would have been to arm all the passengers, or at least the pilots. I would be sympathetic to the argument that the best defense against further terrorism is to require all able persons to arm themselves so as to be able to take action if warranted. But the argument that the situation isn’t bad enough to warrant any preventive action strikes me as irresponsible.

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned yet: a free society’s final protection is it’s own citizens. It’s the only one that worked even partially on 9/11/2001. If the government and airlines hadn’t spent 30-some years teaching travelers not to try to protect themselves on aircraft, I doubt that the hijackers would have been able to take over even one airplane.

Korematsu was decided during a conflict in which the US lost 400,000 + in an era where our population was some fraction of what it is currently. Lincoln’s suspension of Habeas was the better part of century prior to Korematsu, and that war lost something like 600,000, against a population even smaller still. On 9/11 we lost on the order of 3000 people at a time when our nation is somewhere between 250 million and 300 million in population.

Korematsu can’t be good law during anything approaching normal times, however, it wasn’t a particularly normal period, but in the midst of one our nation’s bloodiest wars. I happen to fall on the side of those against the Korematsu decision, like the previous poster, but I don’t feel it is doing justice to the decision if you take the case out of context…Which brings me to 9/11.

9/11 is exactly the type of event we have to be careful of, specifically our reactions to such an event. On the one hand, many good-hearted people feel (and honestly so) that 9/11 was the worst disaster that has befallen America. Well intentioned folks don’t always appreciate that our nation loses about the same number of people lost on 9/11, every two days or so, to traffic fatalities. Emotions, understandably, make it difficult to argue what needs to be argued. As bad as 9/11 was, it simply pales in comparison to the historical realities that existed at the time of Korematsu.

What I find especially troubling is the number of people willing to allow the Executive branch to (more or less) suspend traditional Constitutional protections. It is true that nothing on the scale of Lincoln’s general suspension of the Writ or the internment seen in the days Korematsu exists presently. However, if one steps back and looks at Gitmo/Camp X-ray, use of FISA warrants, monitoring of library records, “no-fly” lists, etc, it seems to be of the same character of action.

In the wake of 9/11, whether the Constitution should be a “suicide pact” is popular arguement for those justifying the recent expansion of Executive authority. Maybe I’m just too cynical, but comparing 9/11 to WW2 or the Civil War diminishes these greater tragedies and makes for terrible policy. If another terrorist attack were to occur, I fear the willingness of many reasonable people to allow even more draconian policies.

I think its important to realize, free societies are not the safest societies. Constitutional protections cost lives (think of our biased judicial system favoring the accused.) The question is not, “Will we allow our system of limited government to be abandoned or suspended?”(history and analysis of the present proves we will.) Rather, it seems to me, there are two questions, “What conditions allow for these suspensions of limited gov’t?” and given those conditions are met, “What actions, in particular, can the Executive branch undertake?”

WWII was a war, not like the little “storming the crack house” operation we have going on now. 40 million people died in that war. It was a different era. Americans did not know if they were going to make it or not. At least the fear was rational. Compared to dropping nuclear weapons on metropolitan centers just to see what they would do, Korematsu seems insignificant.

Korematsu and all judicial rulings must be looked at in context. Racism used to be more relevant than it is today. At one time in our planet�s history there was nothing wrong with racism, in that everyone was defined by their race. Today, race is less important. We have evolved. Thus, Korematsu today would be much more offensive than it was then. Now having said that, it is my belief it is imperative that we adhere to our value of freedom at all costs, even if such adherence leads to our unqualified destruction. Better the Constitution be a suicide pact than a document without meaning.

In a panel discussion published in Harper’s Magazine, you say:

POSNER: Actually, I think it is like Korematsu, but then I actually think Korematsu was correctly decided. In 1942, there was a real fear of a possible Japanese invasion of the West Coast. I believe there had actually been some minor shelling of the Oregon coast by a Japanese submarine. Unquestionably, the order excluding people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast was tainted by racial prejudice.
On the other hand, many Japanese Americans had refused to swear unqualified allegiance to the United States. Good or bad, it was a military order in a frightening war. Although the majority opinion, written by Justice Hugo Black, is very poor, the decision itself is defensible. The Court could have said: We interpret the Constitution to allow racial discrimination by government when there are urgent reasons for it, and if the military in the middle of a world war says we have to do this, then we’re going to defer, because the Constitution is not a suicide pact.” (my emphasis)

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1111/is_1812_302/ai_74011864/pg_4

It is one thing to say that, theoretically, there might be good reasons for curtail the rights and freedoms of American citizens due to an impending attack. It’s another to say that the events leading up to Korematsu constituted, in fact, a good reason.

As the game show host might ask, “Is that your final answer?”

Given the proposal covers the reorganization of 15+ agencies with a combined budget of over forty billion dollars, it seems quite silly to characterize it as “breaking up the CIA”, which is only about an eighth of the overall intelligence establishment. The NSA alone, for example, is about 30% larger than the CIA, likewise for the NRO. Rather than fixating on the CIA and a prospective intelligence Czar, consider the big picture.

While I don’t think centralized intelligence will change this behaviour, do we really want intelligence agencies “competing” over what they want the President to think?

as much as the republicans want americans to fear “islamic” terrorists, we submit that this movement is no more or less a threat than the irish republican army, ETA, or hamas, or any other of the hundreds of terrorist groups that have plagued the rest of the world. bin laden just had more imagination and he introduced america to what the british, spanish, french and the rest of old europe have been dealing with for decades.

the british didn’t claim any right to invade and occupy america when irish-americans were shipping guns and raising money for ira terrorists.

there are no trash cans in the london underground, there are routine sweeps with bomb sniffing dogs, warnings are prominently posted to be report unattended baggage.. and people get on with their lives.

a rational response requires a rational assesment of the threat – not a look back at history.

certainly 9/11 was a terrible event, but 19 guys with knives is a long way from a nuclear weapon being floated up the potomac. where is the straight line between these two events?

as long as the focus of the threat is “weapons of mass destruction” unbalanced and unreasonable solutions will result. such as the invasion of iraq.

when the threat is anihilation, even when the risk is remote, any action is justified. this is no way to run a business.

a realistic response should consider a realistic assesment of the threat in which case one need look no further than israel to predict with some reasonable probablilty that the next level of escalation is suicide bombers on city buses, not nuclear bombs.

it is hard to imagine how any reform at the federal level is going to have an impact on the most probable threat. reform, if it is needed, is needed at the local level.

of course, if america would do something about the more than one million palestinians who are living in refugee camps, whose land is occupied by an american funded and equipped hostile army, and who are entering the third generation of such desperate existence this might help too.

delaying the rapture to support human rights seems like the christian thing to do.