Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy (25 page)

Roya Rahmani (a pseudonym) was jailed and tortured in Iran for supporting a pro-democracy group. She was granted political asylum in the United States and then prosecuted here for supporting the same pro-democracy group.

Erich Scherfen, a Gulf War veteran, was told by his boss that he would lose his job as a commercial pilot if he could not get his name removed from a No Fly list.

Department of Homeland Security Traveler Redress Inquiry Program (DHS TRIP) form.

A chart showing the watchlists used by various agencies.

Packing Arabic-English flashcards to study on a flight back to Pomona College turned into a detention and interrogation nightmare for student Nick George.

A representation of the kind of image captured by bodyscanner machines in use at airports across the country.

Suspicious Activity Reporting form, page 1.

The first of 500 pages of the Office of Foreign Assets Control Specially Designated Nationals Watchlist.

American citizen Brandon Mayfield and his family were searched under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act after the FBI mistakenly matched his fingerprint with one found in Spain.

George Christian was prohibited from telling Congress about his own experience with an FBI demand for information about library patrons.

George Christian, with his Executive Committee colleagues at Library Connection of Connecticut, Barbara Bailey, Peter Chase, and Janet Nocek, at a press conference held after nine months of litigation and after the Patriot Act provision they wanted to testify about had been reenacted.

Internet service provider Nick Merrill spent over six years gagged from telling anyone that he was the John Doe challenging the constitutionality of this National Security Letter demanding information about one of his clients.

Page 1 of a document released in response to an ACLU Freedom of Information Act request for information about the frequency of use of National Security Letters.

8.
Gagging the Librarians

The Patriot Act affects real lives and even an ordinary American like me can end up being targeted by the FBI.
—Barbara Bailey, President, Library Connection Inc.; Director, Welles-Turner Memorial Library, Glastonbury, Connecticut (2006)

The Patriot Act inverts the constitutional requirement that people’s lives be private and the work of government officials be public; it instead crafts a set of conditions in which our inner lives become transparent and the workings of the government become opaque. Either one of these outcomes would imperil democracy; together they not only injure the country but also cut off the avenues of repair.
—Elaine Scarry (2004)
¹