http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/03/politics/03JEWS.html

Jewish Groups Endorse Tough Security Laws

January 3, 2002

CIVIL LIBERTIES
Jewish Groups Endorse Tough Security Laws
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Jewish groups long known for their outspoken defense of civil liberties
have been silent on or even supportive of the Bush administration's
counterterrorism legislation, breaking with their allies in the civil
liberties movement who have criticized the new measures as potentially
repressive.
But the groups appear to be in step with their constituencies. A recent
poll of American Jews disclosed a high level of support for the kind of
surveillance measures that are anathema to civil libertarians, for example
placing cameras in public places and requiring national identity cards.
"Sept. 11 has forced all but the most doctrinaire on the right and the
left to be open to a recalibration of the balance between security and
liberty," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. "Jewish
groups are perhaps more open to this re-examination, since so many of the
threats are directed not only at Israel but at Jews worldwide."
The terrorist attacks on the United States prompted many Americans, no
matter their religious and ethnic backgrounds, to drop their objections to
more intrusive law enforcement in the interest of national security. But
the shift among Jewish organizations is notable because it involves a
predominantly liberal minority that has always prided itself on defending
other racial and religious minorities.
"What you have is a measure of ambivalence that is unusual," said Rabbi
Eric H. Yoffie, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations,
the alliance of Reform synagogues. "Organizations and leaders that one
normally would expect to be quite outspoken on civil liberties have been
more restrained."
One reason for the reluctance to criticize the legislation, Rabbi Yoffie
said, is that American Jewish leaders are intimately familiar with
Israel's effort to maintain a democracy while fending off attacks from
terrorists.
"We have watched Israel struggle with this, in some ways successfully, in
some ways not," he said. "Generally speaking, we think they've done a
pretty good job.
"In Israel, ethnic and religious profiling at airports is a given. Many of
us have been at those airports more times than we can count, and there's
something uncomfortable and distasteful about it, but at the same time we
don't oppose it and we recognize the necessity of it."
Most Jewish groups, like the historically liberal American Jewish
Congress, have taken no stance on the antiterrorism legislation, said Phil
Baum, the congress's national executive director. But the Anti-Defamation
League has come out in favor of it, submitting testimony to Congress and
commending the president and Attorney General John Ashcroft.
"We have been out there," said Abraham H. Foxman, the league's executive
director, "very clearly and very directly supportive of this new
legislation and giving law enforcement more power to be able to act to
prevent criminal acts."

-- continued --

Leaders of major Jewish groups said that after the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks, they decided not to sign statements circulated by groups like the
American Civil Liberties Union and the National Council of Churches that
urged Americans not to sacrifice civil liberties in the fight against
terrorism.
Richard T. Foltin, legislative director and counsel of the American Jewish
Committee, said his group was among those that did not sign the A.C.L.U.
statement.
"It's not that there was anything wrong with that statement per se," Mr.
Foltin said. "It said appropriate things about the need to safeguard civil
liberties and not to scapegoat members of particular groups, and those are
all things we subscribe to. The problem was there was no acknowledgment in
that statement of the national security side."
Critics of the antiterrorism legislation have objected to measures like
the use of military tribunals to try people accused of terrorism, the
indefinite detention of immigrants and permitting law enforcement
officials to monitor conversations between suspects and their lawyers. But
other than civil libertarians, those objecting the loudest have been
Muslims and Arab-American groups. And many Jewish groups are unwilling to
ally with them.
Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform
Judaism, said, "One complication is the reluctance to join with people who
are critics on the war against terrorism, because amongst those critics
are those who have mixed agendas on Israel."
Mr. Foltin noted that Jewish groups' hard line on prosecuting terrorists
had been evident four years ago in the controversy over the use of secret
evidence to detain people suspected of being terrorists. Most Jewish
groups sided with the Clinton administration in supporting the use of
evidence that is never revealed to the accused, a method used to detain
several people of Middle Eastern background. Muslims and Arab- American
groups joined with some civil liberties groups to oppose secret evidence.
Since then, Mr. Foltin said, there has been lively debate within Jewish
groups about how to balance civil liberties and national security.
"The problem of how you draw that balance is much more difficult when the
one person you allow to go free may go out and commit mass murder," Mr.
Foltin said.
A survey of 1,015 American Jews in November and December conducted for the
American Jewish Committee by Market Facts Inc., a research group, found
that clear majorities favored expanding the scope of law enforcement
agencies. Ninety- two percent say they support infiltrating suspicious
groups; 70 percent favor adopting a national identity card system for
American citizens; 66 percent favor expanding camera surveillance on
streets and public places; and 55 percent favor monitoring of Internet
chat rooms.
Several Jewish leaders said their groups were still studying the
administration's antiterrorism initiative. Some said they might press for
changes behind the scenes.
But so far, only the liberal Reform movement has publicly raised
objections. Rabbi Yoffie and Rabbi Saperstein sent a letter to Attorney
General Ashcroft in December saying, "We must be vigilant in ensuring that
the investigation into the terrorist attacks does not undermine the very
liberties that make this country worth celebrating and protecting."

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

I think this just goes to show the human tendancy toward hypocricy.  It's the "Not in my back yard" syndrome.  "Hey that doesn't affect me, so I'm all for it!"  Let's throw a "yet" after the "me" in that last quote and see if the opinion changes.

One of the most bizzare things I see in Isreal is the desire of their far right to cleanse the land of Arabs.  Huh!?

Very scary people. And of course, once the "war" is over, the only restriction they will likely want to keep is the illegal registration of guns and gun-owners that Chuckie Schumer and the Manchurian Candidate (McCain) have been frothing at the mouth about.

I can only wonder what Aaron Zelman has to say about all this....

Why do so many people forget or ignore the German Waffengesetz of 1928 and its consequences a few years later under a different German chancellor on Jewish (and other) Germans ?

*sigh*






...................................
"Mit der Dummheit kaempfen Goetter selbst vergebens"
(Against stupidity, even the gods struggle in vain.)
Friedrich Schiller (1801)
"Die Jungfrau von Orleans", III, 6 (Vers 2318)

Those who disagree are anti-semetic and supporters of terrorism. The ADL and SPLC will be the lead non-governmental organizations to investigate and report possible domestic terrorists directly to the Director of Homeland Defense.

I wish they would poll Jews from Isreal in stead of the ones here. You tend to be a little more openminded when you know you are a target for someone everyday.

[beer]

As a LEO and Jew, I am  concerned about generating mistrust of the American People. Also and more important is the placement  of controls on those using the new authority. We go back to power corrupts, there is too much power in the handsof those we have no control of.

Just watched "Office Space" for the 15th time last night.
Great line:  "You know the Nazis had little pieces of flair ... that they made the Jews wear."
I don't know how I missed it before [;)]