What price have we paid for sense of security?

It doesn't take death and destruction for terrorists to achieve their goals. Sometimes their targets do their work for them.

“A great deal of our civil liberties have been eroded and a lot of our privacy, and we don't even know it,” said Ben Stone, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Iowa chapter. “The 10-year anniversary of the very horrid mass murders of that day gives us an opportunity to reflect on how well we've maintained our values in the aftermath.”

The post-9/11 extension of government surveillance authority, even when it may make attacks more difficult, still advances terrorists' secondary aims, said Brian Lai, a University of Iowa political scientist who studies and teaches in the fields of American foreign and domestic policy relating to terrorism.

“(When) groups try to create and spread fear among society, one way is to create reminders of the possibility of a terrorist attack,” Lai said. “They try to have constant reminders of their threat, regardless of what the real threat actually is.”

That's most often encountered in the arrive-two-hours-early-and-remove-your-shoes routine familiar to airline travelers, but it's also present in more subtle, everyday ways.

Stone noted the FBI has inspected the trash of peace activists, and Drake Law School students and professors were subpoenaed by the Justice Department in 2004 to turn over a list of those attending and speaking at an anti-war forum. The subpoena was later withdrawn, but Stone said the government's message was heard.

“We're certainly concerned and continue to be wary of efforts to monitor the peaceful activities of people,” said Stone, an effort often complicated by the terms and rhetoric of the political debate.

“Even the term - ‘war on terror' - it continues to be described to some extent as an existential battle,” Stone said. “You're either with us all the way, or you're not. It makes it hard for us as Americans to debate the rule of law.”

Over time, the culture of fear becomes the norm.

“People start to accept these things as a normal part of their lives,” Lai said.

Lai noted the Patriot Act was the subject of significant debate and public interest on its first passage in October 2001. President Barack Obama signed a four-year extension of the act in May after provisions to monitor potential abuse by law enforcement were rejected.

“The most recent extension of the Patriot Act wasn't followed very closely at all,” Lai said.

Stone's opinion is more stark.

“The Obama administration has largely continued the adherence to really misguided policies in national security that the Bush administration had,” Stone said. “Guantanamo is still open, people are still held without trial, habeas corpus is still granted at the whim of the sovereign.”

Meanwhile, attempts by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Mark Udall, D-Colo., to shed light on a “secret Patriot Act” have been stymied.

The Senate Select Intelligence Committee voted Aug. 1 not to require the director of national intelligence and the attorney general to officially report on provisions the senators say force businesses, medical offices, banks and other organizations to turn over any “tangible things” the government deems relevant to an investigation.

The senators also wanted the government to report on the number of no-warrant wiretaps it's conducted, a plan that also was rejected.

Lai said once established, governmental agencies rarely give up power.

“Government agencies have incentives to maintain their funding,” he said. “You sometimes do see reductions when budget emergencies occur or changes in government occur, but rarely does it go back to pre-emergency levels.”

Does it even matter, when Facebook and online marketers mine personal data for commercial use and cellphone vendors can track customers' whereabouts through GPS-equipped phones?

“As our privacy has been eroded under national security auspices, it has created almost an expectation among Americans that why do you even bother to claim a right to privacy?” Stone said. “It would've happened to some extent regardless of what a bunch of murderers wanted to do to America, but I think (the reaction to 9/11) accelerated the reduction of privacy in America.”

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