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Panel Detail:
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Dinner panel
National Security vs. Civil Liberties: What Are the Limits to Executive Power?
Speakers:
Willie Brown Jr.,
Former Mayor of San Francisco
Susan Estrich,
Robert Kingsley Professor of Law and Political Science, University of Southern California Law School
Dennis Prager,
Syndicated Radio Talk-Show Host
Edward Rollins,
Chairman, Rollins Strategy Group
Moderator:
Jeff Greenfield, Senior Analyst, CNN
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Dennis Prager argues that new powers granted to intelligence agencies do not seriously curtail the civil liberties of the American people. At left is moderator Jeff Greenfield.
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The Milken Institute Global Conference audience was entertained and intrigued by this lively and intelligent panel, moderated by the even-handed Jeff Greenfield of CNN. Though there were some of the expected divisions between those on the left, former Mayor Willie Brown of San Francisco and Susan Estrich of the USC Law School, and those on the right, talk-show host Dennis Prager and Ed Rollins of the Rollins Strategy Group, there were also some surprising moments of agreement among the panelists.
On the question of whether the intelligence community had enough power in the pre-9/11 world to access information that could have prevented the attack, Estrich and Brown agreed that they did. Estrich stated that rather than being a problem of a lack of power, the failures of the intelligence community were simply the result of "foolish bureaucrats [being] foolish bureaucrats."
Prager, on the other hand, suggested that not only was the intelligence community impeded in its information-gathering capabilities before 9/11, but that the new powers granted to intelligence agencies through the Patriot Act do not seriously curtail the civil liberties of the American people. To support his claim, he presented an article from a July 2005 Los Angeles Times article showing that the actual number of cases in which the Patriot Act is used is extremely small.
Rollins, taking a political perspective, acknowledged that complications from the war on terrorism have seriously hurt President Bush, who faces the lowest approval ratings since President Nixon. Besides the weakening of the president, however, Rollins asserted that there are other serious problems facing the American people, specifically an ineffective Congress and a new and unpredictable enemy. In this time of crisis, Rollins asked, what should be the power and responsibility of the executive? Where are the checks and balances? How do we equip a man who is so weakened, but who must be prepared and empowered to deal with another, inevitable disaster, whether terrorist or natural?
Estrich declared that regardless of what powers the president needs to fight the war on terrorism, those powers must be regulated by the rule of law. She used the example of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, suggesting that while the president may be free to choose what sort of law should apply to those detainees (military, laws of war, etc.), some law must be applied. On this point, Estrich and Rollins were in agreement. Rollins asserted that Estrich’s words could have been made by a conservative rather than a liberal, and that the fundamental rules of the Constitution should not be forgotten in any discussion of executive power.
Greenfield left the audience with some important questions: Is this war on terrorism a real "war"? If so, why isn’t the American government or the American public behaving as though they are living in a state of war? Why are we so quick to complain about higher gas prices while fighting the most expensive war in American history? Where is the sacrifice that has been made by earlier generations during earlier periods of war?
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