AMERICA IS UNSECURED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000301870001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: December 11, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301870001-5
WASHINGTON POST
11 December 1985
Amitai Etzioni
Amerija Is Unsecured
After 25 years of living in the United States (as
an immigrant from isfael, often considered an
Italian), I still cannot get used to the loose se-
curity of my adopted country. Married to a His-
panic, I often run into citizens of Mexico and El
Salvador who walked into the country across the
Rio Grande. On campus, I teach students from
Iran and assorted Palestinians who simply -stayed
in the United States after their visas expired.
My American-born colleagues often talk about
such illegal immigrants with mixed emotions.
They wish to provide 4 haven for refugees; they
are offended by the exadtation of these refugees
by some American farmers; they view these im-
migrants as competing with American workers
and straining our social services. Drug pushing
across the poriferous border is also mentioned.
However, nobody, in my experience, mentions
that able-bodied spies and terrorists may cross the
Rio Grande at least with the same ease as maids
seeking household work in the North. Indeed, it
seems it would be quite easy to march a small divi-
sion into the United States, every night, for quite a
while. (People who feel that I am exaggerating
should note: this is happening now, only the "divi-
sions" want to work rather than to foment trouble.)
I chuckle when I read that the FBI does not
have enough people to shadow all the Soviet and
Eastern bloc diplomats stationed in the United
States, many of whom are believed to be spies.
Our reluctance to draw secure lines is evident not
merely at the border, but also in the lackadaisical
security at military bases, missile sites and nuclear
facilities. Of all the recent event, the one that I find
startling is not the taking of the TWA hostages or
the car-bomb driven into an American base. The
most telling incident is that of the youngster who
walked into the State Department, after all the ter-
rorist acts and the introduction of "new security
measures," carrying a full-sized gun, entered the
seventh floor where the secrety of state was work-
ing, and shot his. oiother. Members of a TV crew
that followed hift footsteps a few days later told me
their gear was not examined.
The United 'States is more than an open country:
it is an unsecured one. It displays an attitude that
mixes "we are invulnerable" with a rhetoric about
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the need to improve security, but a deep-seated dis-
taste for what improving public safety entails.
The matter of attitude was highlighted in a
public television symposium on the relations be-
tween the military and the press. "The U.S. has
an intelligence-gathering satellite that hovers
over the U.S.S.R. without which we would be
- blind, for three years, to what the U.S.S.R. is .up
to,", two leading American reporters were asked
to presuppose. "Now assume a classified docu-
ment on the working of the satellite is leaked to
you. Would you publish it?" Both reporters were
sure they would on the grounds that maintaining
security was the government's job; theirs was to
inform the public and "we frequently find that
each administration claims threat to security
when we seek to publish information they find
embarrassing." The reporters did not even con-
sider the question: what if this time the publica-
tion would
To me the tacit disregard bf our vulnerability
reflects a lack of adjustment of America to post-
modern technological and sociological facts. The
United States still acts viscerally as if it were pro-
tected by enormous oceans and distance, un-
reachable by bombers, and as if terrorist attacks
are sure to be limited to Beruit or Athens. The
1984 bombing of the Capitol is already forgotten.
When I point to this reluctance to come to
terms with the second half of the 20th century, as
we should be readying ourselves for the 21st cen-
tury, I run into a less explicit but potent objection.
Many Americans, including well-educated,
thoughtful people, feel strongly that tightening
security would lower the nation's defenses
against the rise of a police state. When I favor the
introduction of tamper-proof national ID cards,
because they would greatly improve the United
States' ability to curb crime, illegal immigration
and other intruions, my colleagues worry that it
will make it too easy to hunt down dissenters and
to form nationwide black lists. The suggestion
that the government will draw on a central com-
puter to track 'suApects troubles' my American-
born friends. They worry?the- record shows,
with some reason?about violation of individual
rights: employers and insurance companies may
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BY WALLMEYER
discriminate against people who are gay or who
are addicts. The suggestion that employees with
access to secret information will be subject to
random polygraph tests (to which they will con-
sent, as part of their employment contract) raises
concerns about self-incrimination.
These objections suggest that our security will
have to be strengthened in line with, American
values and traditions. Before we issue national ID
cards, we should palm legislation that strongly pro-
hibits the use of the information the government
has about cardholders for purposes other than se-
curity. (If we can prevent the IRS data from being
used for nonlegitimate goals, this could be achieved
here too.) Improved security may well require reli-
ance on some central government computers. How-
ever, these computers should be subject to close
scrutiny by oversight boards to ensure they will not
be abused?for example, to provide corporations
with information about potential employees. We
may need more screening devices at the entrances
to public buildings (in Israel, purses and parcels
taken to movie theaters are subject to search; in
London, this summer, my briefcase was searched
during a visit to the Royal Tournament). We should,
though, ensure they serve only to control means of
violence.
We succeeded in setting up such screening de-
vices in airports without using the searches in-
volved to go after those who are suspected of car-
rying controlled substances. Other ways can be
found once we realize that we can reduce vulner-
ability without undermining our freedoms. At
least this former foreigner thinks we should not
wait until a new, more damaging, act of violence,
possibly involving nuclear facilities, hits us before
we shore up our security..
The writer, a professor at The George Wa.shington
University, is director of the Center for Policy Re-
search.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301870001-5