Selling our souls for "security"

When Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith came out last May, I used a quote from the movie as my e-mail sig line for several months afterwards. People who know me weren't surprised; I'm an unabashed Star Wars fangirl. But I didn't identify with this particular quote because it was Star Wars so much as because it very aptly described the sinking feeling I get about the direction our country is headed post-9/11.

The quote comes from Senator Amidala as she watches Supreme Chancellor Palpatine declare the end of the Republic and the birth of the Empire, all in the name of security and safety and the protection of the people from those evil Separatists and creepy Jedi. As Palpatine declares himself the Emperor, he is received with a standing ovation from the Senate, and Senator Amidala (who neither stands nor claps) says, "So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause."

Now I am not an alarmist. I'm far more Scully than Mulder; I don't buy into conspiracy theories and roll my eyes at every special about who really shot JFK. But the so-called "Patriot Act" scares me, as does the wiretapping and eavesdropping stories we're hearing about lately. I fear that like the Galactic Senate in Star Wars, we're letting liberty die... to thunderous applause. And now Leonard J. Pitts points to another example of how we're letting our fears erode our freedoms.

The following happened in the United States of America on Feb. 9 this year: The scene is the Little Falls branch of the Montgomery County Public Library in Bethesda, Md.

Business is going on as usual when two men in uniform stride into the main reading room and call for attention. They make an announcement: It is forbidden to use the library's computers to view Internet pornography.

As people are absorbing this, one of the men challenges a patron about a Web site he is visiting and asks the man to step outside.

At this point, a librarian intervenes and calls the uniformed men aside. A police officer is summoned. The men leave. It turns out they are employees of the county's department of Homeland Security and were operating way outside their authority.

I'm relieved to read that this incident was Homeland Security operating outside their authority, but I can't help but wonder if that will always be the case. As much as I can't stand Internet pornography, how is a raid on libraries to keep patrons from viewing porn making our country any safer?

Is the threat terrorists pose real and frightening? Hell yes. But I find myself a lot more afraid of our response to the threat than the threat itself. Jesus said,

Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:28)

Isn't that what we're doing when we trade freedom for security, giving away our soul to protect our bodies?

Pitts puts it another way:

I'm sorry, but the fact that we are at war doesn't make that OK. The fact that we are panicked doesn't make it OK. The allegation that the material is unsavory doesn't make it OK.

Look, freedom is a messy business. It is also a risky business. But it means nothing if we surrender it at every hint of messiness and risk. That's cowardly and it's un-American.