Civil Liberties & Enemy Combatants.

• Author: Morris, Errol
• Position: Letters - Letter to the Editor

There are two stories in Harvey Silverglate's "Civil Liberties and Enemy Combatants" (January). The first is about the abridgment of civil liberties, about the belief that people under the jurisdiction of our government should be afforded the protection of our laws. Extending the right to petition for a writ of habeas corpus to Guantanamo prisoners is a good thing, and insofar as the ruling in Rasul v. Ashcroft has accomplished this, it is a good decision.

The second story, however, is a surprising and depressing one. It concerns our failure to notice that our civil liberties have been abridged--our capacity for self-deception, our willingness to engage in wishful thinking, our ability to imagine that things are not as bad as they seem despite considerable evidence to the contrary.

This is the truly disturbing and important story, replete with ironies and sophistical logic. What is liberty if it is by halves? The...