We can be secure and free
March 30, 2004

As governor of Virginia, Jim Gilmore vetoed a bill that would have allowed the commonwealth's many local jurisdictions to install cameras to help in the apprehension of motorists who pay insufficient attention to traffic lights. Gilmore stated in his veto message that while stringing cameras across the commonwealth would undoubtedly generate revenue and might even arguably marginally improve safety, he believed the creation of a surveillance state too high a price to pay for a few bucks and a little additional security. It was a veto message that could only have been penned by a man sitting in the chair once occupied by the likes of former Virginia Govs. Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry.

Since leaving the Virginia governorship, Gilmore has brought the same steadfast belief in the primacy of individual freedom to everything he's done. As chairman of the Congressional Commission on Terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction, for example, he spent five years advising on ways government might better prepare for and respond to terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland. He has urged that those responsible for the protection of our lives and property remember that they must do so without limiting the freedom unique to this country. Indeed, Gilmore rejects the notion that those charged with protecting our security must seek a "balance" between liberty and security. He argues instead that we should reject such trade-offs and urges that we all remember that while we can never achieve perfect security we must resist the temptation to surrender our freedoms in an attempt to achieve so impossible a goal.

Thus, when Gilmore suggests that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is starting to get a few things right for a change, one has to listen if only because he has been as critical as other conservatives of initiatives like the CAPPS II program, the data mining and profiling system DHS wants to deploy to force air travelers to "prove" they are the sort of people who ought to be allowed to fly around this country. The mistakes made in putting together CAPPS II resulted in a firestorm of criticism from civil libertarians from the day of its announcement, and Gilmore believes DHS is going about things in a far more freedom-friendly way now either because the agency's leaders have finally gotten their act together or because they want to avoid such controversy in the future.

Exhibit one, according to Gilmore, is the way they've gone about putting together US-VISIT, a program designed to check on and track the millions of foreigners who visit this country every year. The program, a version of which is being tested as this is written, is the result of an RFP, or request for proposals, that tasked the private sector to come up with a program that would protect privacy and civil liberties while also enhancing government's ability to screen and track visitors to this country. Gilmore is advising the Computer Sciences Corp., the developer of one of three alternative US-VISIT designs on privacy issues, and says that when CAPPS II was being put together, privacy and the protection of civil liberties were at best an afterthought. With US-VISIT, however, the department is letting everyone who wants the government's business know that such concerns are up-front preconditions that must be woven into whatever they develop.

Gilmore may be right on this one. There is certainly evidence to suggest that things are getting better at DHS. The agency seems finally to be focusing on securing U.S. borders after inheriting the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the very model of a dysfunctional government agency. In addition to developing US-VISIT to deal with the problem of those coming into the country legally and deciding simply to stay on regardless of our laws, DHS recently announced that it is beefing up security on our southern border to begin the task of gaining control of a border that has been routinely ignored by millions of illegals every year.

The situation hasn't improved much yet, but Secretary Tom Ridge, Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson and those who work for them seem intent upon securing our borders, enforcing our immigration laws and even changing the way we try to encourage or require prospective citizens to buy into our values before they can claim U.S. citizenship … and doing so in a manner consistent with maintaining our traditional freedoms. These are tough jobs and DHS deserves credit for trying to solve problems that others have simply ignored. Now if they'd just send the architects of CAPPS II back to the drawing board.

Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, is a managing associate with Carmen Group, a D.C.-based governmental-affairs firm (www.carmengrouplobbying.com).