14Dec03-AP-Terrorism panel says civil liberties need attention
Sunday, December 14, 2003 9:24AM EST
Terrorism panel says civil liberties need attention
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush should appoint an advisory board to assess how new anti-terrorism measures such as the Patriot Act have affected Americans' civil liberties, a new report by a federal terrorism commission says.
The commission, led by former Virginia Gov. James Gilmore, a Republican, also expresses concern that the Bush administration has failed to develop a comprehensive, forward-looking strategy to combat terrorism more than two years after the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Details of the report, to be released Monday, were first reported by Time magazine on its Web site Saturday.
Gilmore had no comment on the report, spokesman Dan Kreske said Saturday night.
Time, quoting an anonymous source, said the new Homeland Security Department is focused on "the crisis of the moment," yet no one in the administration was examining "the broader issues of economic security and societal stability."
"If they're doing it, they're doing it in such a superficial or under-the-radar fashion that it did not become apparent to the panel," the source told Time.
On civil liberties, the report says greater oversight is needed for any use of U.S. spy satellites on targets in the United States, and that legislation may be required to set rules, the magazine reported.
A civil liberties panel should be convened to study such issues, and should include both Republicans and Democrats, as well as academics and officials from the private sector, the report says.
The terrorism commission, composed of federal, state and local officials, was created after the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
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