The Oregonian

Those used to terror see freedom shrinking

10/17/01

JOSEPH ROSE

Aisling Coghlan grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, at the height of the Irish Republican Army's deadly bomb-and-bullet campaign to drive out the British. What the now 30-year-old Portland resident found scary was how people grew used to the high-security lifestyle.

In fact, she found nothing particularly hair-raising about the camouflaged paratroopers who patrolled Belfast's streets. "I didn't really notice the size of their guns until I lived here and went back to visit for Christmas," she said.

Hundreds of Oregonians who are expatriates of countries such as Israel, Colombia and Northern Ireland are intimately familiar with living under the constant threat of terrorism.

As the United States confronts the same specter on its own soil, almost everyone expects daily life to change. And for Coghlan and many others from nations battling terrorists, it's not hard to imagine what's coming: America's free, open and comfortable society will become less so, they predict.

Based on their experiences, it could mean an array of things that likely will cause many Americans to shudder and some to cry "Big Brother": More barricades. More restrictions on privacy and due process. Even more armed soldiers -- and not just at airports.

Ron Mayslin, who moved to Lake Oswego in 1999 from his heavily guarded city in Israel, has attended parades and walked through shopping malls without fears of a terrorist attack for two years. But after Sept. 11, he worries that simple freedom will vanish.

"It makes me sad to think that we are speaking about security much more," Mayslin said. "I guess that's what they mean when they say things have changed in America."

Mayslin recalled how he was both thrilled and terrified watching the Rose Parade with his wife, two children and thousands of others crowding downtown Portland's sidewalks the year he moved here. After living in Israel, Mayslin had learned that crowds were magnets for suicide bombers.

As marching bands and floats passed, the 39-year-old Lake Oswego computer analyst remembers his mind racing: Where are the soldiers? Where's the security?

In the war on terrorism, U.S. citizens should expect inconveniences and might be asked to sacrifice some rights, said Gary Perlstein, a Portland State University professor and researcher on international and national terrorism.

Imagine a day when bomb scares close many of Portland's Willamette River bridges. Or trash cans are removed from streets so explosive devices can't be hidden in them. Or cars are searched before they enter underground parking lots.

Perlstein said he can't think of a reason why such scenarios wouldn't happen "if people are afraid enough to allow it to happen."

Attorney General John Ashcroft has promised not to throttle civil liberties in the pursuit of terrorists. Yet in the wake of military strikes in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network has called for a holy war extending to "the heart of America."

Some visible changes have emerged in the past month. Soldiers with the Oregon National Guard carry loaded weapons as they keep watch at Portland International Airport. Permanent barriers, strong enough to deflect a vehicle attack, are going up in front of the U.S. courthouse in downtown Portland.

How far security measures go, Perlstein said, depends largely on how far the terrorists go.

He predicts everyone eventually will be required to carry a national identity card like citizens of Israel, France and the Netherlands. The idea, however, is not part of the current anti-terrorism bill destined for the president's desk.

A national ID card Ron Mayslin grew accustomed to carrying a national ID card in Israel. He presented it to soldiers on demand. They would then enter the identification number into a laptop computer, giving them instant access to information about Mayslin's history in the nation.

"I felt comfortable about why the government did it," Mayslin said of the cards. "It's necessary to protect your citizens, to protect your children."

Still, he doesn't miss that part of his former hometown of Haifa. And he hopes he never again has to find closet space for his children's government-subsidized gas masks.

What scares Mauricio Carvajal, a 22-year-old Colombian living in Portland, is the prospect of the U.S. government persuading citizens to forgo crucial civil liberties in the name of hunting terrorists.

Americans, Carvajal said, need to ask tough questions about why authorities need broader wiretapping and surveillance powers or should monitor a person's e-mail, all of which are part of the proposed anti-terrorism bill. He fears more draconian measures down the road, ranging from indiscriminate vehicle searches to restrictions on freedom of expression.

"The terrorists are winning if they wind up pressuring the government to take those kinds of actions," he said. "America isn't going to be America."

Carvajal said people weren't so vigilant in his homeland, where the government requires citizens carrying a cellular phone to be fingerprinted and to have a photo identification proving ownership. Carvajal, who works in production at a Portland television station, thinks the government attempts to track suspicious people through their phone calls.

Britain's 1974 Prevention of Terrorism Act, passed to fight the IRA, still stands. It allows, among other things, police to detain terrorist suspects without a warrant and to deny them access to a lawyer for 48 hours. They also can be held for a week without being charged.

Coghlan can't envision that happening in the United States. But she expects that people will learn to lead normal lives in the shadow of terrorism, much like people have done in Belfast for decades.

"You reach a point where you've got to make a decision; you've got to live your life," she said.

She was accustomed to security guards ordering shoppers entering supermarkets and department stores to open handbags for inspection. She laughs when she recalls her first visit to a supermarket in the states.

"I walked in, opened my purse and started looking for someone to look in it," said Coghlan, who now works as Portland City Commissioner Dan Saltzman's chief of staff. "It was a habit."

Carvajal developed the same type of "tragic tolerance" in Colombia.

Watching the violent events unfold on television Sept. 11, "the first thing I thought of was all of the lives wasted," he said.

His second thought: "Things like this happen every day in other cultures."

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2001