“If you are left standing, you are probably a terrorist.” (New Jersey State official)
Red Alert: ACLU of NJ Calls Counter-Terrorism Chief’s Comments Counter-Productive
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, March 21, 2003
Contact: Gabe Rottman
202-675-2312
NEWARK - The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey today severely criticized a high-level state official for saying that in the event of a “red alert” security level, “You literally are staying at home…What we’re saying is, ‘Everybody sit down.’ If you are left standing, you are probably a terrorist.”
“What that statement describes is essentially martial law,” said Deborah Jacobs, Executive Director of the ACLU of New Jersey. “If ever necessary,” Jacobs added, “such extreme actions could only be
justified in exceptionally limited situations where an investigation could pose a direct danger to the public in a restricted geographic area.”
Since the official, Sid Caspersen, the Director of the New Jersey Office of Counter-Terrorism, made his statements, Jacobs said that the ACLU has received dozens of phone calls from members of the public concerned about the consequences of a red-alert lockdown. Some parents, for example, said they feared that they would be unable to find their children.
“While the Governor’s office seeks to assuage the public’s anxiety,
comments like Caspersen’s seem only to exacerbate things,” Jacobs said. Another point of concern that Caspersen’s comments raised was the claim that New Jersey has recently secretly arrested and detained suspected terrorists. Caspersen told listeners of a radio program on which he was interviewed that the public isn’t “going to read about them any time soon.”
“In one breath, Caspersen tries to encourage public trust by stating that ‘the state’s on top of it.’ In the next breath, he brags about secret arrests,” Jacobs said. “The proven way to create public trust is to conduct government business in the open.”
Jacobs said that as part of its ongoing litigation challenging government secrecy, the ACLU would seek to learn more about the “secret arrests” that Caspersen highlighted.
The ACLU currently has two pending cases concerning government secrecy since September 11. The first involves the closure of courtrooms for more than 1,000 immigration hearings, ordered closed on September 21, 2001 by the Chief U.S. Immigrant Judge. The case is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
A second case involves the refusal of the government to release the names of individuals who were arrested on immigration violations in the weeks following September 11. This case is currently before an appeals court in Washington.
http://www.southjerseynews.com/issues/march/m031603e.htm
Red alert? Stay home, await word
Sunday, March 16, 2003
By TOM BALDWIN
Gannett State Bureau
TRENTON
If the nation escalates to “red alert,” which is the highest in the
color-coded readiness against terror, you will be assumed by authorities to be the enemy if you so much as venture outside your home, the state’s anti-terror czar says.
“This state is on top of it,” said Sid Caspersen, New Jersey’s director of the office of counter-terrorism.
Caspersen, a former FBI agent, was briefing reporters, alongside Gov. James E. McGreevey, on Thursday, when for the first time he disclosed the realities of how a red alert would shut the state down.
A red alert would also tear away virtually all personal freedoms to move about and associate.
“Red means all noncritical functions cease,” Caspersen said. “Noncritical would be almost all businesses, except health-related.”
A red alert means there is a severe risk of terrorist attack, according to federal guidelines from the Department of Homeland Security.
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