John Farmer, Jr., the dean of Rutgers-Newark law school, has an op-ed in the New York Times with a grave warning:  Either support the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative or be prepared to be blown up.  As he puts it, unless we snitch on each other, “we might miss the next Timothy McVeigh.”

A YOUNG man walks into a Home Depot and buys a large quantity of acetone. Later, a young man walks into a beauty supply store and buys hydrogen peroxide. Still later, a young man is observed parked outside a nondescript federal building in a rented van, taking photographs.

No crime has been committed. But should any of these activities (acetone and hydrogen peroxide can be components for explosives) be reported to and evaluated by law enforcement officials? If they are reported, the government may infringe on privacy and civil liberties. If they are not, we might not know until it’s too late whether it was the same young man in each instance. We might miss the next Timothy McVeigh.

How ever will the government connect the dots unless somebody gives them all the dots to connect?  So what if a guy buys acetone because, well, he needs acetone.  Or maybe his wife wants to bleach her hair blond?  The wealth of perfectly lawful, not to mention normal, activity that could conceivably be a precursor to terrorism is incredibly huge, and we can’t expect the government to do this job all by itself.  If only each of us was to have the government on speed dial…

Suspicious Activity Reporting begins at the troubling intersection where law enforcement meets intelligence. Its premise is that if potential attacks are to be prevented, and not merely responded to, law enforcement must focus on precursor conduct — surveillance or “casing” of bridges or train stations, for instance — that may not itself be criminal, but may signal a coming attack.

You can never be too rich, too thin, too cautious.

The Suspicious Activity Reporting program recognizes both the necessity for a focus on precursor conduct and the potential for abuse. It strikes a balance by establishing a uniform process for gathering and sharing information. It seeks to avoid racial profiling and other law enforcement excesses by requiring that the reports be based on the evidence of suspicious conduct, not on what the person looks like or where he comes from.

So the balance is based on buying acetone?  Or taking a photo of a plane taking off?  Or any of the zillion other normal, lawful activities that some busybody thinks is suspicious because, well, they just do?  Dean Farmer tries to nail down his point:

At bottom, whether the civil liberties risks posed by the reporting program are justified turns on whether the administration’s claims about the evolving threat are true. The attacks of the last year suggest that they are. As for the idea that it will bring police departments into new territory, surely police officers have always been on the lookout for precursor conduct — burglars casing a home or bank, for instance. The difference here is one of degree.

Let’s assume, arguendo, that “evolving threats are true.”  True, true, true.  By Dean Farmer’s estimation, that would justify the collection of personal information, questioning, searching and seizing of a thousand, ten thousand, maybe even a hundred thousand, law-abiding citizens going to Home Depot, that terrorist launching pad, to find the next Timothy McVeigh.  Of course, it’s no guarantee that there won’t be another Timothy McVeigh (noting with some irony that he didn’t use the name Mohamed Atta, because Timmy is one of “ours” rather than “theirs”).

By framing the inquiry as one dependent on the “truth” of potential threats, the sacrifice of civil rights is assured.  Certainly, after 9/11 and subsequent threats such as the Underpants Bomber and the Times Square Bomber, there’s little doubt that there are threats around, though the seriousness of the latter two examples is subject to dispute.  Even further, there are any number of “threats” unseen because of the fine work of law enforcement of nipping them in the bud.  Whether real or imagined, we aren’t in a position to judge.

What is equally assured, however, is that in the name of security, this program will put ordinary folks at Home Depot (and elsewhere) under scrutiny they don’t deserve.  For every putative terrorist who buys acetone, there are maybe a million regular guys buying acetone because they happen to need some acetone.  Do we put a camera at the Home Depot checkout programmed for an acetone alert? And what if they buy exacto knives, which can be used to cut airline pilots?  Certainly they should be on the watch list.  And fertilizer, another common bomb making ingredient, also used by gardeners. 

The notion that this somehow balances potential threats with the “sacrifice of civil rights” is one only a government official could love.  There’s no balance here.  This is pure, unadulterated fear-mongering with the proviso that we trust the government because it’s here to save us from the threat. 

The problem is that this position isn’t being espoused by the head of the FBI or Homeland Security.  This is coming from the dean of a law school, whose concern for civil rights stops at the door to Home Depot.  After all, if the threat is real, then no sacrifice (of our rights) is too great.