Anti-terrorism proposals worry civil libertarians. “Advocacy groups, legal experts and some members of Congress are voicing strong concerns that a proposal to expand law enforcement powers in order to ratchet up the fight on terrorism could end up treading on civil liberties enjoyed by all Americans.” CNN

Readers of FmH know I’m often preoccupied with civil liberties issues, and I have since Sept. 11th covered concerns about whether a precipitous reform of law enforcement authority will exact too steep a price to our fundamental rights. In the last few days, I’ve been even more worried about another civil liberties implication of these events, more along the lines of my membership in Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch than the ACLU. The “allies” whose cooperation we are seeking for our global “war on terrorism” are surely looking for concessions in return. They include some authoritarian regimes whose repressive stance toward their own citizens we may no longer have the discretion to object to. The threat of terrorism or of domestic unrest over being in bed with the U.S. may be the impetus, or the pretext, for such regimes to take even more draconian measures, that will make any domestic clampdown in our civil liberties pale in significance by comparison. (Many so-called anti-terrorism measures are of course not really about terrorism, although at times of passion it may be an effort to stop and analyze the implications of proposed new state powers to conclude that.) “If you thought the Taliban were monsters, just wait until you meet the West’s new friends…” warns the Sydney Morning Herald.

Amid fears, antibiotic selling fast: “Pharmacists in New York have sold greater-than-normal amounts of antibiotics for treating anthrax, a highly contagious and potentially fatal disease, amid rising fear of biological warfare.

Sales of antibiotics normally rise in September, when children return to school and parents worry about their exposure to infections. But pharmacists said the sale of Bayer AG’s antimicrobial drug Cipro are much higher than usual.” So reports the Boston Globe, which also has an opinion piece exhorting the U.S. to take this opportunity to reinstitute Iraqi weapons inspections.

Meanwhile, in the New York Times, frightened Europeans snap up gas masks, an editorial on the specter of biological terror, and a report on added security for dams, reservoirs and aqueducts.

In my region, the Quabbin Reservoir in Western Massachusetts, which supplies much of Boston’s water supply, has been “off-line” since last weekend when two light aircraft swooped low over its waters. Experts attempt to reassure us that contaminating the water supply is not as easy as most doomsday scenarios would have it, because the volume of reservoirs is so great that anything short of multiple truckloads of toxic material would be diluted to harmlessness. Will post-attack fears heighten watershed consciousness? How many urban dwellers even know with confidence where their drinking water comes from? Should we all become much more conversant with the language of WMD (weapons of mass destruction) and CBW (chemical and biological warfare)? The Bush admnistration had been reluctant to sign a treaty (one of the many at which it thumbed its nose in its go-it-alone stance until Sept. 11th) that would have tightened controls on the production of biological agents, supposedly because it would have obligated us to reveal details of our so-called “defensive” research into virulent strains of anthrax and who knows what else. Will the administration be able to get away with this with a population more highly educated about the terrible potential of biological weaponry?

Analysts: signs point to U.S. strike within two weeks: “Official lips are sealed, but U.S. analysts say the signs — military buildup, coalition formation, and weather forecasts — point to U.S. strikes on Afghanistan in the next two weeks.” Rapid action before snow falls or resolve of ambivalent allies weakens. Boston Globe