Compare and contrast the arguments of Lewis Katz and Sherry Colb in terms of reasonableness and increasing executive powers to combat terrorism. Do you agree with their arguments? Why or why not?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

• Katz says the real test of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness.
• In normal times, police officers can be held to a higher standard of behavior than in times of emergency, and September 11 constituted an emergency.
• It was not unreasonable to interview Middle Eastern immigrants.
• A national identification system would not be unconstitutional, provided citizens were not ordered to produce identification without reasonable suspicion.
• Actions taken to prevent another September 11 do not violate the Fourth Amendment when they are reasonable.
• Katz does believe some governmental actions are unreasonable. Eavesdropping on attorney-client conversations violates the Sixth Amendment, a suspect's right to counsel? military tribunals deny the presumption of innocence.
• There is no blanket policy of reasonableness, and care must be taken to balance security with civil liberties.
• Sherry Colb applies a doctrine of reasonableness.
• Colb concedes that police in America are facing a new enemy.
• Racial profiling violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? however, the scope of September 11 calls into question previous assumptions about profiling, or targeting specific groups of people on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, or other social factors.
• Colb believes any profiling system, including one having ethnicity as a factor, will yield many more investigative inquiries than apprehensions.