Source: Economist.com http://www.economist.com/node/18681714
然而，并不仅仅是反恐战争造成了对自由的啃噬。Shipler先生说，对于犯罪与非法毒品的打击造成了同样的结果。他提到：“在犯罪司法中，正如在反恐领域，执法部门获得的权力过大，扭曲了判定有罪与清白的过程。”
Part of the damage is done by the habit of police everywhere to cut corners and stretch their prerogatives. But the Supreme Court has played a part, too. To take just one of Mr Shipler’s examples, the police must still usually show “probable cause” if they want a warrant to search a house. But for street encounters in which there is even the slightest possibility of danger to life, the court has over time substituted the woollier “reasonable grounds” or “reasonable suspicion”, thereby giving officers on the beat a latitude they are delighted to exploit. Most street pat-downs are never recorded, scrutinised by a prosecutor, challenged by a lawyer or adjudicated by a judge. Yet, says Mr Shipler, they weaken the fourth amendment and poison life on the street in a thousand poor neighbourhoods in America.
这种损害有一部分是各地警察习惯性地检查街角以及延伸其特权的行为造成的。然而最高法院也在其中扮演者部分角色。以Shipler先生的其中一个例子来说，如果警察希望搜索一栋房子，通常来说，他们依然需要提供 “可能原因”的证明。然而，尽管在街边的检查带来生命威胁的可能性微乎其微，法院在过去一段时间里以其他理由替代了模糊不清的“合理原因”或“合理怀疑”，因而使警员拥有他们乐见，且可以将之用尽的最大的权限范围。多数街头盘查从未被记录、由检察官详细检视、被律师反诘或为法官裁定。Shipler先生说，然而他们削弱了第四修正案的力量，且毒害了美国上千个贫困街区内的生活。
Not much has changed since the election of Barack Obama. In his inaugural speech, the new president said that America did not have to make a “false” choice between its safety and its ideals. But having promised to close Guantánamo within a year, he has put the closure on hold in the face of resistance from Congress and public opinion. He has also had to drop a plan to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, by his own confession one of the September 11th plotters, in a criminal court. This trial was going to showcase America’s system of justice. Now Mr Mohammed is to be tried in Guantánamo, by a military commission.
巴拉克奥巴马的当选也没有改变太多。在其就职演说中，这位新总统表示，美国在其安全与理念之间做选择时，没有必要牺牲其中一者。然而，关于在一年内关闭关塔那摩监狱的承诺，在国会的反对声及大众的观点面前，他尚未履行。他同样放弃了在犯罪法庭上审问Khalid Sheikh Mohammed的计划——该人承认自己是911事件的策划者之一。此次审讯本是为了展现美国司法体系的优点。如今Mohammed先生却要在关塔那摩由一个军事委员会审问。
As in the war on terrorism, so in the war on crime: the sharp question is how much risk a society is willing to absorb in order to preserve liberty. Mr Shipler’s conclusion is that America is increasingly prone to give the wrong answer. The premise underpinning its justice system is that it is far worse to convict wrongly than to fail to convict at all. But in its responses to drug-trafficking and organised crime that ideal has been severely weakened.
如反恐战争一样，反罪战争也是如此：一个锋利的问题在于，一个社会愿意吸收多大的风险，以保护自由。Shipler先生的结论是，美国正越来越倾向于给出错误的答案。支持美国司法体系的基础，是“与其错抓，不如不抓”的理念。然而，面对贩毒及有组织犯罪，该理念正遭到严重的削弱。
Complacency, fear and fashion
自满、恐惧与潮流
Since American politicians talk about liberty all the time, why are they so feeble in its defence? Part of the explanation is complacency: America is one of the world’s freest countries—why worry about the bending of a rule here or there? Part is fear: contrary to what Mr Obama says, there is a choice to be made between safety and liberty, and in many minds safety wins. Part is fashion. There are some libertarians in American politics, but on the conservative wing of the Republican Party the liberty talk has come lately to dwell more on the alleged threat to economic freedom posed by Mr Obama’s alleged taste for big government and less on the sort of freedoms entrenched in the Bill of Rights. The second amendment, on the right to keep and bear arms, is treated as holy writ, but the fourth has somehow lost its sex appeal.
既然美国的政客总是谈论自由，那为何在保卫自由时他们会如此软弱？部分的解释是“自满”，即“美国是世界上最自由的国家之一，为何要担心对规则的扭曲呢？”部分原因是恐惧：与奥巴马所说的相反，安全与自由之间存在着选择，而在多数人的思想中安全占上风。部分则是因为潮流。美国政界有一部分自由主义者，然而在共和党的右翼方面，与自由相关的讨论中，近来更侧重于所谓的“对经济自由的危害”议题上；这种自由是基于奥巴马所谓的“大政府的品味”，而更少地基于“人权法案”中保护的那类自由。当保护“持有枪械的权力”的第二修正案被视为神圣文件，第四修正案却失去了其魅力。
That is a pity. Mr Shipler used to report from the Soviet Union. He sees reminders of Soviet thinking in the United States since al-Qaeda’s attacks. Though a bold line separates Soviet dictatorship and American democracy, people are much the same everywhere. That is why James Madison said two centuries ago that “all men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree”. The lesson from the founders, Mr Shipler concludes, is that freedom depends not on the virtue of leaders or officials but on a “durable foundation of constitutional protections”. The message from Guantánamo, and from the mean streets of north-east Washington, is that the foundation needs shoring up.
------------------------
Save the fourth amendment
守护第四修正案
Fear of crime, not just fear of terrorism, has nibbled away at America’s liberties
对犯罪的恐惧，而不仅仅是恐怖主义，正逐渐啃噬美国的自由
IT IS only a mile or so from the colonnade of the Supreme Court to some of Washington, DC’s most dangerous neighborhoods. But these two parts of the nation’s capital could be in different countries. On any given night, armed police prowl north-east Washington in search of guns or drugs. So routine are these patrols that black men sitting on stoops or standing on corners will reflexively lift their T-shirts when the police approach, to show that they have no pistol tucked into their waistbands. Often the police will frisk them anyway, and search their cars as well. You might almost forget, in light of these encounters, that the fourth amendment to the constitution establishes the right of the American people to be “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”
从最高法院的柱廊到华盛顿特区最危险的街区，中间的距离仅约一英里左右。然而同样位于该国首都内的这两个区域，却如同位于不同的国度里一样。任何一晚，荷枪实弹的警察会向华盛顿东北方向巡逻，以搜查枪械跟毒品。出于惯例，每当警察靠近，那些坐在门廊或是站在角落的黑人会不自觉地掀起自己的短袖衫，告诉警察他们的腰带里没有藏枪。警察往往会对其进行搜身，也会搜查他们的车。大家可能几乎忘记，考虑到这一类状况，美国宪法的第四修正中规定美国人民有权“保护其个人、住所、证件跟财物的安全，并拒绝无理的搜查及扣押”。
David Shipler, a former New York Times reporter and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, does not want you to forget. In a new book (“The Rights of the People”, Alfred Knopf) he argues that America’s search for safety is relentlessly eroding the precious protections in the Bill of Rights. He decided to write the book—the first of a pair—on September 11th 2001, the day al-Qaeda struck the twin towers. After watching the awful images on television, he suddenly understood: “There go our civil liberties.”
David Shipler，一名曾获得普利茨奖的前《纽约时报》记者，不希望你将之忘记。在其一本新书（《民权》）中，他认为美国对于安全的寻求，正无情地侵蚀着《权利法案》带来的可贵的保护。在2001年9月11日阿尔盖达组织 袭击了双子楼的当天，他决定写这本书。在他看到电视上可怕的图像之后，突然明白：“我们的自由也因此而毁。”
This column argued last week that the fears engendered by September 11th had made America a less trusting and innocent place, permanently on its guard against the danger of terrorism. An abiding symbol of this change is the prison camp at Guantánamo. A stash of 700 more WikiLeaks documents made public recently contains details of how and why people from all over the world were taken there and how they were treated. The overall picture, in the only slightly overwrought words of the New York Times, one of the newspapers that published the documents, is of a “legal and moral disaster”. Innocent men were picked up on the basis of scant evidence and in many cases subjected to abuse and torture. One man—allegedly a terrorist, but a man nonetheless—was “leashed like a dog, sexually humiliated and forced to urinate on himself”. His testimony was then used to incriminate others.
该专栏上周指出，911事件造成的恐慌，使得美国因其对恐怖主义威胁的防范，而永久性地变成了一个不那么值得信任与无辜的地方。与这一改变相符的标志，是位于关塔那摩的监狱。一处另存有700个“维基解密”文件最近为人们所知，其中包含了有关来自世界各地被关押在关塔那摩的人的资料。这些资料涉及他们被抓的方式与原因，以及他们所受到的对待。字句经过《纽约时报》稍微的过分装点，给人的整体印象是“法律及道德的灾难”；而该报也公布了这些文件。无辜的人在证据不足的情况下被抓，而且在许多情况下他们都受到了侮辱与折磨。有一个人——被指控为恐怖分子，尽管他只是普通人——被“如同狗一样绑着，他遭到了性方面的羞辱并被迫往自己身上撒尿。”他的证词后来被用来对其他人进行指控。
It is, however, not just the war on terror that has nibbled away at liberties. So, says Mr Shipler, have the fights against crime and illicit drugs. “In criminal justice, as in counter-terrorism,” he notes, “the executive branch has grabbed immense authority, distorting the process of determining guilt or innocence.”然而，并不仅仅是反恐战争造成了对自由的啃噬。Shipler先生说，对于犯罪与非法毒品的打击造成了同样的结果。他提到：“在犯罪司法中，正如在反恐领域，执法部门获得的权力过大，扭曲了判定有罪与清白的过程。”
Part of the damage is done by the habit of police everywhere to cut corners and stretch their prerogatives. But the Supreme Court has played a part, too. To take just one of Mr Shipler’s examples, the police must still usually show “probable cause” if they want a warrant to search a house. But for street encounters in which there is even the slightest possibility of danger to life, the court has over time substituted the woollier “reasonable grounds” or “reasonable suspicion”, thereby giving officers on the beat a latitude they are delighted to exploit. Most street pat-downs are never recorded, scrutinised by a prosecutor, challenged by a lawyer or adjudicated by a judge. Yet, says Mr Shipler, they weaken the fourth amendment and poison life on the street in a thousand poor neighbourhoods in America.
这种损害有一部分是各地警察习惯性地检查街角以及延伸其特权的行为造成的。然而最高法院也在其中扮演者部分角色。以Shipler先生的其中一个例子来说，如果警察希望搜索一栋房子，通常来说，他们依然需要提供 “可能原因”的证明。然而，尽管在街边的检查带来生命威胁的可能性微乎其微，法院在过去一段时间里以其他理由替代了模糊不清的“合理原因”或“合理怀疑”，因而使警员拥有他们乐见，且可以将之用尽的最大的权限范围。多数街头盘查从未被记录、由检察官详细检视、被律师反诘或为法官裁定。Shipler先生说，然而他们削弱了第四修正案的力量，且毒害了美国上千个贫困街区内的生活。
Not much has changed since the election of Barack Obama. In his inaugural speech, the new president said that America did not have to make a “false” choice between its safety and its ideals. But having promised to close Guantánamo within a year, he has put the closure on hold in the face of resistance from Congress and public opinion. He has also had to drop a plan to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, by his own confession one of the September 11th plotters, in a criminal court. This trial was going to showcase America’s system of justice. Now Mr Mohammed is to be tried in Guantánamo, by a military commission.
巴拉克奥巴马的当选也没有改变太多。在其就职演说中，这位新总统表示，美国在其安全与理念之间做选择时，没有必要牺牲其中一者。然而，关于在一年内关闭关塔那摩监狱的承诺，在国会的反对声及大众的观点面前，他尚未履行。他同样放弃了在犯罪法庭上审问Khalid Sheikh Mohammed的计划——该人承认自己是911事件的策划者之一。此次审讯本是为了展现美国司法体系的优点。如今Mohammed先生却要在关塔那摩由一个军事委员会审问。
As in the war on terrorism, so in the war on crime: the sharp question is how much risk a society is willing to absorb in order to preserve liberty. Mr Shipler’s conclusion is that America is increasingly prone to give the wrong answer. The premise underpinning its justice system is that it is far worse to convict wrongly than to fail to convict at all. But in its responses to drug-trafficking and organised crime that ideal has been severely weakened.
如反恐战争一样，反罪战争也是如此：一个锋利的问题在于，一个社会愿意吸收多大的风险，以保护自由。Shipler先生的结论是，美国正越来越倾向于给出错误的答案。支持美国司法体系的基础，是“与其错抓，不如不抓”的理念。然而，面对贩毒及有组织犯罪，该理念正遭到严重的削弱。
Complacency, fear and fashion
自满、恐惧与潮流
Since American politicians talk about liberty all the time, why are they so feeble in its defence? Part of the explanation is complacency: America is one of the world’s freest countries—why worry about the bending of a rule here or there? Part is fear: contrary to what Mr Obama says, there is a choice to be made between safety and liberty, and in many minds safety wins. Part is fashion. There are some libertarians in American politics, but on the conservative wing of the Republican Party the liberty talk has come lately to dwell more on the alleged threat to economic freedom posed by Mr Obama’s alleged taste for big government and less on the sort of freedoms entrenched in the Bill of Rights. The second amendment, on the right to keep and bear arms, is treated as holy writ, but the fourth has somehow lost its sex appeal.
既然美国的政客总是谈论自由，那为何在保卫自由时他们会如此软弱？部分的解释是“自满”，即“美国是世界上最自由的国家之一，为何要担心对规则的扭曲呢？”部分原因是恐惧：与奥巴马所说的相反，安全与自由之间存在着选择，而在多数人的思想中安全占上风。部分则是因为潮流。美国政界有一部分自由主义者，然而在共和党的右翼方面，与自由相关的讨论中，近来更侧重于所谓的“对经济自由的危害”议题上；这种自由是基于奥巴马所谓的“大政府的品味”，而更少地基于“人权法案”中保护的那类自由。当保护“持有枪械的权力”的第二修正案被视为神圣文件，第四修正案却失去了其魅力。
That is a pity. Mr Shipler used to report from the Soviet Union. He sees reminders of Soviet thinking in the United States since al-Qaeda’s attacks. Though a bold line separates Soviet dictatorship and American democracy, people are much the same everywhere. That is why James Madison said two centuries ago that “all men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree”. The lesson from the founders, Mr Shipler concludes, is that freedom depends not on the virtue of leaders or officials but on a “durable foundation of constitutional protections”. The message from Guantánamo, and from the mean streets of north-east Washington, is that the foundation needs shoring up.
这是件憾事。Shipler曾在前苏联做报道。如今，在美国遭受阿尔盖达组织袭击之后，他的见闻让他想起苏维埃式思维。尽管苏联的独裁与美国民主之间有着明显的分界，人民在哪都是一样的。这就是为什么两个世纪前James Madison曾说过：“拥有权利的人，在某种程度上应遭到怀疑”。Shipler先生总结，从这位国父那里学来的，是自由并不依靠领导者或者官员的品德，而是依靠“宪法保护的持久基础”。关塔那摩以及华盛顿东北边的普通街区告诉人们的是：这一基础需要支持。
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