April 6, 2005: AS TOURIST SEASON BEGINS NORTON BILL ON OPENNESS AIMS TO KEEP VISITORS COMING
January 11, 2006
Washington, DC—With the return of two top tourism favorites here--the reopened Washington Monument, and the National Cherry Blossom Festival and parade--Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today introduced the United States Commission on an Open Society with Security Act. The Norton bill sets up a high-level presidential commission of experts from a broad spectrum of disciplines to investigate how to maintain our democratic traditions of openness, access and privacy while responding adequately to the substantial security threats posed by global terrorism.
D.C. tourism “has finally returned to pre-9/11 levels,” Norton said, “but our country has not done enough to assure that visitors will return after they see the many signs of a besieged society here. Visitors have a right to expect security adequate to protect citizens without depriving them of personal liberty.”
About 20 million visitors came to the Mall last year, many of them to see the blooming of the cherry blossoms near the Jefferson Memorial and to attend the two week festival. However, the parking lot there has been closed for security reasons, and there is no public transportation to the Jefferson Memorial. Norton also is opposing a new barrier on the Memorial grounds, the centerpiece of the cherry blossoms, unless the barrier is unobtrusive.
“The Memorial is simply the most recent visible example of our failure to provide oversight to the rapid and willy-nilly increases in security by experts and agencies accountable to no one,” Norton said. “In virtually every aspect of American life, security measures that affect everything from privacy to ordinary access simply appear. No consideration is given to alternatives or to the consequences to the ordinary freedoms Americans take for granted. This bill can help the country learn how to be free and safe at the same time.”
To be useful in accomplishing its difficult mission, the commission would be composed not only of military and security experts, but for the first time they would be at the same table with experts from such fields as business, architecture, technology, law, city planning, art, engineering, philosophy, history, sociology, and psychology. To date, questions of security most often have been left almost exclusively to security and military experts, who are indispensable participants, but cannot alone resolve all the new and unprecedented issues raised by terrorism in an open society. “In order to strike the balance required by our democratic traditions, a cross cutting group needs to be working together at the same table,” Norton said.
In her introductory statement the Congresswoman said, “The threat of terrorism to our democratic society is too serious to be left to ad hoc problem-solving…We can do better, but only if we recognize and then come to grips with the complexities associated with maintaining a society with free and open access.”
Norton began working on the Open Society with Security Act after Pennsylvania Avenue was closed and ugly barriers began to emerge here well before 9/11. However, she said, the need for a presidential commission has grown more urgent with the proliferation of increasing varieties of security--from checkpoints at the Capitol, even when there are no alerts to the use of technology without regard to effects on privacy. “Almost no thinking, analysis and oversight is occurring about the effects on common freedoms and ordinary access,” Norton said.
D.C. tourism “has finally returned to pre-9/11 levels,” Norton said, “but our country has not done enough to assure that visitors will return after they see the many signs of a besieged society here. Visitors have a right to expect security adequate to protect citizens without depriving them of personal liberty.”
About 20 million visitors came to the Mall last year, many of them to see the blooming of the cherry blossoms near the Jefferson Memorial and to attend the two week festival. However, the parking lot there has been closed for security reasons, and there is no public transportation to the Jefferson Memorial. Norton also is opposing a new barrier on the Memorial grounds, the centerpiece of the cherry blossoms, unless the barrier is unobtrusive.
“The Memorial is simply the most recent visible example of our failure to provide oversight to the rapid and willy-nilly increases in security by experts and agencies accountable to no one,” Norton said. “In virtually every aspect of American life, security measures that affect everything from privacy to ordinary access simply appear. No consideration is given to alternatives or to the consequences to the ordinary freedoms Americans take for granted. This bill can help the country learn how to be free and safe at the same time.”
To be useful in accomplishing its difficult mission, the commission would be composed not only of military and security experts, but for the first time they would be at the same table with experts from such fields as business, architecture, technology, law, city planning, art, engineering, philosophy, history, sociology, and psychology. To date, questions of security most often have been left almost exclusively to security and military experts, who are indispensable participants, but cannot alone resolve all the new and unprecedented issues raised by terrorism in an open society. “In order to strike the balance required by our democratic traditions, a cross cutting group needs to be working together at the same table,” Norton said.
In her introductory statement the Congresswoman said, “The threat of terrorism to our democratic society is too serious to be left to ad hoc problem-solving…We can do better, but only if we recognize and then come to grips with the complexities associated with maintaining a society with free and open access.”
Norton began working on the Open Society with Security Act after Pennsylvania Avenue was closed and ugly barriers began to emerge here well before 9/11. However, she said, the need for a presidential commission has grown more urgent with the proliferation of increasing varieties of security--from checkpoints at the Capitol, even when there are no alerts to the use of technology without regard to effects on privacy. “Almost no thinking, analysis and oversight is occurring about the effects on common freedoms and ordinary access,” Norton said.