http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/03/national/03WEST.html?todaysheadlines=&pagewanted=print


October 3, 2001

Plan to Expand U.S. Powers Alarming Some in Colorado

By TIMOTHY EGAN

OLORADO SPRINGS, Oct. 2 - The people who live under the formidable jaw of
Pikes Peak like their churches, houses and cars big, and their government
small. They send a steady flow of Republicans east, and do not expect much
to come west, unless it is tax cuts or farm subsidies.

So to many it has come as a surprise, bordering on outrage, that a
government thought to be safely controlled by like-minded conservatives is
trying to expand the power and size of the federal policing authority,
increase surveillance and wiretapping powers, even consider proposals for
national identification cards.

"Here it comes - our government trying to take away freedoms again in the
name of a national emergency," said Ted Adamovich, a 53-year-old resident
of Colorado Springs. "They can put a little more surveillance in airports,
but beyond that - no. Let them try to make me sign up for a national ID
card. I dare them."

Mr. Adamovich says he bleeds red, white and blue, and has been consistently
loyal to one party. "I'm Republican, for now," he said. "But if they push
this stuff, who knows where I'll end up."

His warning was echoed throughout the cradle of New West Republicanism,
where it is almost as hard to find a liberal as it is a slice of
street-side pizza. To hear some people talk, Janet Reno is still attorney
general and Bill Clinton remains president.

"Some of this stuff they're proposing reminds me of a police state," said
Bob Kosser, a member of the National Rifle Association, a Republican and an
Air Force veteran who lives in this booming, conservative city along the
Front Range.

"Cameras, wiretapping, e-mail surveillance," Mr. Kosser counted off,
wearing a T-shirt featuring an embroidered American flag. "Are they going
to be asking us to show our papers everywhere were go, like the Germans
did?"

After the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, Mr. Clinton proposed expanding the
reach of government wiretaps and giving authorities power to trace gun
powder from explosives. But a storm of opposition that blew in from the
Rocky Mountain West and the South helped to kill the measures.

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration quickly put
forward antiterrorism legislation to give the government more authority to
seize people's assets, detain immigrants longer between court appearances,
conduct broader wiretapping and other surveillance and to subpoena e-mail
correspondence.

A national ID card was not part of the package the administration
requested, but some members of Congress raised it as a possibility in the
days the antiterrorist plan was being assembled.

Many leading Republicans, including Westerners like Senator Orrin G. Hatch
of Utah, favored the plan the administration introduced, and some called
for even stricter measures. But Republican and Democratic negotiators in
Congress have scaled back some of what the administration sought, deciding
to make the wiretap provision temporary, for example.

Still, the train of expanded government authority has run into the very
people who helped to put many Republicans in power over the last decade -
strong gun supporters and former independents with a Western feistiness.
They have been joined, for the moment, by allies from a distant and
unlikely camp: liberals like Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of
Massachusetts, and the American Civil Liberties Union.

"My position, and the position of most pro-gun organizations, is that it is
not a crime thing, it's a freedom issue," said Tony Fabian, president of
the Colorado State Shooting Association, which is the state affiliate of
the National Rifle Association.

"Any time the government is looking seriously at taking measures that roll
back our freedoms as Americans - whether it's guns, communications or
transportation - there needs to be very careful, cautious and measured
evaluation," Mr. Fabian said.

The National Rifle Association, while expressing concerns that some
provisions of the antiterrorist bill could be used by other administrations
against gun owners, said it did not oppose the measure.

"As written, we don't see anything in the bill that goes to gun ownership,"
said Jim Baker, chief lobbyist for the N.R.A. "The way we read it, it's all
tied into terrorist acts."

In interviews conducted randomly in Colorado, people seemed particularly
concerned about the prospect of more surveillance. "I don't mind profiling
as long as they don't do it on average people," said Kory Birge, a high
school senior touring the Professional Rodeo Hall of Fame here. "But on the
surveillance, I don't want it to get like London, where they have cameras
everywhere."

Expanding the federal government's reach - through the establishment of a
new home defense agency, increased federal involvement in airport security
and bailouts for faltering sectors of the economy - has also struck a nerve
among many Westerners. They said they thought the era of big government was
over when Mr. Clinton declared it dead.

But the mood across the nation, according to several recent polls, shows
that antigovernment sentiments have ebbed considerably. Not since 1966 has
such a large majority - more than 60 percent in several polls - said that
they trusted the government to do the right thing most of the time.

And here in Colorado, plenty of people say the government should take
whatever security steps are needed to curb terrorism, even if it means a
loss of civil liberties.

"I don't mind the stepped-up surveillance as long as they keep it in
certain places, and don't try to come into the home with it," said Chuck
Rice, 55, of Colorado Springs.

While most of the attention has focused on airport security, people here
have started to voice concerns about the expanded federal authority.

"Just in the last few days, we've been hearing from a lot of people in the
district who wonder what this bill means to them," said Sarah Shelden, a
spokeswoman for Representative Joel Hefley, a Republican whose district
includes Colorado Springs.

"Surveillance is a very big deal in our district," Ms. Shelden added.
"People are concerned about Big Brother, that feeling that somebody might
be watching them. It's just not the way they are used to living."

Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information
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"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
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experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'



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