the view from SC

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Dec 4 07:20:51 PST 2001


New York Times - December 4, 2001

Conservative City Draws a Line, Too

By PETER T. KILBORN

EAUFORT, S.C., Dec. 3 - In this conservative waterside town, people go along with letting President Bush relax some constitutional freedoms in a period of terrorist threats. But just about everyone draws a line somewhere, and most often it involves investigators' eavesdropping on suspects talking to their lawyers.

Calling in young Middle Eastern men for interviews, "I'm all for," said Dee Hryharrow, a real estate broker here for more than 30 years and the sixth generation of her family to live in Beaufort. "That's not infringing on their civil liberties. But wiretapping? Especially a lawyer and client, that's dangerous."

It is a misty Monday in Beaufort ("BEW-fert, as in beautiful," the Chamber of Commerce says), and Ms. Hryharrow's colleagues join in. "Where do you draw the line?" asked Joan Fordham, a broker.

"You give people the power to do one thing," Ms. Fordham said, "and they do something else." She cited Senator Joseph McCarthy's abuses in rooting out Communists in the 1950's and the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II.

"They turned into witch hunts," said Scott Sanders, a real estate agent.

Beaufort is an affluent and placid stop on the inland waterway, population 12,950, three-quarters white, with grand white Colonial homes in town, and beyond, the islands Hilton Head and Fripp, with their resorts and retirement colonies, and the Parris Island Marine Base.

People here tend to be resolutely Republican. None of the dozens interviewed could even name the Democratic opponent of Joe Wilson, a Republican state senator, in an election on Dec. 18 to succeed Representative Floyd D. Spence, who died in August, in the Second Congressional District. The district voted for Mr. Bush over Al Gore 58 percent to 40 percent.

In supporting Mr. Bush and Republican candidates, patrons at Blackstone's, a deli in the the historic district, said they went along with antiterrorism measures, even if they might intrude upon civil liberties. "At a time when your whole security is in doubt," said Sherwood Fender, 61, a lawyer, "your pendulum has to swing to the greater good."

"A visa," Mr. Fender said, "is a privilege, like a driver's license. You don't have a right to drive on the road. It's a privilege." State troopers looking for drunken drivers sometimes stop him at roadblocks, and he goes along with that.

But privacy at home and the privacy of a lawyer's conversations with his client are rights, not privileges, Mr. Fender said. "If the trooper comes into my house," he said, "that's going too far. Wiretapping's the same thing."

Mr. Fender and his son Addison, 26, who is a forester, were having three-egg-and-grits breakfasts this morning. The younger Mr. Fender is unsettled about profiling, or questioning people because of their appearance. Because he has dark hair, a small mustache and a beard, he said, "it's hard to disagree with" investigators who might pull him out of an airport security line because of his appearance. "On the other hand," he said, "I'd be very angry."

Wayne Davis, 49, a sanitation worker, would go further than the administration in questioning foreigners with visas. He would send them home. Mr. Davis said too many foreigners, with and without visas, have taken American jobs.

But Mr. Davis, who is black, bristled at corralling visa holders who are young, male and from the Middle East for interviews "because they all look alike," he said. "There ought to be more of a reason why." He objects to wiretapping, too. "What people do is personal," he said.

For some blacks, the terms of the debate on civil rights are misplaced. Elayna Shakur, a portrait painter, was stuffing a portrait into the back of her station wagon downtown.

"I think what he's doing as President Bush is what he needs to do as President Bush to get where he wants to go," Ms. Shakur said.

But she disagrees with his goals.

"He wants to nail them," Ms. Shakur said. "That is not the direction where I want to go. My direction would be reconciliation, understanding and peace." If wiretapping can help bring reconciliation, she said, she would support it, but only then.

Adrienne Olson, 31, the music director at an Episcopal church, attributed the administration's moves more to fear than bias.

"We don't know much about their culture, their religion," Ms. Olson said. "But that's not enough for me."

Steve Graham, 42, a manager at the docks, said he was all for rigorous security at airports, including patting down passengers. But patting down one group and not others, "that's discriminating," he said.

Eric and Teresa Williams, just married Saturday, were setting off for a honeymoon in the islands. Mr. Williams was unequivocal about getting tough with suspected terrorists.

"Civil liberties can take a back seat to terrorism," he said, "and forget the bleeding hearts."

Outside a supermarket near Parris Island, a shopper, Vicki Arter, who is divorced from a veteran of the Persian Gulf and Somalia conflicts, said, "In times like these when you don't really know who the enemy is, we should let the president and his people have a little more leeway."

Many people here are wary of the military tribunals that Mr. Bush has authorized to try men charged with terrorist acts. But it is eavesdropping, particularly on lawyers and their clients, that seems to stir the most passion here.

"I'm a Republican, absolutely," said Frank Marx, a paralegal who was relaxing with his black cat, Shelby, on a bench in Waterfront Park. With respect to many terrorism and civil liberties issues, Mr. Marx said, "I think there's a fine line, and where it lies I don't know."

He said he was comfortable with court-authorized wiretaps to track drug smugglers and members of organized crime and terrorists. But eavesdropping on a suspect's discussions with his lawyer, Mr. Marx said, "that's going way too far."



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