AMY GOODMAN: You are listening to Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, here with Juan González.

Juan, you did your column today in the New York Daily News on what took place over the weekend, specifically on late Sunday afternoon, after one of, well, New York’s very big events, parades, a Puerto Rican Day Parade, when women who are walking in Central Park, many of them, most of them Black and Latino, who had been enjoying the parade, were doused with these — with water from Super Soaker guns — those are just the huge water guns — and then had their clothes ripped off and were sexually attacked. The police, in many cases, did not come to their aid, even when they appealed to them. What is your take on this? This is having international implications.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah. Well, it’s a story that, of course, has now gone around the world, because there were several women that were attacked who were visiting tourists from Europe. And it was a disgusting and horrible series of events that occurred for about an hour period in Central Park. I think that one of the problems that you have is that the Puerto Rican Day Parade is actually probably the largest parade in the country. It’s close to 2 million people or more participate in it. And as I noted in my column today, I’ve been attending the parade since 1969. And I know that in the last few years, the parade has gotten increasingly problematic in terms of the the lack of organization and control that the organizers and the police have allowed among the spectators. And, in essence, there have been groups of youths that have been sort of descending on the parade now for a few years and engaging in really nasty and overt sexual harassment of women on a regular basis. But the police have pretty much ignored it. The organizers have ignored it. They’re so busy making money off the commercializing of the parade, which brings in millions of dollars in revenue to the people who organize it, that they really have not been paying attention to the safety and the well-being of the spectators who come out.

And I think that the — however, at the same time, what’s happened in the aftermath of this is that there’s enormous racial tension that is developing in New York City as some of the more — we’ve seen that it was a — the New York Post, one editorial writer, or one columnist, started talking about how the barbarians are trying to take over the city again. The New York Observer, a weekly newspaper, came out with an editorial this week talking about that the — how much longer is New York City going to endure the chaos, the filth and the garbage that the Puerto Rican Day Parade annually brings to the city? There’s been enormous tension in the city for quite a while among upper-class white New Yorkers who do not — feel uncomfortable about the fact that so many Latinos come out for this parade right in the middle of downtown New York. And unfortunately, this attack is being used by some, including some in the media, to let loose some racist and anti-Puerto Rican and anti-Latino venom that’s always been below the surface.

So, I think that, on the one hand, many leaders in the Latino community are urging that the people who were involved in these attacks have to be prosecuted. The lack of organization and management of the parade has to be dealt with. But at the same time, these racist attacks and these code words, like the “wolfpack” code word, that continues to be used to denote Black and Latino youth, have to be rejected.

AMY GOODMAN: And then, of course, the issue of just how the police dealt with this, many women coming forward saying that they appealed to the police to help them, they could identify their attackers because they were just running out of these crowds of people who had just attacked them, and the police told them to move on or to report to another precinct. And I think this, overall, goes to the issue of sexual attacks on women not being taken seriously in this country.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Right. No, the police — had the police moved in immediately, this thing would not have gotten out of hand for 20, 30 or 40 women. It would have been just one or two attacks, and they would have been able to deal with it right away.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to move on now to the last issue we’ll be taking up today. A report released this week by the National Commission on Terrorism says that the U.S. should be more aggressive against terrorism. The report calls for greater surveillance of international students and greater power for the CIA and the FBI. The commission was created two years ago by Congress following the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The panel consists of former government officials and private experts.

Some of the commission’s recommendations include the tracking of international students in the U.S., allowing the FBI to sift through evidence gathered in criminal cases and pass useful information to the CIA and other intelligence agencies, and allowing the U.S. military to lead any response to a terrorist attack, as opposed to the FBI or FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

We’re joined on the line now by Hussein Ibish of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and L. Paul Bremer, chair of the National Commission and former State Department ambassador-at-large for counterterrorism.

L. Paul Bremer, can you elaborate on these recommendations?

L. PAUL BREMER: Yes, I certainly can, because you’ve got two of them wrong. First of all, in case of monitoring foreign students, we didn’t call for any new program. What we called for was a continuation of a program that’s been in place since 1965, which requires all American universities and colleges to report on all foreign students, irrespective of their nationality. That program has been in place now for 35 years. And basically, what we called for was computerizing it, putting it on computers, which is something that is called for by a law passed by Congress in 1996. So, just to set the record straight, there’s nothing new in that recommendation, other than computerizing the system.

We did not call, as you suggested, for the military to lead any response to terrorist incidents. What we said was that it is possible to imagine catastrophic terrorist attacks in the United States. We’re talking here in terms of not hundreds, but tens of thousands of casualties, in which the president would want to — might want to have the option of calling on the civilian leadership of DOD, using probably federalized National Guard forces, to bring to bear DOD’s command and control and superior logistics. And all we called for was the need —

AMY GOODMAN: And that’s, of course, the Department of Defense.

L. PAUL BREMER: I’m sorry?

AMY GOODMAN: That’s just — DOD is the Department of Defense.

L. PAUL BREMER: Yeah, Department of Defense. What we suggested was that the way to be sure that in such a circumstance, where you have tens of thousands of casualties — the way to be sure that civil liberties are not impinged on is to plan ahead, to have contingency planning in place. And we use the example of what happened after Pearl Harbor, when two of America’s great 20th century liberals, Franklin Roosevelt and Earl Warren, locked up Japanese Americans, as an example of the kind of infringement of civil liberties which can happen after a catastrophe if you haven’t thought about it ahead of time.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But, Mr. Bremer, aren’t the — doesn’t the government now have the ability to bring in — for instance, I think of the riots of the 1960s, when National Guard and even Army troops were called in. Doesn’t the government already have the the ability to call in the military in cases of major national emergencies?

L. PAUL BREMER: Yes, they do. We’re not — we’re not arguing the question whether they have the ability. What we are saying is there are no contingency plans being drawn up. And we suggest that a contingency plan should be drawn up and exercised, so that in the event, which we all obviously hope never happens, that you had a catastrophic terrorist attack, people have thought it through, have exercised it and know what to do.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, we’re also joined by Hussein Ibish of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, on the phone from Washington. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Hussein.

HUSSEIN IBISH: Thank you very much.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Could you respond —

HUSSEIN IBISH: With pleasure.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — to Paul Bremer comments?

HUSSEIN IBISH: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Ambassador Bremer, having chaired this commission, which has released this is truly hideous and absolutely disturbing report, one of the most frightening documents to have emanated from the government in many years in this country, a truly serious threat to the civil liberties of all Americans, in my view, has been soft-selling the recommendations.

But it’s very clear, if you read the report, that this report suggests all kinds of new things. For example, right now there is — not only is there no system for tracking all foreign students in the United States — this would be something new; it’s not true that it wouldn’t be something new — also the commission suggests that student academic interest become part of the monitoring — in other words, that what a student studies should be a tip-off that there’s something wrong, and in other words, that they should be investigated. The report clearly says that this system, the CIPRIS, would record a foreign student’s change in major from English literature to nuclear physics as if that’s something sinister, as if that’s something that the government should legitimately investigate. And I really think that what the report fails to take into consideration in any serious way is that the government and the law enforcement in this country should be investigating crime, criminal behavior and criminal conspiracy, and should not be investigating anybody’s lawful First Amendment-protected political, religious or academic pursuits and stigmatizing and investigating students because of their academic interests, or even, frankly, keeping a database, a coordinated database on their academic interests, is truly a frightening prospect, and it certainly would not help the United States protect itself from terrorist acts. But what it would do is set up a giant program to identify international scientists at an early age and monitor them.

As far as the DOD thing goes, again, this is an absolutely unprecedented use of the military for domestic law enforcement and disaster management. It’s a complete violation of the principle of the separation of the military from domestic law enforcement, and really an awful idea, which I’m glad to say has been rejected pretty much across the board by almost everyone who’s been commenting on it, because it’s a major threat to the civil liberties of citizens. The Army is not equipped to respect the rule of law. Soldiers are not trained, oriented or in any way ready to do that. And, of course, the report doesn’t define a catastrophic event. And let me just say it also says the Army could take charge of domestic law enforcement before a catastrophic event.

So, really, what this report is envisaging is the creation of a very large national security state apparatus in the hands of the federal government that would greatly damage the rights of citizens. And in response to what? I mean, Louis Freeh, in February 1999, told the Senate that since the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, no single act of foreign-directed terrorism has occurred on American soil. And so, in this context, in the context of no foreign-directed terrorist act having occurred since February 1999, we’re proposing to radically damage civil liberty protections and, frankly, key elements of the constitutional rights of Americans.

AMY GOODMAN: Ambassador Bremer?

L. PAUL BREMER: Can I respond? First of all, Mr. Ibish, I have all respect for your committee, and I sympathize with its objectives. But your facts are wrong on the student thing. You’re just — you’re just plain wrong. Since 1965, the law has required exactly what I said it requires, which is reporting including on students’ areas of activity — of studies. There’s nothing new in that. That’s been in effect since 1965. If you object to that law, that’s fine, but you — and you have every right to petition your congressmen to change the law, if you wish. But that has been the law since 1965. And all we’re suggesting is that, as the Congress mandated in 1996, that system should be computerized. Again, you can object to the computerization, if you wish to, but there is virtually nothing new in what we are suggesting. Those are the facts.

Now, on the DOD, it is not the case that we have suggested the DOD could take any action before an event. And I’ll quote you from the report the circumstance we’re talking about, because I think it’s important to be precise here. We said, and I’m quoting from the report, “In extraordinary circumstances, when a catastrophe is beyond the capabilities of local, state and other federal agency, or is directly related to an armed conflict overseas, the president may want to designate the Department of Defense as lead federal agency.” “May want to designate” him. And indeed, you made the point that the Army is not trained for this kind of a circumstance. That’s precisely our point. Our point is that if the president, in such a circumstances, wanted to ask the Pentagon, under its civilian leadership, to take the lead, for example, using federalized National Guard troops, that is the kind of contingency that should be planned for and exercised ahead of time, precisely to avoid the kind of impingement on civil liberties which you and I are rightly concerned about.

HUSSEIN IBISH: Well, let me quote you from the report, page 40: The Department of Defense, if necessary, should — what it says here — “contingency plans that would transfer lead federal agency authority to the Department of Defense if necessary during a catastrophic terrorist attack or prior to an imminent attack.” So, in fact, there is a call for the Department of Defense, possibly, under certain undefined circumstances, to take control of domestic law enforcement and disaster management prior to an attack. And that is in your report.

L. PAUL BREMER: Yes, I agree.

HUSSEIN IBISH: And my facts are absolutely accurate on this regard.

L. PAUL BREMER: And the purpose — and our objective in making that recommendation is precisely to be sure that when such an event happens — and I am under no doubt, and I think nobody, no American should be under any doubt — if we had a major terrorist attack which had tens of thousands of casualties, the pressures on the political leadership of this country to act, and act decisively, would be essentially insurmountable. And if you have not thought about that ahead of time, the risk is that much greater that the civil liberties that you and I are talking about will be impinged on, as indeed they were after Pearl Harbor.

HUSSEIN IBISH: Look, I don’t think that there’s a single listener —

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But if I can — if I can ask the question for a second, Hussein? Ambassador Bremer, one thing that occurs to me is, most of the terrorist attacks that have occurred in this country, certainly in over the last few decades, have been perpetrated by Americans. And is there any envisioning — I mean, not just Oklahoma City, but we’ve had numerous examples over the decades that it’s terrorism attacks from within our own country. Are you envisioning the increased surveillance of all Americans as a result of the fact that there have been so many terrorist attacks within our own country?

L. PAUL BREMER: No. Let me just remind you that the mandate of our commission by law was to investigate international terrorism, not domestic terrorism. Our report talks about international terrorism — in other words, terrorism conducted against the United States abroad or terrorism conducted within the United States by non-Americans.

AMY GOODMAN: And why is the focus limited to that, considering the major threat is here at home?

L. PAUL BREMER: Well, Ma’am, you’d have to ask Congress. I mean, I just I operate under the law. That’s what the law said. The law said —

AMY GOODMAN: Well, in this —

L. PAUL BREMER: And I think in your setup piece, you mentioned that the commission was established in the wake of the bombings of the embassies in Nairobi —

AMY GOODMAN: Right.

L. PAUL BREMER: — and Dar es Salam.

AMY GOODMAN: We only have a few seconds, so I want to ask: Where does it go from here? You’ve made your recommendations. Now what happens?

L. PAUL BREMER: Well, now it is up to the executive branch and Congress to act on the recommendations. We have some 37 recommendations in here, and it will be up to them to act on them.

AMY GOODMAN: If people want to see the report, where can they go?

L. PAUL BREMER: They can address themselves to the National Commission on Terrorism.

AMY GOODMAN: Can they go to a website?

L. PAUL BREMER: Yes, they can. I don’t have the website address.

AMY GOODMAN: We’ll put it on our — we’ll put it on our website.

L. PAUL BREMER: Yeah, they can —

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both very much for being with us. We’ve come to the end of the show, Ambassador Bremer and Hussein Ibish of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. You can go to their website at adc.org.

That does it for today’s program. Again, we are looking for people who remember first hearing the song sung by Billie Holiday, “Strange Fruit,” and if you remember your experience, please give us a call at 212-209-2999. Democracy Now! is produced by David Love and Jeremy Scahill. Anthony Sloan is our engineer. Errol Maitland is our technical director. From the studios of WBAI in New York, I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, for another edition of Pacific Radio’s Democracy Now!