Homeland Insecurity: The War on Terror and the War on Labor

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S ASSAULT ON THE Constitution-in the form of the Patriot Act, the Pentagon's secret military tribunals, and the ongoing crackdown on immigrants-has been clear, present, and persistent.1 And the administration's disdain for international law, as evidenced by its withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Kyoto Accords on global warming, and the International Criminal Court, is also painfully evident.2 But the attack on the basic rights and living standards of working people has been more subtle and in some ways more pernicious, and it is bound up with the first two trends. The Bush administration's assault on civil liberties and its aggressive "war without end" approach to foreign policy strike at the heart of the long-term economic and political interests of working people in America.