Impact of Balancing Terrorism Prevention with Human Rights Concerns

Impact of Balancing Terrorism Prevention with Human Rights Concerns
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Introduction
Terrorism is a common global security threat that has continued to claim the lives of innocent civilians. The terror activities have instilled in people across the globe compelling world governments and major business stakeholders to come together with the aim of combating the evil act. The process of fighting terror activities has however been faced with critics of human rights activists who now claim that the war on terror has diverted and interfered the human rights of innocent suspects. According to Australian Human Rights Commission (2015) there is a need to strike a balance between managing terror risks and respecting human rights of suspects.
Threats posed to individuals by terrorism
Terror activities expose innocent civilians to many risks as discussed below. Terrorism exposes people to mental illness. Survivors of terror attacks develop emotional and behavioral changes that later develop into diagnosable disorders. The diseases slowly become a health burden to the victim compelling them to seek for services of qualified physicians. Such mental illness is costly in terms of psychiatric counseling and hence leads people to poverty (AON. (2015).
The victims may develop acute stress for the rest of their life. Acute stress is a condition that subjects the victims to depression and may lead other dangerous diseases like high blood pressure and heart attack (Rivkin, 2008). That means that the victims live under threats of losing their lives easily due to behavioral changes in their health conditions. Another threat acute stress poses to the victims is that they can quickly commit suicide. Rivkin (2008) through his work says that terrorism activities threaten the existence of a good relationship in the society. Acts of terror have been associated with particular religion. Thus, members of the religion associated with terrorism are stigmatized and isolated by members of different faiths. That leads to a social disconnect in the society.
Threats posed to organizations by terrorism
Paraskevas & Arendell (2010) suggest that terrorists attack with the aim of making headlines in the international media. For that purpose, their terror activities usually target busy working environments with well-established organizations that accommodate thousands of people at the same time. Thus in most cases they target modern buildings housing prime business so as to kill many people and at the same time paralyze business activities.
The current threats that organizations are facing due to terrorism is increased costs of insurance. Terror activities have continued to spread forcing insurance companies to raise their insurance premiums paid by business owners. That implies therefore that the profitability margin of most organizations would be affected by hiked premiums (Chung, 2013). The decline in profit margin, on the other hand, would lead the organization to lay off some workers to break even. The overall effects of terrorism would limit the organizational capacity to expand their production activities and hence restrict the levels of economic growth.
Terrorism has led to the issuance of travel advisories whereby countries issue warning alerts to their citizens against visiting certain countries with the fear that they may be attacked. That has left many tourist organizations across the world with only very few daring tourists. Thus, organizations majoring in touristic are under threats of collapsing due to continued growth of terror networks (Shemella, 2015). The fall of tourist organizations would imply that traveling firms that transport tourists are under threats to collapse and hence the terrorism has got ripple effects to the economy as a whole.
Apart from the business organizations terrorism is also a major threat towards the implementation of government projects. The war on terror is complicated and hence requires the government a lot of funding in it. For instance, terrorists use sophisticated equipment that interferes with the communication system in the country. That implies that revealing and destroying such a network would cost the government a lot of money in terms of hiring qualified technological experts (Shemella, et al., 2011). Furthermore, the government is forced to allocate more funding to anti-terror police units. The overall effect is that fewer funds would be allocated to essential services like health and infrastructural development.
Strategies to counter terrorism
The federal government has adopted counter-terrorism strategy similar to the UK contest strategy. The strategy focuses on four key areas that are prevention, pursuing, protection and preparation (U.S. Department of State, 2012). Below is an elaboration of the four strategies.
Preparation strategy
Prevention part focuses on stopping people from joining terror gangs or offering material support to the terror network. To achieve that the federal government has initiated several development projects that aim at creating more job opportunities to reduce unemployment rates. That is based on the fact that most of the new recruits the terror network are idlers who lack meaningful employment to engage their mind. Furthermore, the federal government has initiated plans that support youth programs bearing in mind that most youths are more likely to be recruited into terrorism as compared to the older population (Lis, 2015). The federal government has further embarked on the fight against money laundering activities in the country. Money laundering is believed to be the primary source of financing for terror networks and hence fighting the illegal vice would paralyze terror activities and prevent the growth of the terror network.
Pursuing strategy
The strategy aims to stop planned terror attacks. Since terrorists plan terror attacks in secrecy, the federal government has establishment a secretive intelligence unit that detects suspicious activities related terrorism and informs the ant terror police units. The secret intelligence has studied the trend of recent terror attacks across the globe and hence has the capability of detecting planned terror attacks (Buckow, Julienne & Rudolf, 2015). The pursuing strategy takes no chance and instead involves prosecution of any terror suspects. Through such early trials and constant interrogations, the federal government can stop nearly all planned terror attacks since the attackers feel insecure and flee away.
Protection strategy
The protection strategy aims at sealing any loopholes that may give terrorists an easy time to carry out attacks. The federal government has increased military forces across all borders to ensure no terror networks penetrate into the country. For instance, the U.S. Mexico border is fully under the control of military forces. The protection strategy also deals with any possible issues of political instability (Mansouri, 2015). Political instability in the country could open an opportunity for politicians to use terrorism to advance their selfish interests. The strategy hence outlines how political differences should be handled through a dialogue to avoid compromising national security.
Preparation strategy
The approach accepts the fact that terrorism cannot be combated completely and hence outlines how the anti-terror unit should handle a terror attack in case it occurs. That aims at mitigating the impacts of terror attacks (United Nations Human Rights Commission, 2012). The strategy ensures that in the event of terror attacks many lives are saved by suppressing the attackers in time. Furthermore, the approach ensures that loss incurred during the attack is minimized by deploying anti-terror police to the site as soon as an alert concerning the attack is made.
Preparation strategy requires the government to purchase high-tech transport vessels such as armored vehicles to facilitate transportation of anti-terror unit officers to the incidence of a terror attack. Furthermore, the transport vessels should be able to resist attacks such as bullets and bombs from the attackers (United Nations Human Rights Commission, 2012). Modern terrorists are quickly coping with the changes in technology and that calls for the federal government to invest in new research and development to develop new equipment so as to have a competitive advantage that can propel them to win the war on terror activities.
Problems the government encounter in responding to terrorism
Protecting citizens from the severe attacks of terrorists is a crucial role of the government. However, to achieve that, the government faces numerous challenges. First of all the government is affected by financial constraints. Usually, the government depends on the federal budget to finance its activities. Since terror activities are rampant in nature, it is difficult to predict the actual amount required to deal with terrorism. As a result, the government is usually constrained financially in terms of funding terror war (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2015). The federal government has numerous essential services to deliver to the citizens and hence the very little amount of money can find its way to the anti-terrorism kitty.
Another major challenge the federal government faces while responding to terror is the lack of proper legislation in place. The terror issue is so complex such that formulation of legislation could easily contradict with the national constitution (United Nations Counter-terrorism implementation task force, 2015). That arises from the fact that even terror suspects regardless of their gross misconduct deserve to enjoy their human rights.
Opposition from the human rights activists is also a major challenge that the government encounter in its efforts to combat terrorism. Terror related cases are complex in nature and require a slow process to establish the truth from the suspects and his accused terror network. However, the constant protests from human rights activists frustrate the government's efforts to control terrorism (The Guardian, 2013). Pressure from such protests leads to the premature prosecution of terror suspects without adequate evidence, and that leads to many terrorists being set free despite having committed crimes of greater magnitudes. Lack of public cooperation is another major challenge the government encounters in its journey to eliminate terrorism. Most citizens neglect their duty of reporting terror suspects to the relevant authorities (Wolk, 2015). Terrorist are heavily funded, and this makes the situation even worse because some citizens collaborate with the terrorists in exchange for small bribes.
Religious interference is also a major challenge the government encounters while trying to fight terrorism. For instance, the Muslim religious leaders have come out to condemn the government for targeting its faithful members in the war on terror. Such claims from religious leaders hamper the efforts made the government (Kugel, 2011). Such claims have frustrated the war on terror since those who feel targeted as claimed by their religious cannot cooperate with the government.
Attempts made by the federal government to tackle terrorists have been used by the terror networks to launch retaliatory attacks. Some U.S. embassies across the globe have been attacked and scores injured. The motive behind the attack is to silence the U.S. federal government that has been on the run to contain global terrorism (Picardo, 2015). Such challenges have frustrated the efforts made by the federal government to reduce terrorism at great length.
Problems the Business community encounters while responding to terrorism
The business community has been very active in championing for a safer society devoid of terror activities, however in their course of doing, so they encounter many challenges. First most business organizations seen in the forefront fighting against terror have experienced a lot of blackmail from the perpetrators of terror activities (The Economist, 2015). The blackmail has mostly been attached to religion to depict that those organizations are against particular faiths. For instance, BBC which is an international media station has been blackmailed as an agent of the west meant to undermine Islamic faith. Such blackmailing information has worked out negatively making the media station to lose some of its clients of the Islamic religion.
Business organizations against terrorism have been under constant threats from terror networks. For instance, many journalists working with BBC media have been threatened by perpetrators of terror activities. The situation has been worsened by killing some of the journalists for exposing the planned terror missions (Bizshifts-Trends, 2011). Thus, business organizations have lost a lot in terms of skilled manpower and low-profit margins in their efforts to fight terrorism
How Government Balances Management of terror risks with human rights
The federal government has adopted some strategies to balance management of terror risks and human rights. First the federal government through the Congress has formulated and passed a bill that seeks to address terror issues. The anti-terror act compels all terror suspects to cooperate with the ant-terror agencies to reveal valuable information that can help to contain any plans for terrorism (Docobo, 2015). The Act further protects the terror suspect from being harassed by the security agencies in the process of conducting investigations.
Second the federal government uses the foreign policy to balance fight against terror and human rights. The foreign policy allows the federal government to secure its borders using the military forces and by use of the fence. For instance, the border of the United States and Mexico experiences a lot of criminal activities ranging from money laundering to drug trafficking. Such activities are likely to perpetuate acts of terrorism (North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 2015). To tackle the terror threats likely to arise from such activities the U.S. government has taken precautionary measure to fence its border with Mexico. However, the foreign policy does not infringe on the human rights of border citizens since they can freely cross the border provided they show relevant immigration documents.
Third the federal government uses the judicial system to balance terror prevention measure and human rights. Terror suspects arrested in the U.S. are charged before the criminal courts to establish their roles in terror networks. Upon establishment of substantial evidence against any terror suspects the law recommends severe punishment against such criminals to scare away those who may be planning to engage in terrorism (Government of Canada, 2012). Punitive actions against terrorists by the judiciary aim at eliminating terrorism on a larger scale. However, the tribunal considers the human rights while dealing with such cases and hence when the court lacks evidence upon any suspect, he or she is set free. To balance between terror prevention measure and human rights, the judiciary protects terror suspects against deportation until they are confirmed guilty before the judicial courts.
How Business community Balances Management of terror risks with human rights
Business organizations contribute significantly to managing terror risks in the country. However, they strive to ensure that their efforts do not infringe on the constitutional human rights. Banking institution is contributed majorly in curbing acts of terrorism. To achieve that banks track the banking history of its clients to establish the source of their income. The banks link the amount of money deposited by its customers to various economic activities and also track the destination of money transfer activities (United Nations Department of Pu...