Tuesday was a time to consider how the events of 9/11 affected the practice of law.
The Jacksonville Bar Association welcomed civil liberties attorney and Georgetown University Law School Professor David Cole to its lunch at the Hyatt Downtown.
The JBA President Michael Freed, who earned his law degree from Georgetown in 1993, invited Cole to talk about the changes that occurred after 9/11 in recognition of the 10th anniversary of the event.
Freed remembered Cole as a professor that “encouraged and engendered intelligent debate and discussion.”
Cole teaches constitutional law, national security and criminal justice at Georgetown University Law Center.
“One of the things that was said from the moment that we saw the World Trade Center fall was that everything changed on 9/11,” said Cole.
“In some respects much has certainly changed. Since then we have fought two wars, one against the group that attacked us that day and the other against a country that did not,” he said.
He also cited some of the U.S. spending since 9/11.
“We now spend $80 billion a year on counterterrorism, not including the wars against al-Qaida or in Iraq,” said Cole.
“There are approximately 4,000 al-Qaida and al-Qaida-affiliated terrorists out there in the world today. That means we are spending $20 million per person per potential terrorist per year,” he said.
“We have a new national security complex that will not go away. It will be with us for the rest of our lives. It marks a significant change in the way government will do business as we go forward,” he said.
Though there have been changes, Cole said he was impressed with what didn’t change.
“I think one of the most important lessons of the last decade is about what has not changed. That is the tenacity of the rule of law,” said Cole.
To that end, Cole explained to The JBA membership that he wanted to make three points.
“First, that the rule of law proved far more resilient than we might have thought on September 11, in the decade that followed,” he said.
“Second, that the sacrifices in the rule of law that we made in the early going have been shown through the past decade to be both less necessary and much more costly than we may
have thought at the time,” he said.
“Third, that the tenacity and the resilience of law is largely a function of civil society not the separation of powers. It was popular resistance through organizations of citizens and non-citizens alike, and criticism, as much as it was the court or Congress that brought us back into line,” said Cole.
Jacksonville Port Authority CEO Paul Anderson is the keynote speaker Nov. 8 at the next meeting of The JBA.
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