Canadians were horrified by the violence on Sept. 11 in the United States. In the climate of fear that followed the attacks, the Canadian government has struggled to develop a response to these atrocities. Part of this response has been Bill C-36, the Anti-terrorism Act.

Sadly, this legislation is fundamentally misguided. The hope it provides is not to Canadians, but rather to the perpetrators of the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Bill C-36, like the events of Sept. 11, represents an assault on security and freedom.

One goal of those who planned and executed the violence of Sept. 11 is certain — to cause panic. In this regard they are succeeding. Bill C-36 is a hastily written and ill-conceived response arising not from wise council, but rather from the fear sown by the Sept. 11 perpetrators and, potentially, from those eager to advance their own political agendas on the events of that day.

The portion of the proposed legislation that attempts to define "terrorist activity" is illustrative of this panic.

"Terrorism" and "terrorist" are useful pejoratives, but as analytical terms they are essentially meaningless. At their core they reference the use of violence against civilians as a means to achieve political ends. Unfortunately, this definition captures behavior practiced at one time or another by most societies.

It is all but impossible to formulate a definition of terrorism that denotes the activities we wish to censure but excludes conduct we sanction. Nonetheless, the drafters of Bill C-36 have rushed forward on such a venture. The result, as voiced by the Canadian Bar Association and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, is a definition of "terrorist activity" that encompasses a broad range of nonviolent civil disobedience, fails to distinguish between violence aimed at instruments of the state from violence that targets civilians, and fails to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate use of violence against state instruments.

Bill C-36's definition of terrorist activity encompasses many peaceful tactics, for example pickets and blockades, that are regularly utilized by groups such as First Nations, unions and anti-globalization protestors. The legislation also defines as "terrorist activity" the armed response of peoples with legitimate grievances against state repression. Had this same legislation been in place in the not-so-distant past, Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress and their supporters in Canada would have been branded as terrorists.

If passed unamended, Bill C-36 will curtail legitimate dissent in Canada and provide comfort to the leaders of foreign states that repress the rights of their own or other populations. Equally frightening, in the context of this attempted definition of "terrorist activity," Bill C-36 contains provisions that allow the government to eliminate the right to silence, imprison people without charge, intercept private communication without judicial authorization, prohibit the disclosure of government information without review or appeal, and use secret evidence against groups and individuals.

While these provisions should alarm all Canadians, they raise particular concern in the academic community. Even before Sept. 11, a pattern of state conduct tantamount to criminalizing dissent has been apparent. Examples include the state suppression of peaceful student protest offensive to third world dictators at the APEC summit in Vancouver and the tear-gassing of peaceful student protestors at the FTAA summit in Quebec City. Academic freedom, fragile at the best of times, has also come under renewed attack, including instances of unjustifiable harassment of faculty members by state security forces.

The historical record shows that when such legislation is rushed through Parliament in the midst of panic, the damage to civil liberties and to the lives of individual Canadians can be substantial. As Ottawa considers how to respond to the events of Sept. 11, the sad history of the internment of Canadians of Japanese descent during the Second World War should be kept close in mind.

Now is the time to learn from history. We must act calmly and rationally. We must also protect the very civil liberties that are defining characteristics of the democratic society we want to defend. Bill C-36 in its current form does not do that. It must be revised.