On July 23, Jean Charles de Menezes, a young Brazilian legally living and working in Britain, was killed at Stockwell Underground Station in a tragic case of mistaken identity. Police have confirmed he had no links whatsoever to terrorism. But he had come out of a house under surveillance by antiterrorist undercover police, was overdressed on a warm day, ran in panic when challenged by the police, and was shot eight times at point-blank range. From his point of view, in the heightened state of fear in London, perhaps he ran because a group of suspicious men had stalked him and were now chasing him.
Sympathy for the police dilemma is tempered by still greater sympathy for Menezes and his family. The case highlights the need for a proper balance between civil liberties and human rights, and the responsibility of the state to protect its citizens from terrorists.
Before 9/11, Western governments and human-rights champions were prone to moral ambivalence between perpetrators of terrorism and efforts of legitimate governments to maintain national security and assure public safety. After 9/11, Western governments began to view other countries' parallel wars against terrorism through the prism of a fellow-government facing agonizing policy choices in the real world, rather than single-issue groups whose vision is not anchored in any responsibility for policy decisions. Many governments used to be at the receiving end of moral and political judgment about robust responses to violent threats posed to their authority and order from armed dissidents. They now get a more sympathetic hearing.