No public monument in America is as emblematic of the nation's freedom and promise than the Statue of Liberty, standing with its torch to greet visitors at one of the great gateways to the continent. As a revered icon, it is a site of patriotic pilgrimage for thousands of people every year.

But being a powerful symbol of America also makes it a potential target of the nation's enemies. The National Park Service came to this sensible conclusion after the 9/11 terror attacks. The statue was shut down to visitors from 2001 until 2004 so that $20 million in security and safety improvements could be made.

But even when it reopened, visitor access was not the same. The staircase to the statue's crown was kept off-limits, because the park service views the 168-step spiral metal staircase as a fire hazard and potential terror risk. Tourists can go only as far as the statue's pedestal.

That does not sit well with U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat from New York, who, according to The Associated Press, wants to "restore the Statue of Liberty to her full glory" by reopening the staircase to the crown. For the second year in a row, he added an amendment to a spending bill that would allow the park service to spend $1 million to fund a study of how to reopen the stairs safely.

His proposal was passed by a voice vote last week, but it doesn't oblige the park service to do anything if it doesn't want to. It was a symbolic vote in support of the symbolic statue, conveying the sense of the House.

That sense is correct. Yes, the staircase isn't an easy passage and it does have the potential to be a problem -- but surely nothing that American ingenuity can't screen visitors for. Here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, it is time to be a little more brave and a little more free -- and stop cowering before potential bogeymen.

A newly freed Lady Liberty would also symbolize that the terrorists have not won.

First Published: July 1, 2007, 8:45 p.m.