- Cities across the country have been quietly staging a
revolt against the USA Patriot Act, saying it gives law enforcement too
much power and threatens civil rights
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- Over the last three months, the Massachusetts cities
of Cambridge, Northampton and Amherst and the township of Leverett, as
well as the town of Carrboro, N.C., all passed resolutions that call the
USA Patriot Act a threat to the civil rights of the residents of their
communities. Congress passed the act in October to give federal investigators
sweeping new powers to probe terrorism in the aftermath of the Sept. 11
attacks, and soon came under criticism from civil libertarians. The public
has been supportive of the measure.
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- The five municipalities join Berkeley, Calif., and Ann
Arbor, Mich., in taking a strong stance challenging the way the Bush administration
wants to pursue its war on terror within the borders of the United States.
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- In Cambridge, where the measure passed the city council
by a 5-4 margin on June 17, the resolution says in part, "We believe
these civil liberties [freedom of speech, assembly and privacy; equality
before the law; due process; and freedom from unreasonable searches and
seizures] are now threatened by the USA Patriot Act."
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- "For me, it was that historically there have been
attacks on civil liberties in times of war," Councilman Brian Murphy
said when asked why he co-authored the resolution. "I think if you
look at USA Patriot, this is another example of that."
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- The resolutions are largely symbolic, because the local
governments have no authority to compel federal law enforcement to comply.
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- "One of the recognitions is that there is a supremacy
act and that there are limits to what a city can do," Murphy said.
"If the FBI chooses to take actions in Cambridge, they're able to
do that under the law as it is constituted.
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- "We feel it is important that communities send a
message that there is opposition to this act," he added.
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- House Committee Has Questions
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- Even before USA Patriot was passed, the police in Portland,
Ore., broke ranks with the Justice Department's war on terror, saying that
it would not cooperate with the FBI on investigations of Middle Eastern
students in the city, because state law barred police from questioning
immigrants who are not suspected of a crime.
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- The city council of Boulder, Colo., is considering a
resolution similar to the ones passed in the seven other cities, and Denver
has also passed a resolution that, while not going as far as the others,
still expresses concerns about whether USA Patriot might be implemented
in such a way that it could threaten civil liberties.
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- At the same time, the House Judicial Committee has sent
a request to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft asking him and FBI Director
Robert Mueller to respond to 12 pages of questions ó 50 in all ó
about how the act is being implemented and how effective it has been.
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- "We plan to schedule a public hearing in the near
future to allow further public discussion of these and other issues relating
to the Department of Justice's activity in investigating terrorists or
potential terrorist attacks," the letter said.
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- The letter requested a response no later than July 9.
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- Threat or Protection?
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- Though the USA Patriot Act was passed by overwhelming
margins in both the Senate ó 98-1 ó and the House of Representatives
ó 356-66 ó the 342-page law has been criticized by civil
libertarians and constitutional rights groups as overstepping the bounds
of proper law enforcement procedure.
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- "This law is based on the faulty assumption that
safety must come at the expense of civil liberties," Laura W. Murphy,
the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington National
Office, said in that group's analysis of the law. "The USA Patriot
Act gives law enforcement agencies nationwide extraordinary new powers
unchecked by meaningful judicial review."
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- Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the Justice Department,
said that he was unaware of the resolutions being passed by cities around
the country, but he said their concerns and criticisms of the law were
unfounded.
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- "USA Patriot was passed by an overwhelming bipartisan
majority in both the House and the Senate," Corallo said. "The
Patriot Act protects civil liberties and is fully within the bounds of
the U.S. Constitution."
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- The U.S. attorney's office in Boston was also unaware
that four cities in the state had approved measures that sought information
from federal law enforcement about anti-terror actions being taken in their
communities and directed local police not to cooperate with federal agencies
if they were asked to do things that violated someone's civil rights.
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- After reviewing the Cambridge resolution, Jerry Leone,
the assistant U.S. attorney in Massachusetts and the anti-terrorism coordinator
in the state, said the city leaders do not understand the Patriot Act.
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- "I think some people have formed misconceptions
of what the intentions of USA Patriot are," Leone said. "If one
is a civil libertarian, I think the first reaction is, 'Hey, that's one
more tool for the government to infringe on our rights,' but if you look
at the implementation of the law, that's not the case."
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- Making Muslims Feel Safe
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- In Ann Arbor, though, City Councilwoman Heidi Herrell
said that there have been problems with the way the law has been implemented,
and that was why the city felt compelled to act.
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- "We're very concerned about civil rights and about
potential discrimination against members of our community," she said.
"We spent a lot of time since Sept. 11 making sure that the Muslim
members of our community felt safe."
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- She pointed to the ruling by a federal judge in Detroit
in April that it was unconstitutional for the Justice Department to require
immigration court judges to bar the public and the media from hearings
for detainees who have been determined to be of special interest to federal
authorities.
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- The Detroit ruling came in response to three separate
lawsuits asking that hearings for Rabih Haddad, who was arrested in Ann
Arbor in December on charges that he had overstayed his tourist visa, be
opened.
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- "The judge ruled that the hearings had to be open,
so it seems like the court agreed with us in that case," she said.
"We're not saying that people shouldn't be questioned. We're just
concerned about civil rights."
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- The Justice Department is appealing the decision, and
the Supreme Court has stayed a similar ruling in a New Jersey case to decide
the issue.
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- Constitution's "Not a Suicide Pact"
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- The council in Denver, the largest of the seven cities,
adopted the least-strongly worded resolution, and language about not cooperating
with federal authorities was removed before it was finally passed, 7-4.
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- The resolution says that it "reaffirms Denver's
commitment to unbiased policing," and states that the police should
continue to adhere to their policy that "no information about political,
religious or social views, associations or activities should be collected
unless the information relates to criminal activity and the subject is
suspected of criminal activity."
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- City government officials described it as an affirmation
of Denver's commitment to civil rights.
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- "We were concerned about the abridgement of free
speech because of national security concerns," Councilwoman Kathleen
MacKenzie said. "It seemed to us that it was more unpopular than ever
to criticize the government or protest for peace, and that was really scary.
As awful as we feel about Sept. 11 and as concerned as we were about national
safety, we felt that giving up the right to dissent was too high a price
to pay.
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- "It resonated to us of the McCarthy era and other
times," she added, referring to the House Un-American Activities Committee
hearings of the 1950s.
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- For some, though, even the milder version of the resolution
went too far. Councilman Ed Thomas said that by approving it, the council
was saying that "Denver would be a haven for terrorists."
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- "My opinion was that we have lost our collective
minds if we are going to come up with these kinds of motions," he
said. "The last time I checked, I believe we are at war."
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- He said there were reasons why stricter law enforcement
measures have traditionally been taken in times of national emergency or
war.
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- "The Constitution is not a suicide pact," he
said. "I think history will prove this to be folly. I felt that at
that time [when the resolution was passed] and I still feel that way. We've
lost our collective minds if we're doing this kind of thing."
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- In Ann Arbor, Herrell said the mistake would be to respond
to terror by compromising the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
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- "At times like these, I think our constitutional
rights are even more important," she said. "There have been times
when we relaxed these things ó the McCarthy era, the '60s civil
rights struggle, the detention of the Japanese-Americans in World War II.
We look back at those times with shame. "I think this will be another
time we look back on with shame. That's what I fear."
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- http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/usapatriot020701.html
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