ACTION ALERT: The Big Secret
May 2003
From: UNITED METHODIST WOMEN’S ACTION NETWORK
Women’s Division – General Board of Global Ministries
100 Maryland Avenue, NE Suite 530 – Washington, DC 20002
Tel. (202) 488-5660 * Fax (202) 488-5681

 

A report by the Lawyers Committee for Human rights has noted that “the right to have rights is precious – and it is at risk in the United States today.”[i]  On October 26, 2001, President Bush signed the USA PATRIOT Act (“Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.”)  This Act awarded the FBI and CIA broad authority to wiretap phones, monitor email and survey financial records, as well as to deport or detain non-citizens indefinitely.

 In January of 2003, a draft document dubbed “the PATRIOT Act II” was unveiled to the public through a news leak.  Some say that PATRIOT II poses an even greater threat to civil liberties than the first.  PATRIOT II was drafted by Attorney General John Ashcroft and is formally known as the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003.  The Women’s Division’s Office of Public Policy made numerous attempts to get further information about PATRIOT II from the Office of the Attorney General, the Justice Department’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Office of Public Affairs.  These attempts resulted in long series of transferred phone calls and no additional information.  Shortly after the draft of PATRIOT II was leaked to the Center for Public Integrity in early 2003, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), of the Senate Judiciary Committee commented that “’[f]or months, and as recently as just last week, Justice Department officials have denied to members of the Judiciary Committee that they were drafting another anti-terrorism package.’”[ii]

 Dr. David Cole, a professor of law at Georgetown University has noted that “this proposed law…would radically expand law enforcement and intelligence gathering authorities, reduce or eliminate judicial oversight over surveillance, authorize secret arrests, create a DNA database on unchecked executive ‘suspicion,’ create new death penalties, and even seek to take American citizenship from persons who belong to or support disfavored political groups.”[iii]

 The following analysis by the American Conservative Union, the nation's oldest conservative lobbying organization chaired by David Keene, outlines how PATRIOT II would expand the powers of the executive branch of government.[iv]  If signed into law, PATRIOT II would:

 

• Authorize the government to initiate wiretaps and other electronic surveillance on individuals who have no ties to foreign governments or terrorist organizations (Section 101)
• Lower the legal standard law enforcement officials must meet in order to obtain credit reports and prevent the disclosure to a consumer that his/her credit report was sought, all without judicial oversight (Section 126.)
• Restrict the Freedom of Information Act by withholding from the public any information about detainees in terrorism investigations without a showing of need before a judge (Section 201.)
• Allow the government to secretly submit any evidence it wishes to the court without notifying the defendant (Section 204.)
• Authorize the government, in the absence of judicial oversight, to collect DNA samples from individuals who have not consented or been found guilty of a terrorism-related crime (Section 302.)
• Permit sensitive personal credit and educational information to be shared with local and state law enforcement, without need to prove a connection to any anti-terrorism activities (Section 311.)
• Grant immunity to businesses and their personnel who provide information to the government in terrorism investigations, even if a report was false (Section 313.)
• Strip Americans of their citizenship if they provide support to an organization they may not even know has been labeled a “terrorist organization” (Section 501)

 In response to the both PATRIOT I and the draft of PATRIOT II, several concerned citizens in Northampton, Massachusetts founded the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC).  Nancy Talanian, one of the group’s co-founders, came to the organization with previous experience working in the movements against apartheid in South Africa and for democracy in Nigeria.  Upon first hearing about the provisions in the PATRIOT Act and PATRIOT II, she was reminded of the social and political conditions that existed under the apartheid government and during the military dictatorship in Nigeria and decided that she “just had to take action.”[v]

 Since the BORDC’s founding, communities all over the country have founded their own bill of rights defense committees and taken action by passing resolutions in response to what they view as “egregious curbs on liberties contained in the PATRIOT Act.”[vi]  To date, 105 cities, towns and counties have passed resolutions or ordinances creating civil liberties safe zones, including Anchorage, Alaska, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Castle Valley, Utah, Louisville, Kentucky and Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  In these safe zones, communities affirm their commitment to safeguarding the rights laid out in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, oppose federal laws and executive orders that threaten those guaranteed rights, and authorize local government officials and law enforcement to protect citizens from the violation of their civil liberties.

ACTION:

* Read “Sweet Land of Liberty: The Erosion of Civil Liberties  Since September 11”, Action Alert - August 30, 2002. 

* Review the Social Principles’ section on the Political Community (¶ 164, pp. 58-61 in the Book of Resolutions, 2000.)