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Working with communities to uphold the Bill of Rights
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Dissent Is Patriotic

The Bill of Rights Defense Committee's e-mail newsletter

December 18, 2002, Vol. I, No. 2

Newsletter topics:

  • News: Twenty resolutions passed!
  • Tools and Tips: Passing and implementing strong resolutions
  • Homeland Security: Less Privacy, More Government and Corporate Secrecy
  • FBI investigating all Iraqi-Americans and students from Iraq
  • Action Alert: Korematsu's Lawyers propose removing Ashcroft from office

News: Twenty resolutions passed!

The grassroots movement is growing fast. In two months, we've gone from eight resolutions passed to twenty:

  1. Madison, WI, on October 15

  2. Berkeley, CA, on October 22

  3. Alachua, County, FL, on October 22

  4. Takoma Park, MD, on October 28

  5. Santa Fe, NM, on October 30

  6. Santa Cruz, CA, on November 12

  7. Eugene, OR, on November 25

  8. Burlington, VT, on December 2

  9. New Haven, CT, on December 2

  10. Sebastopol, CA, on December 3

  11. Flagstaff, AZ, on December 17

  12. Oakland, CA, on December 17

Congratulations to all these communities, which are now "Civil Liberties Safe Zones." As each resolution passes and word spreads, several more committees organize to pass resolutions. For details, including text of the resolutions passed, go to our Successes page.

Tools and Tips: Passing and implementing strong resolutions

Strong resolutions: "Civil Liberties Safe Zone" resolutions serve the dual purposes of protecting the rights and liberties of local residents and calling upon federal legislators to amend legislation in order to restore the rights and liberties outlined in the Bill of Rights. In order to serve both purposes, it is important that the resolutions be as strong and as specific as possible. Excellent additions to the resolutions came from Takoma Park, which lists specific sections of the USA PATRIOT Act and is specific about what state and federal law enforcement are to disclose. The Eugene resolution goes further, stipulating that "no city resources, particularly administrative or law enforcement funds, will be used for unconstitutional activities conducted under the USA PATRIOT act or recent Executive Orders which permit activities listed above." Madison's resolution specifies that intelligence information, including library and bookstore records, shall not be gathered or shared without probable cause, that city employees shall not assist the INS on immigration matters, and that no city service will be denied on the basis of citizenship. As Eric Kim of the Lane County (OR) Bill of Rights Defense Committee put it, "Each resolution passed makes it easier for others to pass a resolution."

Implementation: Before your resolution is passed, make sure it contains a mechanism for implementation. For example, if information is to be disclosed, to whom is the information disclosed? Several cities and towns have assigned this responsibility to their Human Rights Commission.

Winning over your local government: It is important to make the case that threats to civil liberties are a local issue. To overcome this argument, the sponsor of the Burlington (VT) city council asked librarians to speak before the city council. Local librarians asserted "that the USA PATRIOT Act undermines Burlington residents' constitutionally guaranteed right to read and access information without governmental intrusion or interference."

In most cases, your resolution will need the support of the local police. Many city or county council members are unwilling to vote in favor of a resolution that the police oppose. To avoid this scenario, get the police chief and department on your side early by talking with them about how policing has changed since September 11, the concerns of the community you represent, and the benefits to the community of a resolution. If you leave out this important step, the police may assume that your committee is passing a resolution because you don't trust them.

Some locally elected leaders believe it is necessary to weaken a resolution in order to get their colleagues to vote for it. If that happens, make sure you read the final version BEFORE it is put into the councilors' packets. If you receive it too late, consider asking your sponsor to take it off the agenda until the next meeting, to give you time to come to an agreement.

Eugene, Oregon, is a wonderful example of what can be done to rescue a resolution from being weakened. Faced with the prospect of councilors favoring a letter instead of a resolution, the Lane County Bill of Rights Defense Committee urged its supporters to call their councilors, then showed up at the chambers on the night of the vote more than 300 strong. As reporter Joe Mosley of the Register Guard reported, "Eugene city councilors gave in to a stampede of constituents Monday night, surprising even themselves by voting unanimously at an impassioned meeting to make Eugene the 15th city in the United States and the first in Oregon to formally seek reform or repeal of the USA Patriot Act."

Homeland Security: Less Privacy, More Government and Corporate Secrecy

In November of 2002, Congress passed the Homeland Security Act by margins that were nearly as wide as those for the USA PATRIOT Act one year earlier. We are still analyzing the mammoth legislation, but at present we can safely say that it marks further threats to personal privacy and increased secrecy, not only of the executive branch but of corporations who work with the government.

What most Americans are familiar with is the "Total Information Awareness" program headed by Iran-Contra felon, former rear admiral John Poindexter, which is part of the Act's Title II, Information Analayis and Infrastructure Protection. Title II would permit "data mining," whereby a gargantuan pool of personal information on all of us would be available for creating profiles and matching them to what the administration defines as a "known or suspected" terrorist. No warrants or probable cause will be required. Section 225 is the CyberSecurity Enhancement Act, passed previously, which enables service providers to give law enforcement the contents of email messages, etc., also without the need for a warrant or probable cause.

Other sections that concern us expand government secrecy. Here is a partial list::

  • Section 214, a blanket exemption from the Freedom of Information Act
  • Section 811b, reduces the role of the inspector general by preventing an internal investigation unless the Secretary of Homeland Security approves it
  • Section 871, exemption from the Sunshine Act, so that citizens can no longer learn what happened in advisory committee meetings. This section legitimizes Vice President Cheney's refusal to provide information on meetings of his Energy Policy Advisory Committee.

Finally, the Act includes sections that protect corporations. For example, Sections 1714, 1715, and 1716 protect pharmaceutical companies from litigation if their vaccines are found to be faulty.

FBI investigating all Iraqi-Americans and students from Iraq

Have you checked your local police force or your university's campus police force lately? There may well be FBI agents or liaisons on the payroll. In November, the media revealed Attorney General John Ashcroft's secret policy to monitor all Iraqi-Americans and Iraqi students in the United States. As a result, many have been questioned on the basis of their ethnic profile, and the Bush Administration has indicated that it will detain Iraqis and Iraqi sympathizers if the U.S. attacks Iraq.

But why? At the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, faculty members were perplexed when one of their number, an emigre who had become a U.S. citizen, was questioned. After all, he and others came to the United States to escape a dangerous government. On Democracy Now! on November 22, Anas Shallal, an Iraqi-American working in the Seeds of Peace program, offered the most likely rationale: that the questioning is not meant to guard against terrorist threats, but to silence Iraqis who know what sanctions and war have done to the innocent people of Iraq, and what another war will do.

What you can do:

  • Find out whether FBI agents are in your community, and who is paying for them.

  • Hold rallies in solidarity with the Iraqis, Iraqi Americans, and other targeted peoples in your community

  • Speak out, write letters to the editor

Also available from that page is information on Special Registration for male citizens or nationals from certain countries. The information was prepared by the ACLU, Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, and the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild.

Korematsu's Lawyers propose removing Ashcroft from office

Since September 11, the rounding up of people for questioning or detention without charges, on the basis of racial or ethnic profiling, has reminded many of us of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. It seems appropriate that Fred Korematsu and Gordon Hirabayashi, two American citizens who refused to report for internment, have signed on to a letter calling for John Ashcroft's removal as Attorney General. The letter was drafted by members of the legal team that helped overturn the wartime convictions of Messrs. Korematsu, Hirabayashi, and Yasui. They invite others to sign on.

If you do not believe that John Ashcroft is suited for the office of Attorney General of the United States, read their letter. If you approve, sign on by sending an email (email address provided).

Consider a gift for liberty

If you believe in our work, consider supporting it with a tax-deductible contribution to our fiscal sponsor, the Greensboro Justice Fund. Write "BORDC" in the memo line. Your purchase of buttons, booklets, and Bill of Rights get well cards also help us to cover our expenses. Bumper stickers will be available in January 2002.

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Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
- Margaret Mead

Editor: Nancy Talanian, Codirector
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
8 Bridge St., Suite A
Northampton, MA 01060

Email: info@bordc.org
Web: www.bordc.org
 Telephone: 413-582-0110

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