PATRIOT Act 4th Anniversary Press Release
For Immediate Release
October [today’s date], 2005
Contact:
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FOURTH ANNIVERSARY OF PATRIOT ACT
[ORGANIZATION NAME] TO HOST [EVENT]
Four years after Congress passed and President Bush signed the USA PATRIOT Act, the trend across the country is clear: The more people learn about the act and other post-9/11 antiterrorism policies, the less they approve.
On [date], [Organization Name] will host [event] in order to encourage public debate about antiterrorism efforts and civil liberties. [More info on your group’s local event to encourage further discussion and debate about the new policies and how they affect community members.] On [date], [name of city/town] passed a resolution opposing the post-9/11 excesses of the federal government and upholding its residents’ constitutional rights. [Feel free to add info on the number of resolutions in your state, your state resolution, or names of cities/counties in your area with resolutions passed or in process.] To date, seven state legislatures and 388 local and county governments, including New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Dallas, have enacted similar resolutions protecting the civil liberties of their 62 million residents. During the week of October 24, dozens of these cities, and other communities that have not yet passed resolutions, will hold public events to mark the fourth anniversary of the USA PATRIOT Act and bring federal excesses to light.
According to Nancy Talanian, director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, [Feel free to substitute your own quote here.] “The Bush administration has oversold the success of its antiterrorism policies, as the Washington Post learned when it researched President Bush’s claim of 200 terrorism-related convictions since September 11th. The actual number was only 39. The administration has also undersold the cost of devoting so much time and resources to terrorism, weakening its ability to respond to other disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina.”
In the four years since the September 11th attacks, the government’s use of new surveillance powers has fueled widespread concerns about civil liberties abuses such as the following:
- The FBI recently admitted that it sometimes wiretaps and records telephone conversations of a wrong number, but it has not revealed how often or what it does with the recordings. “Roving wiretap” authority is one of several controversial PATRIOT Act authorities scheduled to sunset in 2005 if Congress fails to reauthorize them.
- In September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit overturned a lower court's ruling that U.S. citizen "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla must be charged or released. The ruling, if allowed to stand, gives the president unprecedented new power to detain anyone indefinitely without charges.
- A judge has disputed the FBI's argument for gagging a Connecticut librarian to whom it had served a National Security Letter, and has ruled that the gag order should be lifted. A different judge has issued a temporary stay while federal prosecutors appeal.
- The government’s emphasis on profiling of Muslims has resulted in several dramatic failures, such as the roundups and lengthy detention of hundreds of Arab, Muslim, and South Asian men following the September 11th attacks, none of whom were connected with the attacks; the wrongful detention of Oregon attorney Brandon Mayfield as a material witness in connection with the Madrid train bombing; and several other cases.
- There has been a steady stream of incidents in which the FBI, Joint Terrorism Task Forces, U.S. Army Intelligence, and National Guard units have targeted peaceful protestors and meetings.
As [group member Name] asks, “Are these government actions protecting us from terrorism, or are they misusing our resources and making whole populations of this country too fearful to come forward if they have valid suspicions? Empty claims from our administration that the Patriot Act is working will give us a false sense of security. This is why we have to learn about post-9/11 policies and question them – Congress won’t protect our civil liberties, the courts won’t protect them. It’s up to us to protect them.”
[Quotes/statements/summary from local group members about
future plans, etc.]
Congress is responding to the public’s widespread criticisms
by making only superficial changes to some of the 16 PATRIOT Act provisions
subject to “sunset” this year, making 14 of them permanent.
The PATRIOT Act reauthorization is expected within days.
[Additional quotes/statements/summary from local group members about future plans, etc.]
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