http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/usapatriot020701.html

July 1 — 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.

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.

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.

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."

"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."
The resolutions are largely symbolic, because the local governments have no
authority to compel federal law enforcement to comply.

"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.

"We feel it is important that communities send a message that there is
opposition to this act," he added.

House Committee Has Questions

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.

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.
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 — 50 in all — about how the act is
being implemented and how effective it has been.

"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.
The letter requested a response no later than July 9.

Threat or Protection?

Though the USA Patriot Act was passed by overwhelming margins in both the
Senate — 98-1 — and the House of Representatives — 356-66 — the 342-page
law has been criticized by civil libertarians and constitutional rights
groups as overstepping the bounds of proper law enforcement procedure.

"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."

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.

"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."

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.

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.

"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."

Making Muslims Feel Safe

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.

"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."

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.

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.

"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."

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.

Constitution’s ‘Not a Suicide Pact’

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.

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."

City government officials described it as an affirmation of Denver's
commitment to civil rights.

"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.

"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.

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."

"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."

He said there were reasons why stricter law enforcement measures have
traditionally been taken in times of national emergency or war.

"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."

In Ann Arbor, Herrell said the mistake would be to respond to terror by
compromising the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

"At times like these, I think our constitutional rights are even more
important," she said. "There have been times when we relaxed these things —
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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