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N.Y. CITY COUNCIL PASSES ANTI-PATRIOT ACT MEASURE
By Michelle Garcia
The Washington Post
Thursday, February 5, 2004; Page A11

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13970-2004Feb4.html

NEW YORK - New York City, site of the country's most horrific terrorist
attack, Wednesday became the latest in a long list of cities and towns that
have formally opposed the expanded investigatory powers granted to law
enforcement agencies under the USA Patriot Act.

The New York City Council approved a resolution condemning the law, enacted
by Congress six weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, with a voice vote
in its chambers a few blocks from the gaping hole at Ground Zero.

"The Patriot Act is really unpatriotic, it undermines our civil rights and
civil liberties," said council member Bill Perkins (D-Manhattan), the bill's
sponsor. "We never give up our rights that's what makes us Americans."

The resolution criticized the Patriot Act for allowing infringements on
privacy rights. Among other provisions, the Patriot Act allows investigators
to see citizens' library records and eases requirements for search warrants.
The council requested that Congress deliver periodic reports accounting for
the information and records on New Yorkers the federal government has culled
under the Patriot Act, but the measure has no means to enforce that request.

The vote follows months of negotiations between resolution supporters and
New York City Council leadership. A major sticking point in the original
proposal of the resolution centered on language prohibiting the New York
Police Department from enforcing immigration laws, collecting information on
activist groups and businesses, and refraining from establishing an
anti-terrorism reporting database.

After Wednesday's vote, City Council Speaker Gifford Miller (D) said the
measure in its final version "strikes the right balance."

"The resolution has evolved to focus on what's really needed: amendments to
the law to protect civil liberties particularly, at a time of war," he said.

New York joins 246 municipalities and counties and three states that have
passed legislation in opposition to the Patriot Act, according to the Bill
of Rights Defense Committee, an organization that helps local governments
craft anti-Patriot Act legislation.

"So much is being done in the name of New York, we are saying don't use our
name to infringe on people's rights," said Glenn C. Devitt, an organizer
with the Bill of Rights Defense Committee.

Local governments in Virginia and Maryland have approved similar measures,
including Montgomery County, Prince George's County and Alexandria.

Mark Corallo, a Justice Department spokesman, dismissed the local
governments' resolutions, saying the majority were passed in locales with
left-leaning constituencies and based on "erroneous" information about the
Patriot Act.

Corallo said the act has been "one of the most important tools Congress has
given the government to fight terrorism and prevent terrorist acts."

A handful of New York council members, both Democrats and Republicans,
agreed and voted against the resolution.

Dennis Gallagher, a Republican from Queens, called the resolution a vehicle
for attacking the Bush administration. New York suffered a great loss on
Sept. 11, 2001, he said. The Patriot Act "is one step in ensuring this never
happens again."

But at a rally of supporters, Monica Tarazi, New York director of the
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said the Patriot Act and other
tactics to fight terrorism has sowed fear within New York's ethnic
communities and activists.

"This country is not about registering [people] and ethnic profiling," she
said. "We need this [resolution]. We need this as Americans."

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