Patriots divided; Cities fight back against Patriot Act

By Sara B. Miller - Christian Science Monitor - csmonitor.com
updated 1:00 p.m. ET July 22, 2003
Patriots divided

In a symbolic blow to the USA Patriot Act, a little city in northern California has made it a misdemeanor for city employees to help enforce the federal antiterrorism measure, The Washington Times reports.

Arcata officials have set down a $57 fine for any employee who does not "promptly notify the city manager" if federal authorities seek their cooperation in an investigation, interrogation, or arrest under the provisions of the act. These are a few of its major provisions:

Closed proceedings for suspected terrorists
Far-reaching powers in search and surveillance
Indefinite detention without formal charges

The move is bold, but other communities may follow suit. Though the
Senate passed the act in October 2001 by a 98-1 margin - only Sen. Russ Feingold (D) of Wisc. voted against it - some now consider it too far-reaching.

According to the Financial Times, after the American Civil Liberties Union launched a campaign to undermine the law, more than 160 communities across the nation have passed resolutions condemning the USA Patriot Act. The ACLU effort began last year in Ann Arbor, the liberal university town in Michigan, and has since spread to small towns, cities and states around the nation.

In the wake of community controversy over how to enforce the sweeping
federal antiterrorism law, Glenn A. Fine, the Justice Department's inspector general, released his third report Monday on alleged civil rights violations by department employees. Of the more than 1,000 complaints filed in a six-month period ending June 15, some three dozen, the IG says, warrant further inquiry.

The Justice Department heralded the report. According to The Washington Times, Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo said the numbers show the "majority of claims were found to be unsubstantiated," he said. "I would say that when you look at the number of complaints versus the number of credible allegations, it shows the system is actually working."

On the heels of the report's release, US Attorney General John Ashcroft said the law should be expanded, not softened, during a visit to Alaska's Antiterrorism Task Force, according to the Anchorage Daily News. The Anchorage Assembly and state Legislature have passed resolutions protesting the national anti-terrorism law, and protesters gathered nearby to mark the attorney general's visit.

Critics of the Patriot Act, on the other hand, say the report highlights the failures of the law to protect civil liberties. "This report shows there are more victims of John Ashcroft's war on the Constitution," Democratic Congressman John Conyers told The Australian. "Will the Justice Department ever admit that it has gone too far?"

Some observers are concerned that the number of complaints - unsubstantiated or not - has gone up, showing that either more abuse
is occurring or more people are speaking out against the act, reports
the Financial Times. In the first report - covering the period from
October 2001 to June 2002 - there were 483 complaints, of which just
nine were deemed serious enough to investigate. In the second period -
from June to December 2002 - there were 783 complaints and 33
investigations launched.

The Guardian notes that in the most recent investigation, 431 of the
complaints - nearly half of the cases forwarded to Fine - were found to be outside the inspector general's jurisdiction, since they mainly involve other federal agencies.

The release of the report coincided with a lawsuit filed by FBI special agent Bassem Youssef, an American of Egyptian descent, who claims his career has been stymied because of discrimination at the bureau.

Communities throughout the nation remain divided on the issue. A local newspaper in Mount Shasta, California, the Record-Searchlight, reports that the city council there will not consider a citizens' group's proposal to bar police from complying with the USA Patriot Act.

In Springfield, Oregon, the local station KVAL-13 reports that emotions are running high due to the resolution the town passed condemning the Patriot Act. In addition to the string of communities staging a revolt against the act, three states - including Vermont, Hawaii, and Alaska - have also passed resolutions.

Mohamed Nimer, director of research at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), says that ignorance is "rampant" in America and is among the reasons for a 15 percent increase in anti-Muslim violence, discrimination and harassment in 2002, according to a Reuters article appearing in Jihad Unspun.

In a report issued this month, Mr. Nimer said anger about the September 11, 2001 attacks and "discriminatory" government policies like the USA Patriot Act have made the US a risky place for Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim to live.

Others call such reports "hysteria." Evan McCormick, in FrontPageMagazine.com, writes that the CAIR report is overblown. "Any
reader with an ounce of skepticism and faith in the Bush administration's intentions will see that the CAIR report offers no evidence that the administration's policies have been designed to target individuals of Muslim origin explicitly."

The debate is heating up at a local level. Take a city council meeting in Springfield, Oregon. "We face genuine and real threats to our security here in Oregon," said Gary Vandermeere, in support of the act's provisions. Nadia Sindi, who says she has been the victim of anti-Arab hate crimes since 9/11, retorted: "We don't have any freedom. We don't have any civil rights. We are so scared."