Officials push bill to repeal provisions of U.S. Patriot Act
Originally published in The Michigan Daily
Officials push bill to repeal provisions of U.S. Patriot Act
By Andrew Kaplan, Daily Staff Reporter
October 02, 2003
As the government seeks greater power to track and arrest terrorist suspects, several federal and local officials have mustered counterefforts to guard citizens against unlawful investigations in judicial procedures.
Hoping to limit the scope of federal investigative agencies, two U.S. congressmen have introduced a bill that would repeal several provisions of the 2001 USA Patriot Act. The act allows the government to police terrorist suspects through secret searches, increased access to classified records and prolonged detentions.
Among lawmakers and activists who support the new bill - known as the "Benjamin Franklin True Patriot Act" and authored by U.S. Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Ron Paul (R-Texas) - U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Detroit) has pledged his sponsorship. Michigan branches of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People have also voiced their favor for repealing sections of the original Patriot Act.
Passed shortly after Sept. 11, 2001 to ease the apprehension of terrorists, the act gives government agencies sweeping powers.
"We're very concerned that the (original) Patriot Act has gone too far too fast," said Michigan ACLU spokeswoman Wendy Wagenheim, adding that the ACLU has urged Michigan residents to contact their state and federal legislators to protest the 2001 act.
Citing an "unprecedented assault on the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights" as a result of the original Patriot Act, Kucinich, a candidate for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, revealed the new legislation in a press conference last Wednesday.
"He's making this a key piece of the campaign platform," said David Swanson, press secretary for Kucinich's presidential campaign. "We do not need to strip ourselves of the Bill of Rights to protect ourselves against terrorism."
If passed, the Kucinich-Paul bill will roll back 10 main points of the 2001 Patriot Act - including secret property seizures, expanded grounds for deportation of terrorist suspects and a broadened definition of domestic terrorism. The bill also seeks to mandate a review period before Congress can enact new sections of the 2001 act and challenges federal policies calling for local law authorities to enforce immigration law.
"The local law enforcement doesn't really have that power, but they've been asked by the federal government to do those things in their communities," Wagenheim said. "That's work that the FBI or the (Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services) should be doing."
Aside from Paul, no other Republican has sponsored the True Patriot Act. But at the local level, leaders of the University College Republicans have expressed support for Bush's legislation.
"The (Patriot Act) is a good piece of legislation," said Steve MacGuidwin, co-president of the College Republicans. "Just from speaking the party line and what I understand, the Patriot Act itself is not unconstitutional, it's just bringing our current justice code up with the times. In this day and age we have such a threat by terrorists, they can coordinate an attack in less than an hour."
Although several challenges to the Patriot Act have reached Congress since 2001 - including a House repeal of the secret search clause - the Michigan ACLU was the first organization to dispute the act in court.
"We have a lawsuit that we filed on one of the provisions - the first constitutional challenge to the Patriot Act on section 215," Wagenheim said, referring to a section of the act granting the government access to classified personal documents, such as medical records and business files.
To push repeals of the Patriot Act, the ACLU has appealed to municipalities to not assist the government in detaining aliens or terrorist suspects. Along with Ann Arbor, 160 cities have passed legislation ensuring "that local officials are upholding the constitution," Wagenheim said.
Along with the 19 other sponsors of the Kucinich-Paul bill, Conyers said the Bush administration overstepped its authority in pushing certain points of the 2001 act.
"Time and again, the Ashcroft Justice Department has demonstrated that it does not respect the constitutional rights and civil liberties of the American public," Conyers said in a written statement. "It is the Attorney General's shameful record that has forced those of us in Congress to take away those powers the department has not used responsibly."
Because many terrorist organizations monitored by the government are Islamic-based or of Middle Eastern origin, activists said the Patriot Act has mainly victimized Arabs and Muslims. Officials added that southeast Michigan, with its particularly high concentration of Arab- and Iraqi-Americans, has seen more civil rights violations as a result of the 2001 act than any other part of the state.
"Certainly we have a large reason to be more sensitive," Wagenheim said.
"The Patriot Act ... has definitely affected our community especially because it was introduced after 9/11 and has been used against some in our community," said national CAIR spokeswoman Rabiah Ahmed, referring to the Arab and Muslim community. "Many people have been arrested without evidence or any connection with criminal activity - some have been deported."
But Wagenheim added that the Patriot Act has come down hard on many ethnic groups.
"I think on the west side of the state we're seeing that the Hispanic community is being targeted," she said.
While early protests against the Patriot Act focused on protecting suspects of terrorism from civil liberties violations, recent arguments have accused the government of wrongly applying the Patriot Act to non-terrorist issues. A recent report from the U.S. Department of Justice cites more than a dozen instances where federal intelligence officials have invoked the Patriot Act to resolve issues not directly related to terrorism.
"The inspector general's report that came out earlier (last) month confirmed our other concern - that these laws were being used in ways they were not intended to - things like drug trafficking," Ahmed said.
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