/RELIGIOUS BULLETIN 1/ UNITED STATES: One Year After Oklahoma Bombing, Terrorism Bill Plods On

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Apr 14 1996 (IPS) - One of the first measures the U.S. Senate passed in the wake of last year’s bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City was a bill critics claimed could drastically increase federal investigations of unpopular groups.

Now, the Omnibus Counter-terrorism Bill faces votes in both the Senate and House of Representatives next week, with the anniversary of the Oklahoma massacre uppermost in politicians’ minds. And various groups — from civil libertarians to the weapons lobby — worry the bill still gives the government too much power to spy on suspected terrorists.

“It’s almost giving power to the government without accountability,” says Mary Ramadan, director of the legal department of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), a Washington lobby.

Ramadan says the bill — particularly the harsh Senate version, which now must be reconciled with a somewhat softer one passed by the House last month — could trample over many completely peaceful groups.

“This bill is so broad that it can be used against any group that is unpopular,” she says. Ramadan notes that “any group that has ever engaged in an act of political violence” can be designated as terrorist, even if it has since eschewed violence.

Critics have noted that the African National Congress, which now governs South Africa, would have fitted the bill’s definition of terrorist, as would the Palestine Liberation Organisation, a current U.S. ally.

Arab and Muslim groups especially worry that, despite numerous revisions, the legislation still discriminates against foreign groups.

Some critics say that such a focus is especially ironic, given that the suspected culprits behind the Oklahoma massacre — which had provided much of the bill’s impetus — are two right-wing U.S. militants, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols.

Last week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) nabbed another suspected right-wing terrorist, Theodore Kaczynski. Kaczynski is suspected of being the ‘Unabomber’, blamed for murdering three people and injuring 23 others with parcel bombs over the past two decades.

FBI officials also remain in a tight siege against the right- wing anti-government ‘Freemen’ group outside Jordan, Montana.

But the Senate and House bills, critics say, focus more on foreign groups. “Many of the provisions of the bill the House and Senate are likely to vote on next week target alleged acts of terrorism abroad, not domestically,” says Greg Nojeim, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Most importantly, Nojeim says, the bill would remove bars on FBI investigation of groups from abroad, even those which are believed to be involved in peaceful activities.

The Senate bill would also allow the U.S. president to designate terrorist groups, barring those groups from fund-raising and their members from obtaining U.S. visas, Nojeim notes. Although the House struck that provision from its version last month, Nojeim says the Senate language may be retained when the two versions are reconciled.

“The provisions are likely to have a disproportionate impact on Muslims and Arabs who fund legal, peaceful activities,” he argues.

Ramadan, however, says the bill is not directed against any specific group. The problem, she says, is that it may harm everyone by radically expanding FBI powers, particularly to obtain evidence from wiretaps and to collect private records outside of criminal investigations, even without a court order.

“People don’t know how much and how broad the authority already is for FBI wiretaps,” Ramadan argues.

The ACLU says that, in 1994, government agencies wiretapped some two million conversations — all legally under current guidelines. “Law enforcement has all the tools it needs right now to prevent and investigate crimes associated with terrorism,” Nojeim says.

Suspected terrorists from overseas may already be deported with cause under an executive order President Clinton issued in January 1995, targetting nine Arab and two Jewish groups. Moreover, Nojeim argues, the FBI and other agencies already have broad investigative powers to deal with terrorism.

But the Clinton administration contends the bill is necessary to protect the United States. U.S. civilians, says one State Department official on condition of anonymity, have been “the deliberate target of terrorist murderers in such attacks as the (1993) World Trade Centre Bombing, (the 1988 bombing) over Lockerbie, in Lebanon and on the high seas.”

When the Apr 19, 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, in which 167 people died, is commemorated next week, politicians likely will be able to play upon fears of further attacks.

Politics, Ramadan says, is what has pushed the bill along over the past two years, despite legal and political challenges from the left and right alike. In an election year, she contends, its passage is certain.

“I think this is going to be one of those things that people look back on with regret,” says Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “Anyone who takes an act of any sort, violent or not, could be labelled a ‘terrorist’ and dealt with accordingly.”

“Mere innocence isn’t enough under this bill,” Nojeim adds.