RIGHTS-U.S.: Broad Coalition Forms to Defend Civil Liberties

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Sep 20 2001 (IPS) - Growing concern about the domestic impact of last week’s terrorist attacks moved an extraordinarily broad coalition of groups Thursday to vow a fight against government efforts to curb the civil liberties of U.S. citizens and foreign residents.

The new coalition, calling itself ‘In Defence of Freedom’, consists of more than 150 national groups ranging across the political spectrum. It assailed initial moves by the U.S. administration to restrict the rights of immigrants, as well as many provisions of a 44-page Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001′ submitted to Congress late Wednesday.

The proposed act’s provisions, unveiled by Attorney General John Ashcroft, would, among other effects, make it much easier for law- enforcement authorities to wiretap phone and computer lines, obtain personal information, and detain or deport non-U.S. citizens on the basis of secret evidence with limited or no judicial review.

The proposed act also would broaden the definition of ’terrorist” to include anyone who provides material support to a terrorist organisation, even if that person may not necessarily have actually known that it was a terrorist group.

’There has been a rush to change our nation’s laws without any meaningful opportunity for deliberation or debate on how either our security or our freedom would be affected,” said Anthony Romero, director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a coalition member.

’We must take action (against terrorism) û but we must take appropriate measures that increase our safety while protecting basic freedoms and liberties,” Romero added.

In presenting the administration’s bill, Ashcroft urged Congress to approve it as early as this weekend. But senior lawmakers, including members of the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives, say they want more time to consider the recommendations.

In addition, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy, has already introduced an alternative bill which, while it incorporates some of the measures proposed by Ashcroft, would deny the government similar sweeping powers.

’If we’re going to make changes (to the law) because of an emergency, we have to be very careful,” he said. ’If we shred the constitution, the terrorists win.”

The United States has a long history of responding to national emergencies by giving the government unprecedented powers, many of which clearly violated basic constitutional rights. President Abraham Lincoln, for example, suspended habeas corpus in the initial stages of the U.S. Civil War, while in World War I, anti- war protestors were arrested for distributing leaflets opposed to the military draft.

The most famous abrogation of constitutional rights followed Washington’s declaration of war against Japan after Tokyo’s 1941 attack on the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbour. Tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans were rounded up and interned without trial for as long as four years in remote areas around the country.

’History has shown us that, in past times of national calamity, civil rights and civil liberties fall victim to the crisis just as surely as the human victims whose loss we all grieve,” said Wade Henderson, director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, which itself has a membership of some 180 national organisations.

The In Defense of Freedom’ coalition, he added, ’has been formed with the hope that the aftermath of last week’s tragedy will be the exception.”

It includes groups that, in many cases, have never before come together under one umbrella. It includes, for example, such Left- leaning and liberal groups as People for the American Way (PAW), the National Lawyers Guild, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, as well as organisations and personalities considered to be on the far Right of the U.S. political spectrum. These include the Free Congress Foundation, the Eagle Forum, the Gun Owners of America, and Americans for Tax Reform.

’We cannot, and must not, allow our constitutional freedoms to become victims of these violent attacks,” declared Bob Barr, a House of Representatives Republican and former member of the ultra- conservative John Birch Society who came to national prominence in his single-minded pursuit of the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton.

Right-wing groups were staunch supporters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) during the Cold War but have become increasingly suspicious of federal law-enforcement agencies over the past decade, particularly after the 1991 federal raid that ended in a lethal conflagration at the Branch Davidian compound of David Koresh outside Waco, Texas. They also are concerned about federal gun-control legislation.

Other coalition members include the American Bar Association; Islamic organisations; human rights groups including the U.S. section of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights; the National Black Police Association; several electronic privacy groups; the National Council of Churches; and a large number of Asian- and Arab- American organisations.

Mort Halperin, a senior national security official in the Clinton administration, said he expected most Jewish-American groups, which have been celebrating the Jewish New Year during the past several days, to join shortly.

The coalition released ten principles on which all groups were in accord. They called on all citizens to ensure that any measures to enhance security against terrorism ’not erode the liberties and freedoms that are at the core of the American way of life” and are ’taken in a manner consistent with the constitution.”

They demanded that the ’right of peaceful dissent” be defended and that any effort ’to target people because of their race, religion, ethnic background, or appearance, including immigrants in general, Arab Americans and Muslims” be resisted.

Last week’s terrorist strikes in New York and Washington, blamed by the administration on Islamist militants associated with Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, sparked attacks by individuals on mosques and suspected Muslims at various sites around the country. In a number of cases, the victims have not been Muslims.

Top administration officials have strongly denounced these attacks, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and local law enforcement agencies have vowed to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators. Bush himself visited the most prominent mosque in Washington to convey his support to the U.S. Muslim community, which numbers some 6.5 million people.

Coalition leaders praised the administration for taking these steps but warned that some provisions included in Ashcroft’s bill would almost certainly affect Arab-American and Muslim citizens and immigrants disproportionately.