Communities Defend
Civil Liberties

by Shenna Bellows

"Special registration tears families apart," said Suman Raghunathan of the New York Immigration Coalition at a protest in New York City. Special registration is the program that required men from most Arab and/or Muslim countries to register annually with the government.

More than 235 communities have now passed measures urging a rollback of the liberty-threatening policies and laws put in place by the Bush administration since Sept. 11. Numerous Bill of Rights defense committees, unions, immigrant rights and other grassroots groups have sprung up to fight Bush's curbs on civil liberties as well.

This growing movement has bolstered the resolve of the courts and Congress to preserve our freedoms. And it has forced the administration to shelve some of its most outrageous proposals, such as "Operation TIPS" (Terrorist Information and Prevention System)--a program to organize people to spy on their neighbors.

This popular resistance has also so far prevented the White House from placing its pernicious USA Patriot Act II before Congress.

Washington claims that these resolutions are passing only in "liberal college towns." But the states, cities, towns and counties that make up this movement include large urban areas such as Broward County, Florida and remote rural outposts like Castle Valley, Utah. The cities of Detroit, Denver, Chicago, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Baltimore, Seattle and most recently, Atlanta have also passed similar measures.

Members of Congress are feeling the heat of this grassroots movement, as became clear last fall when they debated the 2004 intelligence authorization bill.

The bill contained a provision permitting the FBI and other government agencies to issue their own "national security letters"--essentially, their own subpoenas to demand confidential records from businesses.

Spending bills like this one normally pass easily and almost unanimously. But this time, under pressure from a national grassroots movement, more than a third of the House of Representatives voted against it.

BUSH BACKS DOWN

Although the bill passed, the movement has forced the administration to soft-pedal or even abandon other plans to limit civil liberties. In December 2003, the administration suspended its "Special Registration" program, which required men from certain Arab or Muslim countries to register annually with the government.

Many groups have mounted campaigns against surveillance programs like the Total Information Awareness system, which would have been enabled the government to keep an electronic file on every American filled with the details of their lives. Public outcry forced the administration to back off of this plan.

Another movement target is the administration's designation of U.S. citizens as "enemy combatants," that allowed the government to detain such people indefinitely without access to a lawyer, without charge and without trial.

A federal appeals court this fall issued a stinging rebuke to the federal government in the case of José Padilla. The government has been holding Padilla incommunicado and without charges, based on allegations that he had planned to explode a "dirty bomb."

In January 2004, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi, another U.S. citizen who was labeled an "enemy combatant," and may take on the Padilla case as well.

The high court also agreed to hear a case challenging the U.S.'s inhumane treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Further challenges to civil liberties will undoubtedly continue. In January, for example, the Department of Homeland Security began fingerprinting and photographing most non-Europeans who enter this country with a visa. In response, we can expect to see more communities and organizations joining the fight to protect civil liberties.

Shenna Bellows works with the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington, D.C.

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