Americans will go to the polls today to express their views on
such issues as counterterrorism, the war in Iraq and the economy,
but for some voters, the most important issue will be the fate of
civil liberties under the USA Patriot Act.
The act, which passed almost unanimously just six weeks after
Sept. 11, 2001 without a public hearing in Congress, codified
previously gray areas of law enforcement and information gathering
and initiated a massive rethinking of immigration law.
Last Wednesday, a day after the third anniversary of the
act’s passage, a group largely comprised of Muslim students
filed into Kerckhoff Hall, fresh from breaking their daylight fast
in observance of Ramadan and itching to discuss a perceived assault
on their Fourth Amendment rights.
The presentation, titled “The Realities Behind the Patriot
Act,” was hosted by the Academic Affairs Commission of the
undergraduate student government, the Muslim Student Association
and the United Arab Society.
Speaker Ban Al-Wardi, president of the Southern California
chapter of the Anti-Discrimination Committee, talked to the
students about the act and its impact on Muslim communities as well
as her own family.
Al-Wardi said that FBI agents came to her home and the homes of
many in her community, sometimes carrying guns and tape
recorders.
“They put a map of Iraq on the wall and asked my father,
who immigrated from Iraq 30 years ago, “˜In which cities do
you think it would be possible for weapons of mass destruction to
be hidden?'” Al-Wardi said.
She added that the FBI had said they got useful information from
these house-to-house interviews, though a spokesman for the FBI
declined to comment on the specifics.
Al-Wardi doubted the value of the interviews, saying, “If
they were asking the same kinds of questions as (they asked) my
father, I don’t know what kind of information they were
getting.”
Ahmed Younis, the national director of the Muslim Public Affairs
Council and another speaker, said the people in charge of law
enforcement “have no idea how to protect our
country.”
Though proponents of civil rights criticize its potential
invasiveness, law enforcement officials stress the importance of
the act’s provisions for inter-departmental cooperation to
the counterterrorism effort. The act has allowed more involved
information gathering, such as roving wire taps, which allow the
FBI to follow a subject who attempts to thwart surveillance by
constantly switching cell phones.
“It has made our jobs easier and much more
efficient,” said the FBI spokesman, “and it removes
some administrative hurdles.”
Recent Department of Justice reports cite Patriot Act successes
such as the capture of an Oregon terror cell known as the
“Portland Seven,” whose members had attempted to travel
to Afghanistan to take up arms against coalition forces.
The Patriot Act allowed prosecutors to collect information they
previously would have had to arrest people to obtain, an action
that could have alerted potential suspects.
But some people believe the security gains could have been made
without perceived infringements on their civil liberties, and the
issue may have huge implications in today’s election.
Younis said recent polls indicated that Muslims would
“overwhelmingly” vote for Sen. John Kerry.
This represents a dramatic change from the 2000 election, in
which, according to exit polls, 72 percent of Muslims voted for
President Bush. This gave him a net gain of approximately 64,000
votes in Florida alone.
It has been speculated that Muslim voters, who have historically
voted for Democratic candidates, changed sides when Bush offered to
put a stop to the use of “secret evidence,” a policy
employed by the Clinton administration that allowed government
agencies to bring criminal charges in highly sensitive cases
without releasing the evidence ““ even to the judge.
Younis explained the move away from Bush, saying most Muslims
“don’t agree with the way the President has pursued
counterterrorism at home and abroad.”
Kerry, who was one of the 99 senators that voted for the act,
has expressed dissatisfaction with the way the administration has
implemented the act.
“We need to be stronger on terrorism. But you know what we
also need to do as Americans is never let the terrorists change the
Constitution in a way that disadvantages our rights,” Kerry
said during this year’s second presidential debate.
Kerry has also expressed concern over the implications of a
possible Patriot II Act, and he wrote in his book, “A Call To
Service,” that he would veto such an act if it were
passed.
Regardless of the winner of the election, Younis emphasized that
it was the responsibility of every community to “check the
government at every stage” and to “put them on notice
that we not sitting here idly allowing (them) to violate our
constitutional rights.”