October 3, 2001: Ensuring a Safe and Free Society

Dear Friends,

We are working closely with our National ACLU Legislative Office as they review and analyze the pending anti-terrorist legislation. We are urging Congress to be thoughtful and deliberative as it considers permanent changes to intelligence, criminal and immigration laws contained in the anti-terrorism legislation. During this period we will send you information about the legislation and talking points, and ask that you contact your elected officials as soon as possible so that they begin to hear about the inherent problems with certain provisions in the bill.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) have announced "compromise" anti-terrorism legislation that contains many provisions that go far beyond the powers necessary to fight terrorism on American soil. The legislation still includes provisions that would weaken essential checks and balances that have made our democracy strong.

Specifically, the compromise bill -- the "Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (PATRIOT)" (H.R. 2975) -- contains troubling provisions that would permit indefinite detention of a non-citizen ordered deported to a country that would not accept him or her, minimize judicial supervision of electronic surveillance by law enforcement authorities and allow intelligence agencies to spy on U.S. citizens by providing them enhanced access to sensitive information about them.

Terror, by its very nature, is intended not only to destroy, but also to intimidate a people, forcing them to take actions that are not in their best interest. We must not be intimidated. Congress must not let terrorism win by weakening essential checks and balances on the authority of federal law enforcement.

Please contact your Congressperson and urge him not to support the legislation until the troubling provisions are removed. If your representative is William Jenkins, please contact him by tomorrow. He serves on the House Judiciary Committee, which will hear the bill in the next day or two.

Talking points and contact information (omitted for web) follow.

The Attorney General must not be permitted to indefinitely detain people who the government has been unable to deport.

Incarceration of individuals is one of the most serious deprivations of liberty possible. When such a substantial liberty interest is at stake, the Constitution demands that adequate protection -- due process -- is provided to ensure that decisions are correct and fair. While the PATRIOT Act would not permit indefinite detention of all non-citizens the Attorney General has certified are a risk to national security, it would permit indefinite incarceration of non-citizens who have been ordered deported, but who the government has failed to remove. The Supreme Court recently ruled that such indefinite detention raises serious constitutional concerns.

The government must not be given expanded wiretap authority without close judicial oversight.

The wiretapping proposals in the PATRIOT Act sound a common theme: they minimize the role of a judge in ensuring that law enforcement wiretapping is conducted legally and with proper justification. Law enforcement authorities -- even when they are required to obtain court orders -- have great leeway under current law to investigate suspects in terrorist attacks. Security and civil liberties do not have to be at odds so long as the checks and balances that have made our democracy strong remain in place.

Intelligence agencies must not be given broad access to sensitive
information about U.S. citizens and residents.

While sharing of sensitive or confidential information may be appropriate in the case of international terrorism investigations, it should only be done with strict safeguards. The PATRIOT act would allow intelligence agencies, such as the CIA, to obtain information about U.S. citizens and residents without imposing meaningful limits on the future use or dissemination of that information. Without such limitations, these agencies would be put back in the business of spying on Americans for "intelligence" purposes, as was done during the Vietnam War.