The College of Public and Community Service (CPCS) organized a forum discussing the “USA Patriot Act”, which was held on September 25. The USA Patriot Act is a hefty acronym that stands for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.” The discussion was aimed to analyze the bill from the perspective of university faculty and students. Issues such as the administration spying on library users and international students were raised. Also discussed were restrictions on academic freedom in general, due to the danger of sounding unpatriotic.
Moderator Ismael Ramirez-Soto, dean of CPCS, began by outlining some of the major concerns about the bill and raising the question “How free will we be to speak truth to power?” He invited Nancy Murray, Director of the Bill of Rights Education Project and representative of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), to elaborate on the Patriot Act.
She gave an impressive synopsis pointing out how America’s constitutional checks and balances, and Bill of Rights protection are diminished by the act. Weeks after September 11, Attorney General John Ashcroft pressed Congress to adopt an overly sweeping first draft of the bill in only three days, too little time for members to even read it.
Many concerns stem from the bill’s broad definition of “domestic terrorism”. This is any activity that involves acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of criminal laws of the US or of any state, appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, to influence the policy of government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping. It seems that even Americans engaged in civil disobedience may be charged with domestic terrorism.
The bill also gives the executive branch of the government new powers in detention and surveillance while denying courts any regulation over them. Lawful First Amendment activity, such as freedom to exercise religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of assembly, can now be secretly investigated for “intelligence purposes”.
Fourth Amendment protection of privacy is undermined by the removal of barriers between intelligence and law enforcement agencies. This expands the ability of authorities to spy through wiretaps, perform computer surveillance, access medical, financial, business and educational records, and execute secret searches of homes and offices.
In less than a month after September 11 well over a thousand men of Middle Eastern descent were locked up, but never found to have links with the attack. This was made possible by the bill, which allows for non-citizens to be detained indefinitely without conviction, in violation of the Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment, they are simply charged by the INS and then seemingly forgotten. If detainees are to be deported but no country will take them, they may be imprisoned for life here in the US. This may be the fate of a Palestinian citizen who was denied right of return by Israel. Unfortunately little is known about detainees because the Justice Department has constantly refused to give information including their names and whereabouts, even after they were ordered to do so by a court of law.
Furthermore, these are only the tip of the iceberg. Much of the administration’s action in “anti-terrorism” has been decreed right out of the Attorney General’s office and is not part of the Patriot Act.
Since September 11, the government has been monitoring communications between federal detainees and their lawyers, which doubtlessly hampers their communication. It is also reported that 7000 men were called in for questioning by the justice department because they “fit a profile.”
Daniel Ortiz, associate director of the UMass library, brought some of these issues to light while discussing the Bush administration’s prying eye over what the nation has been reading. Ortiz explained, “Federal agents can now obtain a warrant to acquire information about library users,” and that, “Any librarian that receives an FBI visit is prohibited, under threat of prosecution, from revealing it to anyone, even the patron whose records are subject to search.” According to a recent survey, agents have been showing up at libraries a lot.
Michael Mahan, coordinator of international students at UMass Boston, discussed the new Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) that the Bush administration has ordered. SEVIS, which must be fully operational by January 2003, is a tracking system for foreign students. Universities will have to report the names, addresses, enrollment status, and majors of international students.
Olga Murcia, an international student and political science major at UMass Boston, raised a pertinent question of how the university plans to make “the classroom an environment where students feel comfortable expressing their political opinion and not be worried about who is listening or who may report them” and whether papers written by students “can be used against them at some point.” The panelists felt that there was no surety that students would not be investigated and that these concerns needed to be addressed.
CPCS professor Ann Withorn also took the podium to convey her experience of the witch-hunt. Law enforcement agents arrived at her door several months ago to investigate a report from an anonymous caller. In an article in Sojourner published in April titled “Almost Terrorists, 1970”, Ann relayed her experiences as an activist in her youth and detailed an incident where she and some friends had contemplated throwing a bomb at the National Guard’s Armory to protest their killing four black students. Admitting this thought was apparently grounds for someone to report her. When asked why she wrote the piece, she explained that, as a writer and teacher she “wants people to think complexly”, and that the group was never violent and anyhow was no longer in existence.
“An anonymous complaint, about a published article, by a writer who makes no attempt to conceal her identity, should not generate a home visit. To conduct such a face-to-face inquiry was inappropriate, chilling and threatening to free speech and freedom of the press,” Withorn said.