By May Chow | AsianWeek Staff Writer
Politicians and activists banded together in solidarity on the steps of City Hall Monday to voice their opposition to the USA PATRIOT Act and to urge the city of San Francisco to support a resolution that would censure the act.
“The USA PATRIOT Act violates the U.S. Constitution, which includes such basic and fundamental rights as freedom of speech, religion, assembly and privacy, protection from unreasonable searches and seizures, due process,” said Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, who authored the resolution in December 2002. “We’re here today to support civil rights and to oppose the PATRIOT Act.”
The proposed resolution would instruct a city employee to refuse, where legally possible, to help the federal government investigate matters that would put a person’s civil liberties at risk.
“[N]o City employee or department shall officially assist or voluntarily cooperate with investigations, interrogations or arrest procedures, public or clandestine, that are in violation of individuals’ civil rights or civil liberties as specified in the above Amendments of the United States Constitution,” the resolution outlines.
It also states that the city “affirms its strong opposition to terrorism, but also affirms that any efforts to end terrorism not be waged at the expense of the fundamental civil rights and liberties of the people.”
“Nothing about the PATRIOT Act is patriotic,” said Dahlia Eltoumi, of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). “It doesn’t do any good to round up the usual suspects. This goes against everything that the U.S. stands for.”
Newly elected Board President Matt Gonzalez supported of the resolution despite the fact that San Francisco lagged in drafting a proclamation opposing the PATRIOT Act. If the resolution is passed, the city will join 23 other cities in declaring their dissent.
“It’s embarrassing to say that instead of being the first or second, we were the 24th in the nation,” said Gonzalez. “But the important thing now is that we’re doing something. I think this act was a way to push forward a conservative agenda rather than address a tragedy.”
Oakland, Berkeley, Santa Cruz and Sebastopol, as well as Denver and Cambridge, Mass., are all already on record condemning the act.
Members of the Northern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, La Raza Centro Legal and the Japanese American Citizens League were present at the rally.
“San Francisco is joining a growing national movement of towns and cities, including Petaluma and Davis, that oppose the USA PATRIOT Act and are gathering to reclaim their civil liberties and civil rights,” said Sanjeev Bery of the Northern California chapter of ACLU. “We’re sending a message to our government that our rights should not be taken lightly.”
Bery added that many immigrants find comfort in the United States because of the freedoms that are bestowed upon its citizens and residents.
“We need to keep the United States safe and free,” Berry said.
Victor Hwang, managing attorney for API Legal Outreach said Asian Pacific American community is familiar with issues of government restrictions, such as the Japanese internment camps and the round-up of Chinese Americans during the Cold War.
“We tend to become scapegoats in times of crisis,” Hwang said. “We’re calling upon the government to protect and defend those fundamental rights that are afforded to us in America. President Bush and John Ashcroft took oaths when they took office that they would do such things.”
On behalf of more than 400 APA organizations, API Legal Outreach is also calling for the removal of Ashcroft as U.S. attorney general.
San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi said his parents and grandparents were interned in camps and saw the effects it had on them. He, like Hwang, said the act would bring back a dark past.
“San Francisco needs to be a sanctuary for civil rights and we need to continue to be the battleground for human rights for all of us,” Adachi said.
Ana Loya, from La Raza Centro Legal, spoke loudly on the importance of the city fulfilling its duty in standing up against the act because it enforced immoral laws.
“This act promotes unfair treatment and silences dissent,” shouted Loya.
At Monday’s supervisors meeting, the resolution was the first item to be addressed. The floor was open to the public to make comments about the resolution. All but one speaker spoke in favor of it.
However, the resolution was tabled for one more week, and will be revisited at next week’s meeting. Supervisor Tony Hall, who has opposed the resolution from the beginning, requested the vote be put off for a week.
“There is no evidence that the PATRIOT Act has violated anybody’s civil rights,” Hall said. “Yet there is strong evidence to prove that we need such a law in existence in order to look at people who may be suspect, this is all about homeland security.”
The USA PATRIOT Act was enacted on Oct. 26, 2001— six weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The act contains sweeping provisions that expand the government’s authority to detain non-citizens as well as plant wiretaps, enter homes, search computers and carry out covert surveillance.
Reach May Chow at mchow@asianweek.com.
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