No Spy Zone

Pulp, December 5, 2003

On December 2, just up the street from the nearly two hundred people who began to gather outside the Weston hotel in downtown Pittsburgh to protest Bush's policies during his million dollar fundraising visit, City Council heard comments from the public on why the city should pass a resolution against one of the Bush administration's most radical bills- the USA PATRIOT Act.

The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act is 342 pages of legislation, proposed by Attorney General John Ashcroft and passed by Congress with little debate and passed so quickly that few members of Congress had an opportunity to even read the bill. The bill permits the Attorney General to incarcerate or detain immigrants indefinitely based only on suspicion and gives the FBI and many other intelligence agencies access to personal medical, financial, and student records, expanding the government's ability to search private property without notice to the owner. Most of these provisions do not apply only to investigations of terrorism, but to all federal investigations.

For example, the FBI which was recently exposed by The New York Times as collecting extensive information on the tactics, training and organization of antiwar demonstrators could have the power to obtain an activist's financial records, medical histories, Internet usage, bookstore purchases, library usage, travel patterns, or any other activity that leaves a record. They don't have to show evidence that the individual is a terrorist agent or even a reasonable suspicion that the records are related to criminal activity. All they need to do is state that the request is related to an ongoing terrorism or foreign intelligence investigation, which they can do without providing evidence to a judge. Under the USA PATRIOT Act "domestic terrorism" is defined so broadly that it might include groups like Greenpeace, which engage in civil disobedience. However, few people know how the act is being implemented, including members of Congress, because the Justice Department has not released many of its records that should be public. Many are worried that the FBI will use these new powers to harass activists as it did to civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King in the 1960's and 1970s.

The City Council resolution, which was proposed by the Pittsburgh Bill of Rights Defense Committee (PBORDC) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and sponsored by council members Gene Ricciardi and Bill Peduto, would direct that municipal resources not be used to enforce various provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act. The city council's resolution does not ask the police to break the law, but directs them not to use powers they may have been granted by the act. Similarly, it recommends that libraries and businesses, who now under the USA PATRIOT Act are not allowed to inform a person if records on that person are being obtained by federal agents, to regularly destroy records of what items individuals have purchased or checked out, in particular books, in order to protect intellectual privacy rights.

The city council resolution is mostly a symbolic act and not a law, but its supporters believe that it is an important way to show that that much of the public is against the Patriot Act. According to Tim Vining, executive director of the Thomas Merton Center in his statement at the public hearing before city council, "Yes it is symbolic. But it is a symbol with an official stamp behind it, which makes it stronger."

If city council passes the resolution when they vote on it on December 10, Pittsburgh will become the 222nd municipality to pass a resolution opposing the USA PATRIOT Act and the fourth city in Pennsylvania, following Reading, Lansdowne, and Philadelphia. On November 19, Wilkinsburg passed a resolution against the USA PATRIOT Act as well.

"We were concerned with the erosion of civil and democratic rights," says Wilkinsburg Council person Denise Edwards. "Homeland security begins at home. If they're really concerned about homeland security, they should help improve the capabilities of first responders [to emergencies]. "

According to Allison Smith of the PBOR DC, the resolution was supposed to have been voted on at the council meeting on December 2, but some last minute concerns with the wording of the resolution postponed the vote.

"Minor changes to the text of the resolution are fine with the PBRODC who have been working on getting a resolution passed since April. But according to Smith, "We don't want them to change the substance. We want to make sure that they pass the resolution that we presented them."