{"id":9211,"date":"2004-03-07T16:36:51","date_gmt":"2004-03-07T20:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wtb.org\/?p=9211"},"modified":"2019-01-23T16:29:06","modified_gmt":"2019-01-23T20:29:06","slug":"threats-to-civil-liberties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/?p=9211","title":{"rendered":"Threats to Civil Liberties"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Betsy Wiggins, WTB co-chair,\nreminded the group that a year ago federal agents raided about 150 Muslim homes\nlocally as she introduced the program on civil liberties. The first speaker was\nMagda Bayoumi<\/strong>, WTB Council member\nand one of the subjects of the February 2003 raids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magda said during the interrogations the FBI agents asked Muslims about\u00a0 their faith and how they practiced it\u2014questions she thought inappropriate. While she reported that the agents said they weren\u2019t targeting Muslims, \u201cAs a Muslim I know I was targeted. The only reason I was targeted is because I was a Muslim.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magda also noted wryly that\nwhen the federal agents came to her home they asked for her husband, when in\nfact she was the one active with the charity under investigation. \u201cI signed\nevery check, I drove my car to the banquet. My husband didn\u2019t know anything\nabout what I\u2019m doing. But they came to ask for him. They think the Muslim men\nare the terrorists and women are backwards!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barrie Gewanter<\/strong>, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union for this region, described recent threats to civil liberties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The theme of Barrie\u2019s\npresentation can be summed up in her statement: \u201cthe Bill of Rights is slowly\nbeing shredded through actions of our own government.\u201d The ACLU is a national\norganization fighting since the 1920s to protect the Bill of Rights and the U.S.\nConstitution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barrie confirmed that\ntargeting of local Muslims is not unusual. The ACLU has found that nationwide\nfederal authorities \u201care enforcing the law with more zealousness against\nMuslims.\u201d She said federal authorities are using a \u201cdragnet\u201d approach of raids\nand interrogations around the country. Barrie said generally authorities should\nhave some suspicion before they interrogate someone, but in these recent cases,\n\u201cthe authorities don\u2019t have a suspicion that any of the families had anything\nto do with terrorism and crime.\u201d She said the approach is much broader than it\nneeds to be. As a comparison, she noted that the greatest previous terrorist\nincident in the U.S. occurred with the bombing of the federal building in\nOklahoma City. While it was done by a white man from upstate New York,\nex-military, and raised Catholic, the authorities then didn\u2019t target all white\nRoman Catholic men in upstate New York! She said the national ACLU will soon be\npublishing a report on racial profiling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barrie then explained the\nhighlights of the Patriot Act that passed in September 2001, with unusual speed\n\u2013 only 45 days after September 11.  She\nbelieves the Act is too broad in what it allows and that it unfairly harms civil\nliberties. Key points she outlined:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

+It amends 25 different laws\nin 10 sections totaling 342 pages. It gives government enhanced surveillance\npowers and abilities to detain non-citizens. It\u2019s very complicated and complex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

+The Patriot Ac made what\nBarrie called \u201cradical\u201d changes to the rights of free speech, privacy, the\naccused, and guarantees of Equal Protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

+It passed at a scary and\ndifficult time amidst the anthrax scare when many Congress members didn\u2019t have\naccess to their offices. Few had read it. The Senate didn\u2019t debate it and\npassed it with one dissent. The House came up with a compromise bill but the\nleadership substituted the Bush-administration written Senate bill the night\nbefore and the House passed that with only 66 dissents.  \u201cMost didn\u2019t know what they were passing\nbecause of the pressure,\u201d Barrie explained. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

+The Act created a new definition for terrorism to include domestic\nterrorism. She handed out one of the legal definitions and explained that\npeople who protest or dissent could now be investigated, arrested and\ninterrogated as domestic terrorists. She noted that the recent peace rally in\nSyracuse that spilled over into the streets might have met the criteria for\n\u201cdomestic terrorism.\u201d She finds the definition is so broad that it could cover\ngroups across the spectrum from Greenpeace to Operation Rescue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

+The guidelines for domestic\nspying are changed from \u201cevidence that criminal activity is ongoing\u201d to ability\nfor the FBI to surveil social, political or religious groups \u201cif an investigatory\nopportunity would be lost.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

+The roles of the secret\n\u201cFISA court\u201d are expanded from oversight of spies to criminal investigations of\nterrorist activities. The standard of \u201cprobable cause\u201d to get a warrant has\nbeen made easier with a lesser standard of merely \u201crelevant\u201d to an\ninvestigation. She added that the court has never rejected a warrant request\nsince 1978 and has only modified a warrant five times. Since the Patriot Act\nthe number of requests for such warrants has doubled. The person served with\nthe warrant can\u2019t talk about it, so for example if a librarian is given a\nsearch warrant for a person\u2019s library records the librarian can\u2019t tell anyone\nabout it, and if s\/he does, s\/he is subject to a felony. \u201cYou have secrecy on\ntop of secrecy,\u201d Barrie said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can we do? Barrie\nsuggested that WTB members who are concerned join the ACLU Bill of Rights\ncampaign. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kathleen Rumpf <\/strong>then spoke about the horrific conditions that prisoners face in our\nnation\u2019s jails and prisons. A local jail ministry worker, Kathleen has been\nworking for years as a human rights activist and an anti-nuke activist.\nAuthorities have arrested her more than 100 times, and she has spent many\nmonths in prison for her \u201cact of conscience\u201d activities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have so many stories\u2026real\npain and suffering,\u201d she said. \u201cWe don\u2019t see these stories.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople being brutalized in\nprison,\u201d she said. \u201cThe environment fosters so much negativity and abuse.\nJailers are placed in a horrible circumstances.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her last prison stint came\nafter a protest at the School of the Americas in Georgia, a U.S. facility that\ntrains military from other countries. Authorities charged her with destruction\nof government property. She received a sentence of a year in prison and asked\nto go as the poor go, so she was transported for four months through many\nprisons. These months included more than 60 strip searches (which are sometimes\nassaults), middle-of-the night departures and exhausting travel. She finally\narrived at a in a maximum-security prison in Texas served the rest of her\nsentence. \u201cI am classified as a domestic terrorist,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What she saw in this journey\nwas, she said, \u201cunbelievable.\u201d She saw 14 women die in the 10 months she was in\nthe Texas prison. \u201cA lot of women were sick. If you got a lump in your breast\nyou were told it was a pulled muscle…many women weren\u2019t diagnosed until later\nstages.\u201d She told the story of a Jamaican woman, Shirley, who came in to the\nprison health and then \u201cdeteriorated right before my eyes.\u201d Shirley\ncontracted  some type of upper\nrespiratory condition. One night Kathleen heard her begging the guard for help.\nShirley died the next day. She said another prisoner, upon release, immediately\ngot admitted to a hospital where physicians had to amputate her leg because it\nhad not been treated properly in prison. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several years ago, Kathleen\nwas the first to document the practice of shackling of prisoner in Syracuse\u2019s\nPublic Safety Building. She explained how long it took her to get people to\nbelieve it was really happening. Her research, along with the advocacy of\nPhysicians for Human Rights and a 60 Minutes expose, ended the practice and a\nnew jail has been built. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t care\u2026prison is a\nbusiness. it\u2019s all about money.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said she believes many\nof the women she met in prison don\u2019t belong there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kathleen said she was going\nto be held in prison for two more years (at a cost, she said, of $200,000 to\ntaxpayers) for not paying her fines when actor Martin Sheen paid her way out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kathleen concluded by saying\nthat work with prisoners is \u201cthe most neglected work of mercy.\u201d She says in\ndoing work with jail ministry she believes people learn about their \u201cown\nignorance, prejudices and hardness of hearts\u2026. It is we who are saved. \u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the presentations, one woman asked \u201cwhat can we do?\u201d Barrie urged her to get involved and speak out. \u201cWhen I speak about the poor \u2013 [elected officials say] it\u2019s just \u2018those radicals,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cGo up and speak in front of the legislators. They don\u2019t expect regular people to speak out against injustice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women were also encouraged\nto support the local jail ministry that trains people to go visit in the jail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another woman suggested that\nwomen copy these notes and send them to five other women, with personal\ncomments about concerns. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An ACLU representative stated that “the Bill of Rights is slowly being shredded through actions of our own government,” and a prison activist described the deplorable conditions she witnessed of women inmates. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-9211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-programs","tag-advocacy",""],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9211"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9224,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9211\/revisions\/9224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}