[Seattle-editorial] Fwd: Civil Liberties: A Sense of Crisis

[Sheri Herndon]

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Date: 10/17/03 1:06 AM
Received: 10/17/03 5:21 AM
From: ipamedia at nationalpress.com (Institute for Public Accuracy)
To: mediagen at lists.accuracy.org

Institute for Public Accuracy
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa at accuracy.org
___________________________________________________

	Friday, October 17, 2003

	Interviews Available

	Civil Liberties: A Sense of Crisis

    This weekend, hundred of grassroots activists and dozens of 
organizations are gathering for the "Grassroots America Defends the Bill of 
Rights" conference near Washington, D.C.

    Among the groups participating are the American Civil Liberties Union, 
the American Library Association, the Center for Democracy and Technology, 
the Council on American Islamic Relations, the National Lawyers Guild and 
People for the American Way. [Web page for the conference: 
<http://www.grassroots-america.org>]

    Interviews are available with legal analysts and grassroots activists 
at the conference including:

KIT GAGE, (301) 587-7442, cell: (301) 792-0109, kgage at igc.org, 
http://www.firstamend.org
Gage is director of the First Amendment Foundation, a key organizer of the 
conference. She said today: "This event represents an extraordinary 
collaboration and a turning point for the grassroots movement to defend the 
Bill of Rights."

DAVE MESERVE, cell: (707) 834-3612
Meserve -- an Arcata, Calif., city council member who helped pass one of 
the first ordinances opposing the "USA PATRIOT Act" -- will be honored at 
the conference.

NANCY TALANIAN, (via Mark Baven) cell: (413) 582-0110, ntalanian at bordc.org, 
http://www.bordc.org
In November 2001 a group of citizens in Northampton, Mass., formed the Bill 
of Rights Defense Committee and launched a national grassroots movement 
initiating the campaign for localities to declare themselves Civil 
Liberties Safe Zones. Since then, nearly 190 towns, cities and counties and 
three states have passed such resolutions. Talanian, director of the 
Committee, said today: "In six months, the number of resolutions has more 
than tripled." Among the group's specific concerns:

* The USA PATRIOT Act gives the FBI and the CIA greater rights to wiretap 
phones, monitor e-mail, survey medical, financial and student records, and 
break into homes and offices without prior notification. It creates a new 
crime of domestic terrorism that is so broadly defined that it may be 
applied to citizens acting legally to express their dissent.

* Under this Act and other legislation, noncitizens are being deported or 
detained indefinitely without judicial appeal. The dangers of the USA 
PATRIOT Act are augmented by a Bureau of Prisons order allowing federal 
agents to abridge the attorney-client privilege by eavesdropping on 
conversations between lawyers and their clients held in federal custody.

* The Justice Department has dismantled regulations against COINTELPRO 
operations that were enacted following governmental abuses against the 
civil rights and peace movements of the '50s, '60s and '70s.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167 


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