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October 26, 2003
The USA Patriot Act and
the American Muslim Community
“Having the honor of representing one of the most culturally diverse districts in the nation, I am keenly aware of the effects of the Patriot Act. Many of my constituents, especially those who are Arab and Muslim Americans, are afraid of losing their rights and being racially profiled and harassed by the government…. Perhaps worst of all Attorney General Ashcroft has wrongly singled out thousands of Americans of Arab, Middle Eastern and South Asian descent for questioning and, in some cases, indefinite detainment.”
This was stated by Congressman Pete Stark while joining fellow Bay Area Representatives George Miller, Barbara Lee, Mike Honda, Lynn Woolsey and Sam Farr in supporting legislation to repeal provisions of the USA Patriot Act that violate basic Constitutional protections and civil liberties. The bill, titled the "Benjamin Franklin True Patriot Act", was introduced on Sept 24, 2003 in the House by Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich, the only presidential candidate who voted against the PATRIOT Act.
The True Patriot Act envisages repeal a number of sections of Patriot Act sections, including the sections 441 and 442 related to the detention and deportation of non-citizens without meaningful judicial review. While introducing the True Patriot Act, Kucinich told the House: "Twenty-four months after the Sept. 11th attacks, this nation has undergone a dramatic political change, leading to an unprecedented assault on the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights."
The USA PATRIOT Act is the acronym for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act". The 342-page law was passed without meaningful review by a panicked Congress just six weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The legislation flew through the House 357 to 66 and the Senate 99 to 1 (Senator Russ Feingold, D-Wis.) on Oct. 25, 2001 and signed into law by President Bush the next day. With the rubble of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon still smoking, obviously it was difficult to resist.
There is a growing concern in communities nationwide on the implications of the legislation that made a mockery of due process, violated basic privacy protections, and authorized federal agents to spy and snoop under a shroud of absolute secrecy. More than 170 communities across the country and three states have issued symbolic resolutions opposing the Patriot Act.
Government policies put into place in response to 9/11 terrorist attacks have severely impacted the civil rights of the Muslim community in America in a variety of ways. These include detentions, passenger profiling, the closure of Muslim charities, the use of secret evidence, raids on Muslim homes and institutions in Virginia and Georgia, and the so-called “voluntary” interrogations of legal visa holders.
Muslim non-immigrants nationwide have been jailed indefinitely over minor visa violations that in the past would have been ignored and about 13,000, who went for INS Special Registration voluntarily, face deportation. The Justice Department's inspector general issued a scathing report in April 2003 on the handling of 762 detainees held after Sept. 11 under suspicion of having terrorist ties. It found "significant problems" with the treatment of some and uncovered evidence that family members and lawyers were not told where the men were taken.
New regulations have also affected donations to the American Muslim charity organizations due to the lack of assurance that donors will be protected if any charity organization later deemed by the government to be a terrorist organization. A fundamental problem is that even those American Muslim charities who follow the government's "best practices" guidelines to the letter do not receive any assurances that they will be safe. With four major American Muslim charities shut down by the government over accusations of ties to terrorist groups and several prominent Muslim donors now indicted or detained, American Muslims are scared to do anything that might bring scrutiny from the Federal Bureau of Investigation — and that includes donating to Islamic charities.
The administration while shutting down the Muslim charity organizations, using new powers under the USA Patriot Act, filed no criminal charges against these organizations, nor were they officially designated terrorist supporters. Law enforcement officials simply froze their assets and seized their property “pending an investigation” without producing any evidence, as authorized by the Act. Consequently, the burden of proof has shifted to the organizations, which must prove their innocence even though, in many cases, the government has not specified wrongdoing. Moreover, they must do this without access to their own documents, computers, records, or other materials that might make their case.
Discrimination against Muslims has been institutionalized through Patriot Act and other legislations. Muslims in schools, the workplace, airports and encounters with police and other government agencies experience incidents in which they are singled out because of their religious and ethnic identity.
Incidentally, increased racial profiling and more widespread public acceptance of it are bringing together ethnic minorities and immigrants in a shift in the civil rights movement. At the recent Amnesty International USA hearings in Chicago on racial profiling witnesses included not just those typically perceived to be victims, such as African-Americans, but also recent immigrants from far-flung parts of the world. Sitting in the pews were African-Americans, Southeast Asians, Koreans, Arab-Americans, Pakistanis, Indians, Haitians and Latinos--groups that organizers say were unlikely to assemble in one place a few years ago. They were people who might ordinarily think they have little in common, other than the persecution they experienced due to the Patriot Act and other measures. "We may have come here in different boats and different ways, but we're all in the same boat now," said Emma Lozano, of Centro sin Fronteras, an immigrant rights organization representing Latinos.
To express support to the Muslim community’s eroding civil rights, about 30 civil rights, ethnic and religious groups were present, in Fremont on Oct. 24, at the formal launching of American Muslim Voice, a new civil rights group that is dedicated to building bridges with other communities in order to protect and defend civil rights of the Muslim community as well as other communities.
Defending civil rights has been the single most important challenge before the seven million-strong American Muslim community as the consequences of the 9/11 tragic terrorist attacks continue to unfold. As the American Civil Liberties Union said “Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have initiated sweeping programs that amount to racial profiling on a federal scale. Just as regional police departments have unfairly suspected individuals of criminal activity based solely on their race or religion, national law enforcement agencies have begun to engage in equally discriminatory practices. In particular, there have been countless instances of Arab and Muslim Americans from all parts of the country being suspected and detained on the basis of their ethnicity and religious beliefs.”
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