Paterson challenges the Patriot Act
 Council votes to join other Jersey towns pushing for civil rights revisions
 Thursday, June 10, 2004
 BY ANA M. ALAYA
 Star-Ledger Staff
 In the months following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Arabs and Muslims in Paterson shuttered themselves indoors as law enforcement questioned and detained hundreds of suspects in the North Jersey city.
 
 Last night, as Paterson became the ninth New Jersey town to pass a resolution opposing portions of the USA Patriot Act on the grounds that they are unconstitutional, scores of Arabs and Muslims stood in City Hall to applaud the largely symbolic move.
 
 "Paterson, with its 150,000 residents and unique ethnic and religious composition, must rise to claim its rightful place as a defender of the civil and political rights of citizens," said Aref Assaf, president of the New Jersey chapter of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which spearheaded the measure.
 
 The Paterson City Council's resolution, approved last night with one abstention, challenges parts of the Patriot Act and calls for a revision of provisions that critics say threaten civil liberties.
 
 The act, passed shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, expands the government's power to investigate suspected terrorists by broadening the circumstances in which surveillance and wiretaps and other methods can be used. Many of the act's sections are set to expire in 2005, though President Bush and other Republicans support making them permanent.
 
 Paterson joins 311 towns and cities, as well as four state Legislatures -- Alaska, Hawaii, Vermont and Maine -- that have passed similar resolutions seeking to roll back what some see as the most repressive sections.
 
 In New Jersey, measures opposing portions of the act have been passed in Willingboro, Princeton, Highland Park, Ewing, Mullica, Montclair, Franklin and Phillipsburg.
 
 "There's never been a movement like this," said Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. "It sends a powerful message to the federal government saying, 'Not in our town, we're not going to violate people's individual freedoms.'"
 
 Members of the ACLU and other civil rights groups hope that the wave of anti-Patriot Act resolutions build steam for federal legislation that addresses many of their concerns, scheduled for introduction in Congress next week.
 
 The Civil Liberties Restoration Act of 2004, of which Sen. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) is a sponsor, seeks to re-establish due process protections for those jailed by the government; to discontinue programs that target immigrants instead of terrorists; and to protect privacy interests.
 
 The town resolutions include a range of content, but most oppose the provisions in the Patriot Act that include so-called "sneak-and-peek" searches in which the subject of a search warrant is unaware personal property has been searched, broader monitoring of a person's Internet and library usage without warning, and greater latitude in wiretaps, computer surveillance and access to medical and educational records.
 
 "Some are primarily symbolic and some may have legal teeth," Jacobs said. "We don't know if there's teeth unless they're challenged."
 
 The Montclair resolution goes so far as to urge its libraries to post warnings in prominent places and adopt policies to ensure the prompt, "regular destruction of records" that identify a borrower of a book or an Internet user.
 
 Highland Park's resolution asks borough police not to use the Patriot Act as a means to arrest residents without formal charges against them and asks officials to give advance notice to people before executing a search warrant.
 
 In Paterson, the resolution expressly opposes, "investigation of individuals or groups of individuals based on their participation in activities ... such as political advocacy or the practice of a religion, without reasonable suspicion of criminal activity unrelated to the activity protected by the First Amendment."
 
 The resolution specifically mentions that the new policies may undermine trust between the government and immigrants of Arab, Muslim or South Asian descent, but Paterson City Councilman Aslon Goow, whose ward encompasses a small part of south Paterson's Arab-American district, said the resolution is designed to protect all Americans.
 
 "Under the 911 circumstances the government felt this was in best interest of national security and put all their confidence in Attorney General John Ashcroft," Goow said.
 
 "But now people are questioning that if any given time, the police want to come to my home, they can use this legislation, take what they want, and not even tell me what they're looking for," Goow said.
 
 Councilman Thomas A. Rooney, the lone abstention, said he wanted to hear from prosecutors about the measure's impact.
 
 "I don't want a Big Brother, but I don't want terrorists to be so free to kill tens of thousands because of something like this," Rooney said.
 
 
 
 Copyright 2004 NJ.com. All Rights Reserved. June 10, 2004