Speech to City Council Against The Patriot
Act
Good morning Mayor and Council Members. I am
Dr. Steve Best, chair of the UTEP Philosophy Department. I am
here today with Christopher Rawley from the ACLU and Ouisa Davis
of Migrant Refugee Services. We are bringing to you a very important
resolution to defend our liberties and the highest law of the
land, the US Constitution.
We have a number of supporters preset with us.
Many of us are wearing black to mourn the death of democracy in
the era of the USA Patriot Act. Our cherished values and traditions
of freedom and democracy can be revived only if enough citizens
take action now.
In fall 2001, two monumental things happened
to our nation. On September 11th, terrorists attacked our landmarks,
our people, and our government. Six weeks later, on Oct 26th,
Congress passed a new bill, perversely entitled the USA Patriot
Act, that attacked the Constitution and our liberties. Without
question, the first attack demanded new measures of security;
but in no way did it necessitate the second attack on our rights
and liberties.
Throughout the country, sane minds are recognizing
that we can be secure without sacrificing our liberties –
indeed, that we can be secure only through preserving our liberties.
To date, 4 states and 300 communities -- including Austin, Dallas,
and Albuquerque -- have passed resolutions declaring the Patriot
Act to be unconstitutional. We hope that El Paso will join the
growing list of true patriots who reject the Patriot Act as an
unpatriotic betrayal of the Constitution.
We affirm the principle that the national is
local and the local is national. Like other city representatives,
you likely took an oath to defend the US Constitution. Federal
laws affect citizens of El Paso as much as citizens elsewhere.
The Patriot Act mandates, for instance, that local librarians
divulge information about their patrons and that local police
pursue alleged terrorists. Given that much of the Patriot Act
is directed against non-citizens, its laws have special relevance
to a border city such as ours.
The Patriot Act threatens a broad array of rights
and liberties and is menacing to citizens and non-citizens alike.
* It allows the FBI and the CIA to wiretap phones,
monitor e-mail, gain access to medical, financial and student
records, see what library books people check out, and break into
homes and offices without prior notification or approval from
any court.
* It creates a new crime of domestic terrorism defined so broadly
that it threatens to criminalize legal activities of protest and
dissent.
* It allows non-citizens to be detained for months or years without
right to council, to speak with their families, or even to hear
the charges against them.
The Patriot Act’s impact on human rights
and liberties is not just a theoretical possibility; both citizens
and non-citizens are being surveilled, harassed, and detained.
Thousands of foreigners have been detained and jailed for years,
stripped of all rights.
In this time of great fear, it is tempting to
think we need to sacrifice liberty to gain security. The sad truth
is that we are neither free nor secure. Although thousands of
foreigners have been subjected to lengthy secret interrogations,
only one arrest has been made, while gaping security holes go
untouched. The Patriot Act undermines national security because
it squanders resources on harassing citizens rather than focusing
on actual foreign terrorists, it employs inaccurate racial profiling
and guilt-by-association approaches, and it alienates foreign
communities we need as allies.
Before we try to install democracy abroad we
best preserve it here at home. We must not become what the Patriot
Act is trying to make us – a nation of secret arrests, closed
trials, preventative detention, racial profiling, military tribunals,
and Orwellian modes of surveillance and intimidation. Let the
Statue of Liberty, not Guantanamo Bay, represent our deepest values.
Our nation will always face threats, and we must
learn to preserve liberties or we will have little that is worth
defending. The irony is great if US soldiers die in the name of
freedoms that no longer exist. As Benjamin Franklin said, "They
that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
The Constitution, not the Patriot Act, is the
highest law of the land against which all else must be judged.
We have a duty as Americans to uphold our Constitution and reject
the tyranny of the government.
The Bush Administration plans to expand the Patriot
Act even further. This is why we, the citizens of El Paso, must
unite to defend the civil liberties guaranteed to us by the Bill
of Rights. We need your leadership in this important task.
April 27, 2004
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