A community forum will look at safeguarding civil rights, starting at the local level.
The April 12 event, sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Bainbridge Island and North Kitsap, YES! Magazine, Eagle Harbor Book Company and Agate Passage Friends, will feature speaker Mark Kolner of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Kolner, who studied Constitutional history at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, joined the ACLU a decade ago.
“I’ve always been interested in the work they do promoting civil liberties,” he said, “but now that work is even more crucial in the light of – literally – the attack on civil liberties by Bush and Ashcroft in the Patriot Act and directives and executives orders.”
The USA Patriot Act (Public Law 107-56), passed Oct. 24, 2001, just 13 days after 9-11, gave the executive branch of government the power to obtain personal records and review email, library and bookstore records without judicial oversight, and to authorize secret arrests.
“It’s 320 pages long,” Kolner said. “How many senators and congressmen, as they were fleeing the capitol for anthrax scares, had the time to read all of it?”
In addition, Kolner points to last November’s Homeland Security Act and directives and executives orders accompanying legislation, such as the effort by the administration to organize a network of cable installers, parcel delivery persons and personal services of all kinds to report “suspicious” activities – the so-called TIPS program.
Kolner puts the new legislation in historical context by pointing to the federal government’s pattern of restricting liberties in wartime.
In 1798, with the United States on the brink of war with France, Congress passed the first Alien and Sedition Act. A second Alien and Sedition Act was crafted to stifle dissenting opinions and criticism of government policies during the First World War.
“Under the Act, a Christian minister was sentenced to 15 years for saying that the war was unchristian,” Kolner said.
It was in reaction to such repression that Roger Baldwin founded the ACLU in 1920.
“The work of the ACLU is to defend the Constitution,” Kolner said. “We focus on the Bill of Rights because they paint the broadest picture of civil liberties.”
Kolner hopes to encourage local groups and individuals to uphold Constitutional rights. He says legislation being developed by the Justice Department, dubbed Patriot Act 2 or the Domestic Security Enhancement Act, would further undo protections for citizens’ freedom. Patriot 2 would overturn court-approved limits against police spying on political and religious activities, allowing increased government surveillance and the ability to wiretap without going to court.
Kolner believes that citizens’ opposition can have an impact.
“The TIPS program wasn’t carried forward, because of the overwhelmingly negative response/publicity,” Kolner said. “They put it on hold.
“That’s why it’s not enough to listen; you have to act.”
The event also will introduce the Bainbridge Island Bill of Rights Defense Committee, a group drafting a resolution to put before the Bainbridge Island City Council.
“For Bainbridge Island in particular, we have lived through the Japanese internment, or we know people who have,” said Kat Gjovik, a Defense Committee founding member. “We have friends and neighbors who were affected very deeply. We want to avoid having that happen again.”
——-
A community forum addressing threats to civil liberties runs 7p.m.-9 p.m. April 12 at Hyla Middle School. Call 842-9582 for information.
The new Bainbridge Island Bill of Rights Defense Committee will offer draft copies of a resolution in defense of rights, which the group will present to the Bainbridge City Council for consideration. The group seeks endorsements and community input. More than 80 cities have passed similar resolutions nationwide, sponsors say.
