NEWS: Nevada groups call for statewide opposition to Patriot Act
rgj.com
ASSOCIATED PRESS
11/13/2003 10:47 pm
LAS VEGAS — A broad spectrum of activists rallied in Nevada on Thursday for a campaign to repeal the USA Patriot Act, citing what they said were federal threats to cherished American rights.
“Day by day, we’re finding more about how this can be abused,” American Civil Liberties Association of Nevada lawyer Allen Lichtenstein said in introducing “The Nevada Campaign to Defeat the Patriot Act.”
In Reno, Joe Edson of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, called the measure “an assault on our liberty in the name of a false sense of security.”
About 50 people turned out at noon at the Reno federal courthouse, waving American and Nevada flags and signs that read “Don’t Tread on Me,” “Patriot Act Attacks Free Speech,” and one reading: “Dude, where’s my bill of rights?”
About 25 rallied simultaneously on the steps of the federal courthouse in downtown Las Vegas and a smaller group gathered at the Elko County Courthouse.
Organizers said they want Nevada cities and counties to join three states — Hawaii, Alaska and Vermont — and 210 communities that since January 2002 have passed resolutions calling for the act to be repealed. It expires in 2005, but Congress is considering extending it.
Justice Department spokeswoman Monica Goodling defended the Patriot Act, passed in the weeks after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as “invaluable to defending America from terrorist attacks.”
“No court in America has found any provision of the Patriot Act to be in violation of the Constitution,” Goodling said by telephone from Washington, D.C. “And this Justice Department has made a very strong commitment to ensuring that we do absolutely nothing to violate the Constitution as we work to protect America.”
The act gives the government sweeping investigative powers, such as the ability to search people’s homes and delay notifying them, eavesdrop on computers and to track multiple phones with “roving wiretaps.”
James Tate, a Las Vegas representative of the Coalition to Prevent the Erosion of Human Rights, compared President Bush to Hitler and the U.S. government’s use of anti-terror measures to strong-arm laws in pre-World War II Germany.
“If we don’t put a stop to this now, it will be too late in a year or so,” Tate said.
State Assemblywoman Peggy Pierce, D-Las Vegas, demonstrated her opposition with representatives of groups in Las Vegas, including the conservative Nevada Eagle Forum, the Culinary Union, the Mexican American Political Association of Nevada and the Nevada Republican Liberty Caucus.
Groups represented in Reno ranged from the Reno Anti-War Coalition, Nevada Women’s Lobby, Latinos for Political Empowerment and Reno Gay Pride to the Nevada Library Association, Nevada Committee for Full Statehood and the John Birch Society.
Lichtenstein and others pointed to the FBI’s use of the Patriot Act to get administrative rather than grand jury approval to investigate a striptease club owner and politicians in a Las Vegas and San Diego corruption scandal.
They also cited reports of a bank using the act to ask homeowners association board members with check-writing authority to provide Social Security and driver’s license numbers and dates of birth.
“No one is safe under the Patriot Act. No one,” said Christopher Hansen, an anti-tax activist and government critic who has run as an independent for Nevada secretary of state.
“We hope that people all over the country will join us,” he said, “and stop using the excuse that if you aren’t doing anything wrong, you shouldn’t be worried.” |
