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The Road to the Patriot Act
-How Islamists and Communists
try to scuttle Anti-Terrorist legislation in the guise of Human
Rights, Free Speech and Civil Liberties When Americans awakened
on the morning of 9/11 to the existence of a worldwide network of
Islamic jihadists whose agenda was to murder "infidels" en masse and
regardless of race, class, gender or age, the issue of terrorism took
center-stage in the national political debate. Within weeks,
comprehensive legislation designed to close the well-known loopholes
in America's existing security laws was drafted in the form of a
Patriot Act, which passed with a lone dissenting vote in the Senate
and a mere 66 (out of 435) dissenting votes in the House. It was
signed into law by President Bush on October 26, 2001. The
name "Patriot Act" given to this legislation is an acronym
for "Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct
Terrorism."
 "Let us damn America. . . . Let us damn
[her] allies until death. . . . We assemble today to pay respects to
the march of the martyrs and to the river of blood that gushes forth
and does not extinguish, from butchery to butchery, and from
martyrdom to martyrdom, from jihad to jihad." - Al-Arian
North
American head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad
ANI_____________________ The Patriot Act is
not the dramatic departure from existing legislation as its less-than-
honest critics have contended, but is more accurately described as an
extension of laws and the implementation of reforms long recommended
by the security and intelligence communities. In fact, the key
provisions of the Patriot Act which have aroused the self-
described "legal left" to condemn it as a virtual abrogation of the
Bill of Rights are actually incorporated from an "anti-terrorism"
measure proposed by the Clinton Administration and adopted by
Congress in 1996. This was the oddly named "Anti-Terrorism and
Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996," which was inspired by the worst
terrorist atrocity on American soil up to that time the April 1995
bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh,
which killed 175 innocent people. The "Anti-Terrorism and Effective
Death Penalty Act" was passed by a 91 to 8 margin in the U.S. Senate
and was signed into law by President Clinton. The 1996 Act
contained a number of key provisions to combat terrorism, but the
ones that immediately inspired the formation of a coalition against
the legislation were three in particular: the provision making it
criminal to provide "material support" or "expert advice or
assistance" to terrorist groups; the provision allowing the use of
secret evidence in terrorism cases; and the provision authorizing the
U.S. Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the
Attorney General to jointly designate organizations as terrorist
groups based upon available evidence. The constitutional lawyer
who formulated the key arguments against these measures was David
Cole, Georgetown Professor of Law and a general counsel for the
Center for Constitutional Rights, whose most famous figure, Lynne
Stewart is a convicted terrorist. Stewart's conviction was for
abetting her client, the "blind sheik" Omar Abdel Rahman, in
terrorist activities connected with his Islamic Group. Rahman
masterminded the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and
planned to blow up the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and the George
Washington Bridge during New York's rush hour, but was thwarted by
the FBI. The activist who spearheaded the formation of a civil
liberties coalition against the first anti-terrorist legislation in
the Clinton era, and then against the Patriot Act, is Sami al-Arian,
an indicted terrorist. Al-Arian is the North American head of
Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In 1997, he founded a group called the
National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom with the specific
purpose of repealing the above provisions of the "Anti-Terrorism and
Effective Death Penalty Act." Al-Arian soon became a ubiquitous
figure on college campuses and at conferences on National Security
and Civil Liberties, such as the one organized by graduate faculties
at Duke University in 2002. He was a working partner with
organizations like the National Lawyers Guild, the Center for
Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union, the
core organizations of the "legal left." Four years later this
coalition expanded its agendas to include ferocious opposition to the
legislation which expanded the provisions of the 1996 Bill and was
called the Patriot Act. From the very beginning, the arguments
these leftwing organizations and individuals advanced against the
specific provisions of the 1996 Anti-Terrorism Act revealed agendas
that were critical to the growth of the radical movement. David
Cole's argument against the clause criminalizing material support or
technical assistance to terrorists was that it threatened free speech
and association. It would be used, he alleged, to persecute radical
organizations exercising their citizen rights to protest government
policies they didn't like. But not all radical organizations were
groups content to protest perceived injustices within the framework
of American laws or to advocate change through America's democratic
processes. Some were self-conceived "revolutionary" organizations who
regarded it as a moral imperative to break laws that they regarded as
props to "social injustice" and to attack institutions that made the
injustice "systemic." When Lynne Stewart, for example, was asked
about her attitude towards terror by a New York Times reporter, "Ms.
Stewart suggested that violence and revolution were sometimes
necessary to right the economic and racial wrongs of America's
capitalist system." Stewart elaborated: "I don't believe in
anarchistic violence, but in directed violence. That would be
violence directed at the institutions which perpetuate capitalism,
racism, and sexism, and the people who are the appointed guardians of
those institutions, and accompanied by popular support." (All this
temerity after the Russians and East Europeans have flushed down
Communism into the sewers of history. - WoJ) This is a candid
expression of the views of many radical activists and organizations
who are prepared to act on these commitments and to make solidarity
alliances with organizations and regimes that are themselves at war
with the United States. But the obvious source of Sami al-Arian's
objections to the 1996 Anti-Terrorism Act were not concern for a non-
Islamic Constitution or its Bill of Rights. As a result of the 1996
Anti-Terrorism Act, Palestinian Islamic Jihad was officially declared
a terrorist organization. Al-Arian was glad to find an ally in a
Georgetown Professor and Center for Constitutional Rights lawyer like
David Cole, who would provide the constitutional arguments that
defended his Islamic self-interest. Among the speeches al-Arian
made to Islamic audiences who were not assembled as part of his civil
liberties agitation were remarks like the following: "Let us damn
America. . . . Let us damn [her] allies until death. . . . We
assemble today to pay respects to the march of the martyrs and to the
river of blood that gushes forth and does not extinguish, from
butchery to butchery, and from martyrdom to martyrdom, from jihad to
jihad." Al-Arian was gifted at creating front groups to advance his
terrorist agendas. He created a think tank at the University of
South Florida called the World Islam Study Enterprise or WISE, which
put on public events such as an "academic" lecture given by Omar
Abdel Rahman, the blind sheik client of Lynne Stewart. One of the
board members of WISE, also a professor at the university, was Khalil
Shikaki, whose brother Fahti Shikaki was the founder of Palestinian
Islamic Jihad. When Fahti Shikaki was assassinated, his replacement
as military head of the organization was Ramadan Shallalah, another
professor at the university and a board member of the al-Arian's
think tank. A third WISE board member, Tarik Hamdi, was known by
U.S. authorities to have personally met with Osama bin Laden in
Afghanistan in May 1998, giving him a satellite telephone and battery
pack to facilitate the latter's orchestration of terrorist
activities. Coordinating its attacks on occasion with the Syria-based
terror group Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad has struck at U.S.
interests in places like Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt. Shortly after
the Iraq War began in March 2003, Palestinian Islamic Jihad publicly
announced its allegiance to Saddam Hussein, who had funded the group
heavily for a number of years; Palestinian Islamic Jihad further
pledged to send suicide bombers to Iraq to help fight what it called
the "American invasion." An FBI raid of al-Arian's "think tank"
WISE yielded no fewer than 500 videotapes of al-Arian's fundraising
conferences in mosques across the United States. At these events, al-
Arian proudly accepted introductions as "the president of the Islamic
Committee for Palestine... the active arm of the Islamic Jihad
Movement." The videos further showed a number of individuals at these
rallies praising the killing of Jews and Christians. In addition,
the FBI had compiled eight years of incriminating wiretaps and
intercepted faxes to prove its case against al-Arian. The 120-page
Justice Department indictment enumerated some 200 specific acts
connecting al-Arian to terrorism, including a fax sent "to Saudi
Arabia, [that] inquired about obtaining palletized urea fertilizer [a
chemical compound used in explosives] in fifty-kilogram bags suitable
for ocean transportation," and telephone calls arranging reward
payments to the families of suicide bombers in Israel. The indictment
further charged that Al-Arian maintained connections to Omar Abdel
Rahman; Hamas official Mohammed Sakr; the high-ranking Sudanese
terrorist Hassan Turbai; and Islamic Jihad co-founder Abdel Aziz-
Odeh. How the Anti-American movement was born It was
within the infrastructure of this brutal organization, Palestinian
Islamic Jihad, that the movement to cripple America's new anti-
terrorism measures was born. Al-Arian's interest in forming the
National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom and the alliances
with organizations like the ACLU, the National Lawyers Guild and the
Center for Constitutional Rights was inspired by his desire to
protect Palestinian Islamic Jihad, not the American Constitution. He
had an immediate personal concern as well. The 1996 Anti-Terrorism
Act allowed the admission of secret evidence in terrorist cases, a
result of which was that his brother-in-law and fellow terrorist,
Mazen al-Najjar, had been arrested was in the process of being
deported. The lawyer al-Arian hired to defend al-Najjar was
Georgetown law professor David Cole. In the end, Cole failed to
keep al-Najjar in the United States, and Sami al-Arian was sent to
jail. Both these developments were made possible by the changed
circumstances following the attacks of 9/11 and the changes in
American internal security laws that were codified in the Patriot
Act. In particular, that part of the Patriot Act that allowed the
intelligence and the criminal branches of the FBI to communicate with
each other sealed al-Arian's fate. After the terrible attacks of
9/11, the Patriot Act became the cornerstone of America's domestic
security program. Most significantly, it removed several Clinton-era
restrictions that had erected walls of separation between
intelligence officials and law-enforcement officials from sharing
information and working together on investigations even if they
were both trailing the same suspect who was plotting a terrorist act.
This restriction effectively crippled the government's ability to
fight terrorism, and can arguably be blamed for the government's
failure to avert the 9/11 catastrophe. The 9/11 Faux Pas with
Khalid Al Mihdar On August 29, 2001, for instance, an FBI
investigator in New York desperately pleaded for permission to
initiate an intensive manhunt for al Qaeda operative Khalid Almihdar,
who was known to be planning something big. The Justice Department
and the FBI deputy general counsel's office both denied the request,
explaining that because the evidence linking Almihdar to terrorism
had been obtained through intelligence channels, it could not legally
be used to justify or aid an FBI agent's criminal investigation; in
short, it would constitute a violation of Almihdar's "civil
rights." "Someday, someone will die," the agent wrote to his FBI
superiors, "and the public will not understand why we were not more
effective and throwing every resource we had at certain problems."
Thirteen days later, Almihdar took over the cockpit of American
Airlines Flight 77 and crashed it into the Pentagon. The same wall
of separation prevented FBI agents in Minneapolis from searching the
computer hard drive of Zacarias Moussaoui the so-called "20th
hijacker" in August 2001. Had those agents been given access to
Moussaoui's computer, two of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers would have
been identified along with the Hamburg-based terrorist cell that
planned the attack; it can reasonably be argued that if that had
happened, the mass murders of 9/11 could have been averted. These
same restrictions had allowed Sami al-Arian to operate and kill
innocents from 1995, when he was first exposed by the Miami Herald,
until February 2003, when he was finally arrested for his crimes.
When he was, in fact, arrested, al-Arian showed that he had absorbed
the strategies of the left for dealing with the circumstances.
Casting himself as a victim, al-Arian responded to the charges by
claiming that he was being persecuted because "I'm a minority. I'm an
Arab. I'm a Palestinian. I'm a Muslim. That's not a popular thing to
be these days." "Do I have rights, or don't I have rights?" he asked
rhetorically. Members of the American left sprang to al-Arian's
defense. Their efforts included articles in The Nation and Salon.com,
whose reporter Eric Boehlert called it, "The Prime Time Smearing of
Sami al-Arian" and explained, "By pandering to anti-Arab hysteria,
NBC, Fox News, Media General and Clear Channel radio disgraced
themselvesand ruined an innocent professor's life." Others who
joined the al-Arian defense chorus included the ACLU, the Center for
Constitutional Rights, the University of South Florida faculty union,
and the American Association of University Professors. The leftist
head of Georgetown's Middle East studies program, John Esposito,
expressed concern that al-Arian not be made a "victim of
anti-Arab
and anti-Muslim bigotry," and Ellen Schrecker, the foremost academic
expert on the McCarthy era (who regards American Communists as well-
meaning social reformers and innocent victims of government
persecution) called al-Arian's suspension "political
repression." In sum, the most influential civil liberties voices
and groups in the nation lamented that the rights of all Americans
were under assault by a government that was seeking not only empire
abroad, but totalitarian control at home. Finally, The Patriot
Act The Patriot Act was designed to avoid future recurrences of
9/11 by removing the procedural shackles that had previously
prevented authorities entrusted with protecting American lives from
doing their job effectively. Staying well within the parameters of
established law, the Patriot Act's terms were not nearly as harsh
as certain security measures that had been imposed during previous
times of national crisis measures such as President Lincoln's
suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War and President
Franklin Roosevelt's internment of Japanese Americans during World
War II. The Patriot Act's enforcement provisions were made
subject to judicial review and required judicial writs and warrants
to authorize them. Nevertheless, the radical left, in conjunction
with radical Islamic organizations posing as defenders of civil
liberties, joined forces to publicly depict the Patriot Act as an
Orwellian-style power-grab by a government intent on squashing
freedoms of speech, association, and thought. They lobbied
legislators in local and state governments to obstruct the Patriot
Act's enforcement. As of this writing, 7 states and 379 cities and
counties have adopted formal resolutions condemning the Patriot Act
and, in many cases, refusing to comply with Homeland Security
officials seeking to enforce the Act; these locales have sardonically
declared themselves "Civil Liberties Safe Zones." In addition to
removing the wall of separation that existed between intelligence and
law enforcement authorities investigating leads on terrorist groups,
the Patriot Act also gave the Treasury Department more leverage with
which to disrupt terrorist financing networks and thereby stem the
flow of terrorism's lifeblood. Moreover, it gave the Attorney General
slightly more authority to detain and deport suspected terrorist
aliens. Leftwing critics of the Patriot Act have directed their
denunciations most pointedly at a few particular provisions of the
Act. Most notably, they have portrayed Section 215 as an egregious
invasion of personal privacy in the tradition of what would be
expected from a totalitarian state. The critics have most commonly
described a scenario where librarians could be forced to make
available, upon the government's demand, information about the books
borrowed or the websites visited by particular library patrons; where
all patrons would run the risk of secret governmental surveillance,
wiretapping, and even incarceration on the basis of the books they
chose to read or the websites they visited on library-based
computers. As the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) put it,
because of Section 215 "the FBI could spy on a person because they
don't like the books she reads, or because they don't like the
websites she visits. They could spy on her because she wrote a letter
to the editor that criticized government policy." Such allegations
dovetailed neatly with the radical left's claim that George W. Bush
was no better than Saddam Hussein, depicting the former as nothing
more than a power-hungry aspiring dictator. In a similar vein, in
July 2003 Wisconsin's Democratic Senator Russell Feingold alleged
that as a consequence of Section 215, Americans had become "afraid to
read books, terrified into silence." As Heather MacDonald explained
during her April 19, 2005 testimony before the U.S. Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence, Section 215 covers not only library
borrowing or Internet use records, but "could also include the
enrollment application of a Saudi national in an American flight
school, saywhile investigating terrorism. The section broadens the
categories of institutions whose records the government may seek, on
the post-9/11 recognition that lawmakers cannot anticipate what sorts
of organizations terrorists may exploit. In the past, to trace the
steps of a Soviet spy, it may have been enough to get hotel bills or
storage-locker contracts...; today, however, gumshoes may find they
need receipts from scuba-diving schools or farm-supply stores to
piece together a plot to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge. Section 215
removed the previous requirement . . . that the records concern
an `agent of a foreign power,' since the scope of an anti-terror
investigation is hard to predict in advance." In short, the left's
description of a scenario where an FBI agent can simply storm into a
library and demand records is a caricature of the most ludicrous
kind. Before it can even make a request for such information, the FBI
must first go through several levels of bureaucratic review. It must
convince the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, court
(which oversees anti-terror investigations) that an individual is
knowingly engaged in terrorism or espionage, and that the documents
it seeks are relevant to the fight "against international terrorism
or clandestine intelligence activities." Another common criticism
is that Section 215 violates the Fourth Amendment right to privacy.
But as Heather MacDonald explains, there is no such right to privacy
as regards book borrowing and Internet use. Whenever a library patron
borrows a book, he knowingly reveals his borrowing choices to the
library staff; similarly, he reveals his Web-surfing preferences to
Internet service providers. This is by no means secret information.
The same principle applies to credit card purchases. If an individual
buys a book, a toaster, or a fishing pole with his credit card, he
willingly makes his purchase and credit card information known not
only to the credit card company, but to the seller as well; there is
no "privacy" inherent to the transaction. Consequently, the
government may examine his credit card receipts without having to
demonstrate, in a court hearing, "probable cause" that a criminal or
terrorist act has been or will be committed. Instead, terror
investigators must merely convince the FISA court that the receipts
are "relevant." Another provision of the Patriot Act that has
drawn the ire of the left is Section 216, which updates already-
existing law to cover the use of modern technology such as email
correspondences. The government has always had authority to view the
numbers dialed from a particular phone if it could show a court that
the information was "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation";
the same applied to the originating numbers of incoming calls to a
suspect's phone. The phone user, by making or receiving calls to or
from any particular number, has technically made that information
known to a third party the telephone company and thus there is
no "privacy" in the true sense of the word. Section 216 merely
applies this same standard to outgoing and incoming emails
permitting the government to view the email addresses (though not the
content of the messages) of senders and recipients upon demonstrating
to a court that the information is "relevant to an ongoing criminal
investigation." Like Section 215, Section 216 does not constitute a
vast increase in latitude for government spying, but merely the
logical extension of laws that were already in place. Section 213
of the Patriot Act has also come under fire from critics. It permits
the FBI (with court approval) to delay notifying an individual that
his property has been or will be searched, if such notification might
reasonably be predicted to cause the suspect to flee, destroy
evidence, or intimidate witnesses before government investigators can
acquire enough evidence to justify his arrest. This has been a
longstanding practice in criminal investigations; the Patriot Act
does nothing more than apply the same standards to terror
probes. The Anti-Patriot Act Coalition Center for
Constitutional Rights
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)
was co-founded in November 1966 by the radical attorneys Morton
Stavis, Ben Smith, Arthur Kinoy, and William Kunstler, longtime
members of the Communist and radical left. At the root of CCR's
opposition to anti-terror measures is its three-pronged belief that
the U.S. has literally brought terrorism upon itself; that terrorism
would stop if only the U.S. would improve its behavior; and that the
perpetrators of Islamist terrorism are rational(sic) individuals
trying to air legitimate grievances, rather than aspiring mass
murderers filled with contempt for all non-Muslims. In March 2002,
CCR president Michael Ratner explained his views on the origins of
anti-American terrorism. "If the U.S. government truly wants its
people to be safer and wants terrorist threats to diminish," he
said, "it must make fundamental changes in its foreign policies . . .
particularly its unqualified support for Israel, and its embargo of
Iraq, its bombing of Afghanistan, and its actions in Saudi Arabia.
[These] continue to anger people throughout the region, and to
fertilize the ground where terrorists of the future will take root."
At its 2004 annual convention, CCR honored attorney Lynne Stewart,
an open supporter of terrorism who was indicted by the Justice
Department for abetting the terrorist activities of her client,
the "blind sheik," Omar Abdel Rahman. CCR called Stewart's
indictment "an attack on attorneys who defend controversial figures,
and an attempt to deprive these clients of the zealous representation
that may be required." In February 2005 Stewart was convicted on
charges that she had illegally "facilitated and concealed
communications" between the incarcerated sheik and members of his
Egyptian terrorist organization, the Islamic Group, which has ties to
al Qaeda. American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) The
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) characterizes itself as
America's "guardian of liberty," ostensibly working to "defend and
preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every
person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United
States." The ACLU has worked closely with terrorists like Sami al-
Arian to undermine the security protections put in place by both the
Clinton and Bush Administrations in the wake of terrorist attacks.
Since 9/11, the ACLU has led a coalition of civil liberties groups to
promote non-cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security in
implementing the provisions of the Patriot Act. The ACLU's assault
on national security efforts including those other than the Patriot
Act has been relentless. When the INS and Justice Department
instituted a program requiring males visiting the U.S. from Arab and
Muslim nations to register with the Bureau of Citizenship and
Immigration Services, the ACLU organized protests against what it
called this "discriminatory" policy. It similarly protested an FBI
anti-terrorism initiative to count and document every mosque in
America. On the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003, when
FBI and Homeland Security agents were tracking down illegal Iraqi
immigrants considered to be dangerous, the ACLU set up a telephone
hotline and conducted "Know Your Rights" training sessions giving
illegals free advice on how to avoid deportation. And, in a 2002
federal lawsuit naming Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta as a
defendant, the ACLU challenged a new Aviation Transportation Security
Act policy prohibiting non-citizens from working as airport security
screeners. In conjunction with the Council on American-Islamic
Relations (CAIR) a Hamas spinoff, several of whose leaders have
been indicted for, and convicted of, terrorist activities the ACLU
has lobbied hard against the heightened scrutiny of individuals from
terrorism-sponsoring countries at airports and border checkpoints.
The ACLU also opposes the Computer-Assisted Passenger Profiling
System (CAPPS) used by airlines to check for various passenger
characteristics that have historically been correlated with terrorist
motives. In late 1997, when the CAPPS system was first set to be put
in place, the ACLU set up a special online complaint form to collect
information on incidents of alleged discrimination and mistreatment
by airport security personnel. As Gregory Nojeim explained, his
organization was "concerned that the CAPPS system will have an
unequal impact on some passengers, resulting in their being selected
for treatment as potential terrorists based on their race, religion
or national origin." On many occasions, the ACLU has publicly and
proactively defended individuals accused of serious terrorism-related
offenses. In 2003, for example, it held rallies on behalf of an Intel
software engineer in Oregon named Maher Mofeid Hawash, whom U.S.
officials were keeping in custody on suspicion that he had given
material support to Taliban and al Qaeda forces fighting American
troops in Afghanistan. In February 2004, Hawash was convicted of the
aforementioned crimes and was sentenced to seven years in prison. The
ACLU also came to the defense of Sami al-Arian. In an effort to
thwart the government's investigation of al-Arian's role in funding
PIJ suicide bombings in Israel, the ACLU said that the search
warrants authorizing an FBI raid of his home and offices were overly
broad, and that the items seized as evidence should therefore be
returned to him. Consistent with its belief that the U.S. is a
nation infested with racism and injustice particularly in the
criminal-justice system the ACLU of Southern California endorsed an
October 22, 2002 National Day of Protest exhorting Americans to rise
up and "Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of
a Generation." The document publicizing this event stated: "Since
September 11, 2001, the authorities have rapidly imposed a
resoundingly repressive atmosphere. Law enforcement on both the local
and national level has been given broad new powers... Hard-won civil
liberties and protections have been stripped away as part of the
government's `war on terrorism.' The USA-PATRIOT Act brings in a new
set of repressive laws and restrictions on people and grants even
greater power to law enforcement agents of all kinds." Moreover, this
document explicitly defended terrorists such as Lynne Stewart and
Jose Padilla, and murderers like Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Leonard
Peltier depicting them as persecuted political prisoners of a
repressive American government. Bill of Rights Defense
Committee The Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC) is a
Northampton, Massachusetts-based group whose raison d'etre is to work
for the repeal of the Patriot Act on the grounds that it allegedly
violates the civil liberties of Americans. Like the ACLU and CCR, the
Bill of Rights Defense Committee works to persuade the political
leadership in American cities to pledge noncompliance with the
Patriot Act, and is intimately involved in the campaign to add ever-
greater numbers of groups to the list of localities declaring
themselves "Civil Liberties Safe Zones." Toward this end, BORDC
provides a detailed, step-by-step blueprint for activists interested
in getting their local towns, cities, and even college campuses to
join the list. For example, BORDC urges activists to: "talk with your
friends and neighbors about organizing a Bill of Rights Defense
Committee in your city or town"; spread the anti-Patriot Act message
via fliers, postcards, booklets, and press releases all available
from BORDC, some for free and some at a cost; distribute these
materials at local events, or even to give them out to drivers stuck
in traffic; "download, print, and distribute anti-Patriot Act
bookmarks with the Bill of Rights printed on them [available in both
English and Spanish] to your local schools and libraries"; "call or
write your senators and representatives in Washington"; call the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for help and support; compile
an endorser list to add perceived credibility to the cause; and
sponsor local panel discussions. BORDC opposes the Patriot Act's
designation of "material support for terror" as a crime, regarding
this measure as a threat to free speech. BORDC further opposes the
Act's authorization of the use of modern technologies to collect
intelligence on potential or suspected terrorists, and claims that
Section 215 gives the government unrestricted access to private,
personal information about Americans. National Coalition to
Protect Political Freedom The National Coalition to Protect
Political Freedom (NCPPF) was founded in 1997 by Sami al-Arian as a
means of combating the provisions of the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and
Effective Death Penalty Act; it continues its mission today as a
staunch opponent of the Patriot Act. NCPPF has built a
resistance movement composed of hard-left activists and Islamist
terror advocates. Though the professed ideals of these unlikely
bedfellows bear little resemblance to one another, the factor that
unifies them is their hatred of America. Thus they willingly work
together to undermine American national security by opposing counter-
terrorism measures and providing legal counsel to terror suspects and
convicts. Consider the activities of the following NCPPF member
groups: (a) The Ad Hoc Committee for Imad Hamad works to derail
INS efforts to deport the man bearing that name, widely suspected of
being a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
(PFLP), a Marxist-Leninist Palestinian terrorist group.
(b) The
Committee for Justice for Nasser Ahmed has lobbied on behalf of the
Egyptian-born man bearing that name. Ahmed was arrested on a 1995
visa violation after refusing to help U.S. authorities convict Sheikh
Omar Abdel Rahman, whom he served as a paralegal and confidante. He
was released on $15,000 bond but was rearrested in April 1996, this
time on charges that he posed a "threat to national security." When
he was eventually set free in November 1999, Ahmed lavished praise
upon the NCPPF attorneys who he said had "worked very hard for my
release."
(c) The American Muslim Council (AMC), which
describes itself as an "active member" of the NCPPF, has had ties to
diverse terror groups ranging from the Puerto Rican FALN and
Macheteros, to the Black Liberation Movement and Weather Underground,
to terrorist operatives in Jordan, Algeria, Egypt, Pakistan and
Sudan. AMC founder Abdurahman Alamoudi proudly declared at an October
2000 anti-Israel rally in Washington, DC: "I have been labeled . . .
as being a supporter of Hamas. Anybody supporters of Hamas
here? . . . We are all supporters of Hamas. . . . I wish they added
that I am also a supporter of Hezbollah." Alamoudi was arrested in
2003 for his ties to Islamic terrorism.
(d) The American Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), another NCPPF member group,
established itself as a prominent backer of terrorism in the 1980s,
when it supported Soviet-sponsored guerrilla campaigns in Latin
America, Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization, and the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
(e) The National
Lawyers Guild (NLG) was originally an organ of the Communist Party.
In recent decades, NLG has been at the forefront of efforts to weaken
America's intelligence-gathering agencies. In the post-9/11 era, for
example, NLG launched a national campaign to repeal the Patriot Act.
The Unholy Alliance The foregoing member groups of the
anti-Patriot Act left are joined in their efforts by a number of
radical Islamic organizations, many of which have close links to
international Islamic terrorism. The first and most important of
these of course is the National Coalition to Protect Political
Freedom founded by terrorist Sami Al-Arian, now headed by National
Lawyers Guild executive Kit Gage, and listed in the groups above. The
entire coalition of radical Islamic groups and American leftists work
together to chisel away the safeguards designed to protect America
from future acts of terror. American Muslim Alliance The
American Muslim Alliance (AMA) is a political action committee that
works to get Muslims elected and/or appointed to policy-influencing
positions at all levels of government in the United States local,
county, state, and national. AMA is an active member of the American
Muslim Political Coordinating Council (AMPCC), and meets in
cooperation with other Muslim groups that are known to verbally
support Hamas and Hezbollah, or that have members who have been
linked to funding terrorism groups such as the Council on American-
Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council. In
1998 AMA, along with CAIR and the American Muslim Council, sponsored
a rally at Brooklyn College in New York City, where militant speakers
advocated jihad and derided Jews as "pigs and monkeys." The
American Muslim Alliance has also taken a stand against the Patriot
Act, characterizing it as an assault on civil liberties. AMA endorses
the American Civil Liberties Union's effort "to mobilize the civil
rights communities in America to urge the U.S. Congress to fix the
Patriot Act, as it is being used for increasingly greater
intimidation and harassment of individuals and communities,
particularly the Muslim Americans and Arab Americans." (All false
allegations which if implemented will bring another 9/11, this time a
nuclear one - WoJ) In January 2003, AMA executive director Agha
Saeed complained that the Patriot Act was being used to intimidate
and discriminate against Muslims. On February 20, 2004, Saeed was a
featured speaker at a forum titled "The Patriot Act and the Attack on
Human Rights in America." The event was scheduled to commemorate "the
one year anniversary of the unjust imprisonment of Dr. Sami al-
Arian." AMA chose not to endorse or participate in the May 14,
2005 "Free Muslims March Against Terror," an event whose stated
purpose was to "send a message to the terrorists and extremists that
their days are numbered . . . [and to send] a message to the people
of the Middle East, the Muslim world and all people who seek freedom,
democracy and peaceful coexistence that we support
them." American Muslim Council
Founded in 1990, the American Muslim Council (AMC) was one of the
most prominent militant Islamic organizations of recent times. It
largely ceased operations, however, after its founder and former
chairman Abdulrahman Alamoudi was imprisoned on terrorism-related
charges in October 2003. In February 2003, AMC joined the Council
on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the American Muslim Alliance
(AMA), and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) in forming a
coalition to repeal and amend the Patriot Act alleging that it
violated the civil rights of Americans. AMC also endorsed the Civil
Liberties Restoration Act of 2004, which was designed to roll back,
in the name of protecting civil liberties, the Patriot Act and other
post-9/11 national security measures. The tenor of AMC's overall
message was set by Alamoudi, who has a long history of expressing
support for groups that the U.S. State Department has designated as
terrorist organizations. On November 22, 1994, for instance, he told
the National Press Club, "Hamas is not a terrorist group. . . . I
have followed the good work(sic) of Hamas... They have a wing that is
a violent wing. They had to resort to some kind of violence."
During a March 26, 1996 appearance on Middle East TV, Alamoudi had
this to say about Musa Abu Marzook (founder of the Islamic
Association for Palestine), who was deported from the United States
because of his Hamas-related activities and then became Deputy Chief
of Hamas' Political Bureau in Syria: "I am honored to be a member of
the committee that is defending Musa Abu Marzook in America. This a
mark of distinction on my chest. . . . I have known Musa Abu Marzook
before, and I really consider him to be from among the best people in
the Islamic movement, Hamas in the Palestinian movement in general
and I work together with him." At an October 28, 2000 anti-Israel
protest in Washington, D.C, Alamoudi shouted to a cheering crowd, "We
are all supporters of Hamas. Allahu Akhbar! . . . I am also a
supporter of Hezbollah." In addition, Alamoudi has passionately
defended the terrorist Omar Abdel Rahman. Alamoudi was arrested in
September 2003 for illegally failing to notify the U.S. State
Department of his numerous trips to Libya, and for illegally
accepting $10,700 from the Libyan mission to the United Nations. That
same month, British customs officials found $340,000 in cash in
Alamoudi's luggage money that an Immigration and Customs
Enforcement affidavit asserts originated in Libya and was intended
for distribution in Syria, where terror groups like Hamas and Islamic
Jihad maintain a strong presence. AMC executive director Eric
Vickers has been no less outspoken on terrorism-related issues. In
January 2002 he publicly called Sami al-Arian a victim of media-
driven character assassination. "What has happened to professor
Arian," said Vickers, "is happening to Muslims and people of Middle
Eastern descent all over this country. They are being discriminated
against." A month later, al-Arian was indicted on the strength of
the compelling evidence described earlier in this article by a
federal grand jury for leading the North American operations of
Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In November 2002, AMC publicly urged
American Muslims to give money to Islamic relief organizations to aid
Afghani refugees. Included in AMC's list of recommended charities was
the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), whose
assets had recently been seized by the FBI and the Treasury
Department because of the group's alleged activities as a terrorist
fund-raising front. AMC called Bush's action against
HLF "particularly disturbing . . . unjust and counterproductive." AMC
also solicited Muslims to give to the Global Relief Foundation,
another charity under U.S. government scrutiny for possible terrorist
links. In December 2000, AMC's Dallas chapter presented an award
to Ghassan Dahduli, who was deported eleven months later because of
his connections to al-Qaeda and Hamas. According to one U.S.
prosecutor, AMC advisory board member Soliman Biheiri is "the Muslim
Brotherhood's financial toehold" in the United States. In March 2002,
federal authorities raided the Virginia house and business of yet
another AMC board member, Jamal Barzinjim, in an anti-terrorism
investigation. Over the years, AMC has held press conferences
supporting Sudan's National Islamic Front (NIF), which is on the
State Department's list of terrorist organizations. In 1992, AMC
hosted the NIF leader during his visit to the United
States. American Muslim Union The American Muslim Union
(AMU) is a Paterson, New Jersey-based Islamist organization, a number
of whose current and former officials have held leadership positions
at the Islamic Center of Passaic County (ICPC), where AMU president
Mohamed Younes sits on the board of trustees. The ICPC was co-founded
by Hamas fundraiser Mohammad El-Mezain. AMU also has close ties to
the infamous Hamas attorney Stanley Cohen. AMU views the Patriot
Act as an assault on the civil liberties of Americans, especially
those of Muslim heritage. AMU executive director Waheed Khalid wrote
in July 2003, "[T]he first Patriot Act, passed by Congress in October
2001, has created havoc for thousands of individuals and their
families U.S. citizens, and documented or undocumented aliens.
Patriot Act II goes much further, seriously affecting our civil
liberties. It is an extremely dangerous piece of legislation giving
much wider powers to the executive branch without any accountability
or oversight by the Congress and judiciary. By proposing this
legislation under the guise of `national security,' the Bush
Administration is attempting to compromise our nation's more than 200-
year-old Constitution." "The American Muslim community has never
felt so insecure and apprehensive due to discrimination and
intolerance," Khalid said on another occasion. "Our government's
actions following 9/11 have impacted and continue to impact tens of
thousands of individuals in ways which seriously violate our
Constitution." Like the American Muslim Alliance, AMU chose not to
endorse or participate in the May 14, 2005 "Free Muslims March
Against Terror." American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)
was established in 1980 as a non-religious civil rights group by
James Abourezk, former Democratic Senator of South Dakota. As the War
on Terror has shifted into high gear, ADC has accused the Bush
administration of seeking to deprive Arab Americans of the civil
liberties to which they are entitled. ADC has characterized the
Patriot Act and other government-initiated anti-terrorism efforts as
persecutory and discriminatory against Arab Americans. Condemning
what it calls the Act's "police state restrictions," in early 2004
ADC was a key player in securing the passage of anti-Patriot Act
measures by the City Councils of New York and Los Angeles. The group
was also a co-plaintiff, in July 2003, in the first major legal
challenge to Section 215 of the Patriot Act. The Georgia and San
Francisco chapters of ADC were signatories to a February 20, 2002
document, composed by the radical group Refuse & Resist, condemning
military tribunals and the detention of immigrants apprehended in
connection with post-9/11 terrorism investigations. Titled "National
Day of Solidarity with Muslim, Arab and South Asian Immigrants," the
document read, in part, "[T]hey [the U.S. government] are coming for
the Arab, Muslim and South Asian immigrants. Based on their racial
profile, over 1500 have been rounded up and the government refuses to
say who they are, where they are jailed and what the charges are!!!
Already, a Pakistani man has died in custody (Is it not a better
option for a killer to die in custody, rather than expose hundreds to
the danger of death if such killers roam free - WoJ). The drivel
continues: The recent `disappearances,' indefinite detention, the
round-ups, the secret military tribunals, the denial of legal
representation, evidence kept a secret from the accused, the denial
of any due process for Arab, Muslim, South Asians and others, have
chilling similarities to a police state. We will not allow our grief
for the tragedy of September 11 to be used to justify this new
repression. We are clear that being an immigrant is not a crime;
Muslims, Arabs and South Asians are not terrorists."(An impressive
canard, but a canard all the same) ADC was also a signatory to the
March 17, 2003 letter exhorting members of the U.S. Congress to
reject the Domestic Security Enhancement Act, or "Patriot II."
Moreover, it endorsed such anti-Patriot Act measures as the Community
Resolution to Protect Civil Liberties campaign, and the Civil
Liberties Restoration Act of 2004. Council on American-Islamic
Relations According to Middle East expert Stephen Schwartz, the
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) "is best described as a
branch of the Saudi religious militia operating to impose Wahhabi
conformity on American Islam. It is the most active and consistent
promoter of extremism in the name of Islam now found the U.S. and
Canada, an arm of the Saudi-Wahhabi establishment, partially funded
by the Saudi government and rich Saudi subjects." Founded in 1994,
CAIR portrays itself as a civil rights organization that looks out
for the welfare of American Muslims, who CAIR says are routinely
victimized by acts of discrimination. In the aftermath of 9/11, CAIR
secured a position as the chief group to which the American media
turned for insight into the "Muslim view" about such timely world
issues as the War on Terror, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the
Patriot Act. Though it has cultivated an image of moderation, CAIR
has been, from its inception, an ally of the Hamas movement,
condemning the U.S. government for allegedly allowing Zionist
extremists to dictate its foreign policy. In 1996 CAIR co-founder
Nihad Awad candidly declared, "I am in support of the Hamas
movement." In November 1999, CAIR board chairman Omar Ahmad told a
Chicago audience that he supported Palestinian suicide bombings
targeting Israeli civilians. "Fighting for freedom, fighting for
Islam," he said, "that is not suicide. They kill themselves for
Islam." This same spirit was on display at a 1998 Brooklyn College
rally co-sponsored by CAIR and the American Muslim Council, where
guest speaker Wagdi Ghuniem led 500 attendees in chanting "No to the
Jews, descendants of the apes." CAIR board member Siraj Wahhaj, a New
York imam, served as a character witness for Omar Abdel Rahman in his
trial for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In April 2005, Ghassan
Elashi, who founded the Texas chapter of CAIR, was convicted of
supporting terrorism by funneling money to a high-ranking official in
the terrorist group Hamas. Elashi was found guilty of all 21 federal
counts he faced for conspiracy, money laundering and dealing in
property of a terrorist. Viewing the U.S. as a nation rife with
racism and injustice, the New York chapter of CAIR joined the ACLU
and many other groups in endorsing an October 22, 2002 National Day
of Protest against the alleged trend of "[h]ard-won civil liberties
and protections [being] stripped away as part of the
government's `war on terrorism,'" and the Patriot Act's "new set of
repressive laws and restrictions on people." This event was also
choreographed to express support for terrorists Lynne Stewart and
Jose Padilla, and for murderers Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Leonard Peltier
portraying them as American "political prisoners." In February
2003, CAIR joined the American Muslim Council (AMC), the American
Muslim Alliance (AMA), and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)
in forming a coalition to repeal and amend the Patriot Act alleging
that it violates the civil liberties of Americans, particularly
Muslims. CAIR Governmental Affairs Director Corey Saylor stated, "The
Patriot Act was passed in haste during a time of national crisis and
now needs to be revised to bring it into conformity with the
Constitution and with American traditions of personal privacy."
CAIR opposed the Domestic Security Enhancement Act, also known
as "Patriot II"; endorsed the Community Resolution to Protect Civil
Liberties campaign for the creation of new "Civil Liberties Safe
Zones"; and in September 2003, supported a bill dubbed the Benjamin
Franklin True Patriot Act, introduced by Representatives Dennis
Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Ron Paul (R-Texas), which proposed to repeal 15
sections of the original Patriot Act. In April 2005, CAIR
urged "members of the American Muslim community and other people of
conscience to contact their elected representatives and ask that they
co-sponsor the recently introduced `Security and Freedom Enhancement
(SAFE) Act,' designed to repeal unconstitutional sections of the
original USA Patriot Act." According to CAIR, the SAFE Act
would "scale back the government's authority to seize personal
information credit reports, communications records and financial
information through National Security Letters without judicial
review"; "narrow the `sneak and peek' provision in the Patriot Act,
which allows federal agents to get court authorization to search
Americans' homes without notifying them for weeks or even months";
and "refine section 215, which allows the FBI to obtain a rubberstamp
court order giving it access to Americans' medical, business, library
and even genetic records without probable cause." CAIR chose not to
endorse or participate in the May 14, 2005 "Free Muslims March
Against Terror." Islamic Circle of North America The
Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) was founded in 1971 as a "non-
ethnic, non-sectarian, open-to-all, independent" grassroots
organization. Based in Queens, New York, ICNA is infamous for
bringing radicals to speak at its annual conferences, and the group
has long been suspected of having ties to terrorism. In March 1996,
U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell stated, "One of the groups with Hamas
ties is the Dallas-based Islamic Association for Palestine in North
America, which, in turn, apparently is allied with the Islamic Circle
of North America in New York." ICNA also works closely with the
Muslim American Society (MAS), an extremist organization that
produces publications describing suicide bombings as "justifiable."
In the post-9/11 era, ICNA has taken a stand against the U.S. war
on terror, the Patriot Act, and the American military incursions in
Afghanistan and Iraq. In July 2003, ICNA co-sponsored, along with the
Muslim American Society, a three-day Philadelphia conference designed
to "rally the political power of the nation's estimated 7 million to
8 million Muslims to oppose restrictions on their freedom following
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, such as the USA Patriot Act and the
recent government order that recent immigrant men from mostly Muslim
countries register with federal authorities." Like the American
Muslim Alliance, the American Muslim Union, and CAIR, the Islamic
Circle of North America chose not to endorse or participate in the
May 14, 2005 "Free Muslims March Against Terror." Islamic
Society of North America The Islamic Society of North America
(ISNA) is responsible for enforcing Wahhabi theological writ in
American mosques. According to Kaukab Siddique, the editor of the
extremist Islamic periodical New Trend, "ISNA controls most mosques
in America and thus also controls who will speak at every Friday
prayer, and which literature will be distributed there." Though
former ISNA president Muzammil Siddiqi appeared as a goodwill
ambassador in a post-9/11 ceremony at Washington's National
Cathedral, a mere ten months earlier he had said, "America has to
learn, if you remain on the side of injustice, the wrath of God will
come. Please, all Americans. Do you remember that? If you continue
doing injustice, and tolerate injustice, the wrath of God will come."
(A not so veiled threat!) ISNA views the Patriot Act as an affront
to Muslim Americans and advocates that it be overturned. At its 2004
national convention, ISNA sponsored a "workshop [that] showed how
Muslims can work with their congressional representatives to repeal
the Patriot Act. Seminars were also held on how to join political
campaigns to elect candidates who will fight for Muslims'
rights." ISNA was a signatory to Refuse & Resist's February 20,
2002 document condemning military tribunals and the detention of
immigrants apprehended in connection with post-9/11 terrorism
investigations. ISNA chose not to endorse or participate in the May
14, 2005 "Free Muslims March Against Terror." Muslim American
Society The Muslim American Society (MAS), founded in 1992, is
an extremist group that describes itself as "a charitable, religious,
social, cultural and educational, not-for-profit organization" whose
aim is to promote "Islam as a total way of life." It identifies the
Muslim Students Association (MSA) and the Islamic Society of North
America (ISNA) as fellow members of this same revival movement. MAS
is characterized by Stephen Schwartz, author of The Two Faces of
Islam, as "a major component" of the "Wahhabi Lobby" that channels
money from, and advances the policies of, Saudi Arabian
fundamentalists. In 2003 federal agents arrested Randall Royer, the
Communications Director of MAS, on charges that he had conspired with
a Wahhabist group based in Pakistan Lashkar-I-Taibi, or "Army of
the Righteous" to commit terrorism in Kashmir, Chechnya and
elsewhere. The executive director of the Muslim American
Society's "Freedom Foundation" is Mahdi Bray, a former activist with
the radical Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and Students
for a Democratic Society; he now works closely with International
ANSWER, an anti-war group controlled by the Communist World Workers
Party. MAS strongly opposes the Patriot Act, and in September 2003
issued the following statement: "Since the national tragedy of
September 11, 2001, the U.S. government has implemented laws that
have drastically infringed upon every American's rights by giving the
government expanded powers to invade privacy, imprison and deport
people without due process, and punish political dissent. . . . [T]he
Patriot Act is an example of such a law. This act strips away the
fundamental checks and balances that safeguard many of our basic
civil liberties. To date, over 160 cities across America have passed
anti-Patriot Act resolutions. However, President George W. Bush, in a
speech marking the second anniversary of September 11, 2001, has
called on Congress to pass legislation that will expand the Patriot
Act (Patriot Act II). This suggested legislation would allow
authorities to issue subpoenas without going to grand juries in order
to hold suspects without bail. Other recommendations have included
revoking citizenship of terrorism `suspects,' forbidding the release
of information of `terrorist' detainees, and setting up a DNA
database of people associated with terrorist groups. Clearly, under
Patriot Act I, Americans' liberties have been abused, especially in
the Muslim community. Why give this administration more room for
abuse? Americans must say `No' to Patriot Act I and Patriot Act
II." MAS produces the publication The Muslim American, wherein
suicide bombings that target Jewish civilians have been described
as "justifiable." In its March 2002 edition, for instance, this
publication quoted an Islamic scholar stating the following:
"Martyr operations are not suicide and should not be deemed as
unjustifiable means of endangering one's life... Prophet Muhammad strictly forbade
suicide and made it clear that anyone who commits suicide would be
cast into hell. But in such case suicide means Muslim's killing
himself without any lawfully accepted reason or killing himself to
escape pain or social problems. On the other hand, in martyr
operations, the Muslim sacrifices his own life for the Sake of
performing a religious duty, which is Jihad against the enemy as
scholars say. Accordingly, a Muslim's intention when committing
suicide is certainly different from his intention when performing a
military operation and dying in the Cause of Almighty Allah. So it is
natural that the religious legal status would differ in each case...
This means that martyr operations are totally different from the
forbidden suicide. Concerning the Palestinians, the enemy has
occupied their land, their houses and their sacred places and has
driven about four million of them out of their houses replacing them
with even larger numbers of Jewish settlements. The enemy relies on
sophisticated military equipments while, at the same time, denies the
Palestinians their basic human rights, killing their women, children
and men mercilessly, and rendering the Palestinians powerless and
incapable of defending themselves even all the Arab countries face
the same fate, lacking necessary weapons... So the Palestinians
resort to martyr operations, in which the martyr seriously harms the
enemy meanwhile sacrifices his own life." MAS elected not to
endorse or participate in the May 14, 2005 "Free Muslims March
Against Terror."
Muslim Public Affairs Council Created in 1989, the Los Angeles-
based Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) consistently condemns
American and Israeli policies while defending extremist Muslim
violence. In reaction to news of an August 2001 suicide bombing in
Israel, for example, MPAC asserted that Israel itself
was "responsible for this pattern of violence." On the afternoon of
September 11, 2001, MPAC cofounder Salam al-Marayati did a radio
interview in which he accused the Israelis of responsibility for that
morning's deadly attacks. MPAC is currently working to oppose the
federal government's shutdown of Muslim charities suspected of
supporting terrorism; prevent anti-Muslim bias and hate crimes; give
assistance to the victims of such crimes crimes whose incidence,
according to MPAC, has reached epidemic proportions; conduct voter-
registration drives for Muslim Americans; develop an influential
political action committee that promotes the candidacy of Muslims in
political elections; and oppose the U.S. war against Iraq. Striving
to curb "the excesses of the war on terror," MPAC is also campaigning
for the repeal of the Patriot Act and its alleged assault on the
civil liberties of Americans, particularly Muslims. In February 2003,
MPAC joined the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the
American Muslim Council (AMC), and the American Muslim Alliance (AMA)
in forming a coalition to repeal and amend the Patriot Act. MPAC
was a signatory to the March 17, 2003 letter exhorting Congressional
Representatives to reject the Domestic Security Enhancement Act,
or "Patriot II"; it endorses the Community Resolution to Protect
Civil Liberties campaign to create new "Civil Liberties Safe Zones"
pledging their defiance of the Patriot Act; and it was a signatory to
a November 1, 2001 document characterizing the 9/11 attacks as a
legal matter to be addressed by criminal-justice procedures rather
than military means. Ascribing the hijackers' motives to alleged
social injustices against which they were protesting, this document
explained that "security and justice are mutually reinforcing goals
that ultimately depend upon the promotion of all human rights for all
people," and called on the United States "to promote fundamental
rights around the world."(sic) MPAC gives voice to its negative
view of the Patriot Act in the following statement: "During World War
I there were the Palmer Raids. During World War II there were the
internment camps for Japanese Americans and today there is the USA
Patriot Act... [which] rolls back the clock on our democratic and
hard won civil rights and does nothing to combat
terrorism." Muslim Students Association (MSA) of the United
States and Canada Established in 1963, this group, with which
some 150 campus MSAs are affiliated, is a key lobbying organization
for the Wahhabi sect of Islam. Since its inception, MSA has been
intimately linked with the extremist Muslim World League, though it
portrays itself as a moderate group that opposes Islamic terrorism.
It has also maintained close ties to the Holy Land Foundation for
Relief and Development and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, two
organizations that raised money to fund terrorism. MSA strongly
opposes the Patriot Act, which it describes as "infamous." Many of
the organization's chapters nationwide have similarly denounced
virtually every other government-implemented security measure of the
post-9/11 era. Scholar of Islam Daniel Pipes reports, "At an MSA
rally at the University of Pennsylvania, the co-chair of Muslims for
Justice declared, `the Patriot Act is sending us in a backwards
spiral, where the destination is chaos.'" Like the other Muslim
organizations named in this article, MSA chose not to endorse or
participate in the May 14, 2005 "Free Muslims March Against
Terror." Story Credits: David
Horowitz and John Perazzo writing in the Frontpagemag
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