Montclair resolution says Patriot Act imperils the Bill of Rights
Thursday, April 22, 2004
BY PHILIP READ
Star-Ledger Staff
Montclair has joined the likes of Cambridge, Mass., and Berkeley, Calif., in a revolt against the USA Patriot Act.
In a unanimous vote Tuesday, Montclair's council adopted a resolution urging the repeal of the post- 9/11 legislation that, among its expansions of law enforcement, empowers anti-terror investigators to eyeball everything from people's library selections to e-mail conversations.
"This is a very blunt instrument," Joe Fine, a member of an ad hoc group called Montclair Campaign to Defend Civil Liberties, said of the Patriot Act.
With the vote, Montclair became the eighth New Jersey town, and the first in Essex County, to call for the act's repeal and one of 292 municipalities and counties to do so nationwide, according an anti-Patriot Act organization called the Bill of Rights Defense Committee.
Congress passed and President Bush signed the Patriot Act in October 2001, six weeks after the terrorist attacks.
Albertus Jenkins, Montclair's deputy mayor, said the government oversteps its bounds by assuming the authority to monitor what citizens read at the library.
"Our basic civil rights are being attacked," said Jenkins, asserting that the act gives terrorists the "satisfaction" of knowing they have compromised the nation's civil liberties.
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.
Some key portions of the act are due to expire at the end of next year, and Bush has spoken at recent campaign appearances around the country for the law's renewal, calling it an essential tool in the war on terrorism. Attorney General John Ashcroft also has defended it against critics.
The ad hoc Montclair group had presented a 1,400-signature petition seeking the Patriot Act's repeal.
"In a town of 37,000 people, to get 1,400 signatures against something that doesn't have anything to do with parking meters ... it's a very sizable expression," said Fine, who counted a librarian, immigration lawyer and students among those who spoke out against the act.
Some others called Montclair's action inappropriate.
"You think Bush and Ashcroft are going to be waiting for a resolution from Montclair?" asked Jerry Mosier, who attended Tuesday's council meeting. "Write your congressman, picket Congress ... but making the township council pass a resolution is a waste of time."
"My main point is I don't think it is their function to do things like this," said Murray Stearns, who as president of the Montclair Republican Club admitted a deficit in political strength in the township. "We're a hopeless minority," he said with a laugh.
But Mayor Robert Russo defended the resolution, saying the Patriot Act has an impact on the library and certain Montclair residents as well as the Bill of Rights.
"It distinguishes our country from the forces we are fighting," said Russo, who teaches a college course on American government. "We have to protect the Bill of Rights from being in any way diluted."
Philip Read covers West Essex. He can be reached at pread@starled ger.com or (973) 392-1851.
Montclair Campaign to Defend Civil Liberties