Features > June 2, 2003

Civil Liberties Take a Dive Post-9/11

By Dave Lindorff

Peaceful demonstrators shot and beaten. Students expelled for wearing T-shirts opposing the president. A Girl Scout threatened with arrest for silently protesting the war on a street corner. Protesters plucked from the sidewalk ahead of a presidential motorcade and forced into a “protest pit” a third of a mile away. A teacher fired for posting student art a principal deemed “not sufficiently pro-war.” These are dangerous times in America. But a new report by the ACLU outlining the widespread assault on civil liberties since September 11, 2001, by federal, state and local authorities also provides stirring evidence of growing grass-roots resistance to these attacks.

The report, titled “Freedom Under Fire: Dissent in Post-9/11 America,” might well have been titled “Boldness Under Fire.”

It tells the stories of people across the country who have risked arrest to protest the domestic and aggressive war policies of the Bush administration since the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center-all of them cases in which the ACLU has intervened, either before government bodies or in court.

Cases like Bretton Barber, a 15-year-old sophomore who refused a demand by his high school that he turn inside out a T-shirt he was wearing saying “International Terrorist” and depicting the image of President Bush. Barber faced suspension rather than buckle under to censorship, and the ACLU has agreed to take the case to court.

Or like that of A.J. Brown in Durham, North Carolina, who was visited at her home by Secret Service agents and local police. The agents were looking for a poster on the wall of the young woman’s house that an anonymous snitch had reported as “anti-American.” (The poster, a critique of the death penalty, depicted a group of lynched bodies hanging behind a picture of President Bush and read, “We hang on your every word.”)

“There is a pall over our country,” the ACLU writes. “The responses to dissent by many government officials, as described in this report, so clearly violate the letter and spirit of the supreme law of the land that they threaten the underpinnings of democracy itself.”

Repressive and threatening measures by federal, state and local officials have included illegal spying, infiltration, violent actions, and intimidation, and have often been supported by local authorities. During a September 2002 demonstration near the White House, capital police deliberately herded 400 peaceful demonstrators into a trap and then attacked and arrested them, in a case that is still being challenged by the ACLU. In Oakland, California, using rubber and wooden bullets, police fired on people peacefully protesting the use of the city’s port facilities for shipping military equipment.

But the report, released in May, notes that a broad citizen response to these measures has been building. ACLU membership is growing, and more than 114 communities have already passed legislation designed to uphold and protect civil liberties and the Bill of Rights. “We now have over 104 communities, including the state of Hawaii-together representing over 11.1 million people-that have passed Bill of Rights Protection resolutions,” says Damon Moglen, national field coordinator for the ACLU.

Local resolutions vary in their wording, but many are explicit in instructing local police authorities not to cooperate with federal activities that threaten legitimate First Amendment rights or other freedoms. “The tempo of these resolutions has exploded,” says Moglen. “It’s a grassroots revolution.”

The movement is encouraging Democratic and even some less conservative Republican politicians to take a more public stand against threats to civil liberties. In May, when the Tucson, Arizona, City Council was debating passage of one such resolution, they received a letter from Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva, Tucson’s congressional representative, who expressed “deep concern about the ramifications of the USA Patriot Act.” Grijalva offered his “full support” to the resolution, which he said “reaffirms our nation’s long and proud tradition of upholding our freedoms guaranteed by our U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.”

The measure passed resoundingly.

More recently, on May 12, the Republican-dominated Alaska House of Representatives passed a powerfully worded Bill of Rights protection resolution. On May 21, the state’s Republican-led Senate approved the same bill, with only opposing vote. The bill instructs state law enforcement officials not to cooperate with federal authorities in activities that transgress the Bill of Rights, even if allowed under the Patriot Act. It also calls for the state’s congressional delegation “to correct provisions in the USA Patriot Act and other measures that infringe on civil liberties, and opposes any pending and future federal legislation to the extent that it infringes on Americans’ civil rights and liberties.”

In a foreword to the ACLU report, Executive Director Anthony Romero writes, “Dissenters who take unpopular positions in their own times are often seen as heroes later on. We believe that when future generations look at what was done to our core freedoms and values after 9/11, the voices of dissent will stand out as the true defenders of democracy.”

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• Reader Comments

  I love how you use the ACLU to amplify your point. The ACLU! The ACLU is helping out a group called NAMBLA. NAMBLA stands for the North American Man-Boy Love Association. They are for legalized sex between men and boys who are age 8. They were found to advocate and help those committ a crime (apparently they send letters to their members about how to lure boys). The ACLU is helping them.

  The kid who wore that shirt deserved to be kicked out of school. Its an offensive t-shirt and should not be worn on school property. Its because people like this there is a proposal for uniforms in public schools.

  The author of this article lied about the incident in an Oakland port. The protestors were asked to move multiple times because they were blocking the port. When they wouldn’t move and one protestor assaulted a worker, they were fired upon and rightly so. 

  Posted by Brad on Jun 2, 2003 at 1:41 PM

  Whether or not that t-shirt is offensive depends on your point of view.  It makes a political statement, it doesnt advocate violence or depict vulgar material.  It is total bullshit that they kicked the kid out of school.  And about the incident at the Oakland port, there are conflicting reports.  The protesters and workers said that it was a peaceful protest, and the cops said someone threw a rock.  Even if the cops are being truthful, someone throwing a rock doesn’t justify sending 50 or so people to the hospital, some with fairly serious injuries.

  Posted by Justin Wilson on Jun 2, 2003 at 7:23 PM

  “… they were fired upon and rightly so.”

  Can you imagine?  Lord have mercy on this nation of ours.

  Posted by B.J. on Jun 2, 2003 at 7:36 PM

  ok BJ, what do you propose those policeman do for the union workers, the protestors were interfering with their jobs and in some cases assaulting them. I put it to you to say what they shoudl have done. I don’t know where he got 50 people in the hospital because it was less.

  You can assemble and yell and do what you want but no where does it say can you interfere with others trying to do their job and then disregard the police.

  Posted by Brad on Jun 3, 2003 at 1:24 PM

  I am appalled at what is happening in this country right now.  As Gore Vidal called us, the U.S. of Amnesia, we’d better WAKE UP.

  Posted by denisedecarlo on Jun 3, 2003 at 2:35 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 9 posts.

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