Teaneck Set to Undermine Patriot Act and Finds Resistance

In Teaneck, NJ, last month, the Town Council was asked to pass a resolution opposing parts of the USA Patriot Act of 2001, which, in the wake of 9-11, was enacted with overwhelming Congressional support to rectify recognized intelligence failures in this country.

The Town Council has requested Teaneck’s town attorney to draft such a resolution so that it can be debated at a future meeting.

Initially, there were suggestions that Teaneck draft a proposal informing the Federal government that the city will no longer comply with parts of the Patriot Act. But after receiving a letter from Sharon Hes, municipal chairman of the Teaneck Republican Party and managing editor of The Jewish Voice and Opinion, Mayor Jacqueline Kates pointed out that the local government has no authority to do so and will not encourage local government employees to break federal law.

However, the resolution being drafted is likely to be a denunciation rather than a demand for non-compliance with the law. Mrs. Kates said that by doing so, Teaneck will add its voice to the “hundreds of other towns across the country” which also decry the act.

Mrs. Hes says that any move to show disapproval with the Patriot Act weakens national security because it is the first step towards non-compliance with the law, leading to its eventual overturn.

In her letter to the Town Council on this subject, she wrote: “Even if the ultimate resolution does not require non-compliance but merely denounces any of the Patriot Act, it would be wrong to indicate disapproval of a law that has kept our country free of successful terrorist attacks, thus far, for three-and-a-half years, despite our enemies best efforts.”

She is leading the effort not only to oppose the anti-Patriot Act resolution in Teaneck, but to promote one in favor of “national security rights.”

Although Mrs. Hes is an active member of the Orthodox community and the Republican party, she sees her efforts on this behalf as non-partisan and secular.

“There are plenty of Democrats, politically unaffiliated, and people of all faiths who demand national security rights,” she says.

The anti-Patriot Act resolution suggested for Teaneck focuses on a small part of Section 215 which allows the government to order “books, records, papers, documents, and other items” for investigations designed to protect against international terrorism.

Although the section of the act says nothing specifically about libraries, those who want Teaneck to pass the resolution want the town to prohibit the library from releasing records.

“They are trying to prohibit sharing with Federal authorities the library records of suspected individuals who have taken books out or used library computers to communicate with other suspects,” says Mrs. Hes.

Mrs. Kates explained that the draft resolution the council has requested is limited to library records, as opposed to those from bookstores. She pointed out that the town has no control over or responsibility for bookstores.

Mrs. Hes maintains that national security rights in the US “are being threatened by a coalition of groups around the country.”

“They are urging town councils everywhere to pass resolutions against the USA Patriot Act of 2001, or various sections of it. They seek to undermine its protections under the guise of ‘protection of civil liberties,’” she says.

“There are people involved with the Teaneck mosque who have not only been outspoken opponents of both the War on Terror and the Patriot Act but are also supportive of terrorism. These people may well use Teaneck’s library,” she says.

According to a spokesman for the US Justice Department, libraries have become a logical target of government surveillance in light of evidence that some of the 9-11 hijackers used library computers to communicate with each other.

Present at the meeting to discuss disapproval of section 215 was Waheed Khalid, who served until recently as president of the Dar-Ul-Islah mosque in Teaneck and who has been cited by the Bergen Record for verbally supporting the activities of Hamas, the Middle East group on the U.S. State Department list of terrorist organizations. .

According to the Record, “while [Mr. Khalid] does not condone the killing of civilians, he doesn’t blame Hamas for its terrorist activities either.” Speaking of Hamas as heroes, Mr. Khalid said, “They’re trying to get the occupiers out of their home.”

Besides his refusal to condemn Hamas, Mr. Khalid has been supportive of former Jersey City Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind Muslim cleric responsible for the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

In October 1995, Mr. Abdel-Rahman was convicted of planning and ordering the attack on the World Trade Center. Last month, his attorney, Lynne Stewart, was convicted of passing terror-related messages from the blind cleric to his supporters.

In October 1995, Mr. Khalid told the Record, “If he [Abdel-Rahman] was to be found guilty, [the government] should have produced some convincing evidence. But to us it looks like they just railroaded him.”

At the Teaneck Town Council meeting last month, Mr. Khalid told officials about two episodes, which, he said, were reflective of legal government-sanctioned activity against Muslims. One concerned bank accounts maintained by “an Islamic center in NJ” at Hudson United Bank that, he said, were mysteriously closed with no explanation despite being “very well maintained and in good standing.”

“They have been trying to find out the reason, but the bank is not telling them except that they have to close the account. It could be any one of us tomorrow who could face these situations,” he told the town council.

Mrs. Hes points out that government officials are aware that certain Islamic Centers in NJ have raised funds for organizations that promote terrorism. Further, she said, she has received a document from Hudson United bank officials, informing her that the bank had indeed given the Union City-based Islamic Education Center of North Hudson a reason for the closure, although the official did not divulge it t Mrs. Hes.

Mr. Khalid’s second incident concerned 40 American-Muslim students who, he said, were fingerprinted upon their return from a religious retreat in Canada.

Mrs. Hes points out that that the students were fingerprinted for “specific and legitimate security reasons.” Kristi Clemens, an assistant commissioner for public affairs at the Customs and Border Protection agency, said the students’ attendance at a “Reviving the Islamic Spirit” conference had invited scrutiny.

“We are aware that the vast majority of participants at this conference and others are legitimate, going for the right reasons, but we have credible, ongoing information that these types of conferences have been used and are being used by terrorist organizations to not only transport fraudulent documents but to mask travel by terrorists. They think that in a large group, we’re going to be less restrictive and try to expedite the processing,” said Ms. Clemens, adding that the information she had regarding the Canadian conference “was specific.”

She explained that the students’ fingerprints, which were taken at the US-Canada border, were compared with criminal and terrorist watch list databases, and then disposed of when none of the prints matched those of known criminals or terrorists.

Citing John Burkoff, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh and a Constitutional expert, Mrs. Hes explains that courts have repeatedly held that all citizens at US border crossings “should have a lower expectation of privacy than they would in their homes.”

“The purpose of taking the fingerprints was to make sure the people returning to the country were the same ones who had left the country, since terrorists have been known to infiltrate through the relatively open border with Canada,” says Mrs. Hes.

“Mr. Waheed is one example of Muslim terrorist apologists who attended the Teaneck council meeting and spoke out against sections of the Patriot Act,” said Mrs. Hes.

She has posted all her refutations of his complaints in a document found at http://SecurityRights.US/patriotact.html.

In Teaneck, the primary organization working for the anti-Patriot Act resolution is the Teaneck Peace and Justice Coalition (TPJC), formerly known as the Teaneck Peace Coalition. They claim it is their “patriotic duty to stand up for our shared conviction that the United States government should immediately cease its occupation of Iraq, bring our troops home, and to abolish the obnoxious USA Patriot Act.”

Their website includes links to articles such as “Why We Must Lose This War” and organizations such as Not In Our Name.

In December 2004, the group handed out flyers to library patrons warning that their reading records could be sought by the federal government without them being notified. The flyer claimed support of by certain conservative organizations, including a “National Gun Owners Association” which, according to Mrs. Hes, does not even exist.

In fact, she says, Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act does not even mention libraries.

“It refers to the general category of business records. When the FBI is investigating crimes related to terrorism, a judge can authorize the bureau to subpoena any business records, none of which are specifically mentioned in the act. These could include, for example, motel visits, department store purchases, municipal tax records, library records, and flight school records,” she says.

According to Ms. Hes, library records should not be any more sacrosanct than these other business documents.

Besides, she says, there is nothing new about the government subpoenaing business records when it is deemed appropriate by the courts.

“These laws have been on the books for a long time related to other areas of federal concern, such as organized crime. The Patriot Act merely extended it to include crimes related to terrorism,” she says.

She particularly resents the implication by the anti-Patriot Act groups that its statutes allow indiscriminate violations of civil rights.

“In order to drum up support, these groups deliberately misrepresent what the section covers. They try to make it appear that there are no safeguards to protect individual rights, that rogue federal agents could go on ‘fishing expeditions’ based on what supposedly incriminating books were used at the library,” says Ms. Hes.

She notes that, by definition, any investigation violates a suspect’s privacy.

In fact, Section 215 does not grant the FBI the right arbitrarily to seek library records. To gain access, the agency is required to secure a court order with proof to the court that there already has been a legitimate ongoing terrorism-based investigation of the subject.

Contradicting TPJC’s claims that the FBI can simply find a judge to grant the court order, just as a Grand Jury is said to rubber-stamp a prosecutor’s indictment plans, Mrs. Hes points out that in order to grant the court order specified in Section 215, the FBI needs a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act judge. FISA judges are specially selected and trained by the Justice Department in these areas to have a thorough understanding of the limits and scope of this law.

“Agents, therefore, cannot use this authority unilaterally to compel any entity to turn over its records. FISA orders are unlike Grand Jury subpoenas, which are requested without court supervision,” she says.

Section 215 specifies that its regulations can be used only (1) “to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a United States person;” or (2) “to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.”

“It cannot be used to investigate ordinary crimes, or even domestic terrorism,” says Mrs. Hes.

“What is even more damning about the attack on Section 215 is the fact that, as far as has been reported, it has never, not once, been actually used concerning library records. We know this because part of the Patriot Act requires semiannual reports from the Justice Department to Congress about how many times and in what manner the Patriot Act has been used. Last year, former Attorney General John Ashcroft declassified this number to counter the torrent of misinformation about the use of the Patriot Act,” said Ms. Hes.

She points out that Section 215 expressly protects First Amendment rights, specifying that the investigations it sanctions may not be “conducted solely upon the basis of activities protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.”

She takes issue also with the claims of Patriot Act opponents that Section 215 is an unconstitutional gag order.

“Section 215’s requirement that recipients of orders to relinquish files must keep the request confidential is based on ‘national security letter’ (NSL) statutes, which have existed for decades,” she says.

An NSL is a type of administrative subpoena used in certain national-security investigations.

Left-wing civil liberties groups have weighed in on the issue as well. In Teaneck, a representative of the ACLU was the first speaker before the Town Council. His organization argues that the Patriot Act “expands terrorism laws to include ‘domestic terrorism’ which could subject political organizations to surveillance, wiretapping, harassment, and criminal action for political advocacy.” The ACLU also claims that the act includes a “provision that might allow the actions of peaceful groups that dissent from government policy, such as Greenpeace, to be treated as ‘domestic terrorism.’”

According to Mrs. Hes, peaceful groups that dissent from government policy without breaking laws cannot be targeted.

“Peaceful political discourse and dissent is one of America’s most cherished freedoms, and is not subject to investigation as domestic terrorism. Under the Patriot Act, the definition of ‘domestic terrorism’ is limited to conduct that violates federal or state criminal law or is dangerous to human life. Therefore, peaceful political organizations engaging in political advocacy will obviously not come under this definition,” she says.

At the Teaneck meeting, some of the personal anecdotes related by opponents of the Patriot Act appeared initially to sway some council members. Teaneck resident Abdul Waheed complained about being detained at an airport for 90 minutes, and then simply released. He believed this represented an abuse of the Patriot Act and his civil rights.

Councilmember Elie Y. Katz said Mr. Waheed’s story “touched” him and made him more sympathetic to the request for a resolution against Section 215.

Mrs. Hes points out that Mr. Waheed’s experience at the airport had “absolutely nothing to do with Section 215 or libraries.”

“Therefore, his anecdote was irrelevant to the resolution under consideration and should not influence any council member’s deliberations on it,” she says.

Secondly, she says, Mr. Waheed was neither accused of committing a crime nor arrested, nor deprived of due process.

“What he experienced was, in fact, due process. It is quite possible that Mr. Waheed’s name was on a terrorist watch list. However, in a relatively short time, the authorities determined he was not the man they were looking for, so he was simply released. That is exactly what investigations and increased security vigilance entails,” she says.

She notes that, in any case, Mr. Waheed was not the only person to be inconvenienced by the Patriot Act or increased airport security in this country.

“Mr. Waheed’s experience is exactly what airport security procedures dictate under certain circumstances, and thousands of non-Muslims have had similar treatment,” says Ms. Hes.

After the meeting, Mr. Katz seemed to change his position, acknowledging that “personal inconvenience must be balanced against national security concerns.”

“After 9-11, all of us are at greater risk, and this, of course, must concern us,” he said. “Most of us don’t mind the added inconveniences we now experience because they are in place to protect us.”

Last December, the flyer distributed by the TPJC also expressed the fear that anyone could be seen as suspicious for wanting “to learn something about Islam, terrorism, the Taliban, the war in Iraq.”

“If that is what it takes to be considered a suspicious character, then count me in, as well as the millions of people throughout the US who have also taken books out on those topics since 9-11. It strains credulity to think the FBI has nothing better to do than go on fishing expeditions among ordinary citizens merely on the basis of such common and pressing interests,” says Ms. Hes.

She points to a report from people who, wanting to test the provisions of the Patriot Act, withdrew books from public libraries on such topics as terrorism and bomb-making. None of them have been contacted by authorities.

“There must be external reasons related to terrorism for someone to be investigated, proven to a special judge, before a request for business documents can be made, which may include library, tax, banking, education, or credit card records. Any statement to the contrary is simply a lie,” says Ms. Hes.

Teaneck residents who, like Mrs. Hes, oppose a Council resolution against the Patriot Act can sign an online petition at http://SecurityRights.US/teaneck to show their support “for security and common sense,” says Ms. Hes.

“It has been proven that no one’s civil rights are actually being compromised, libraries are essentially unaffected, and Section 215, while rarely used, has been a proven and potent legal weapon in the War on Terror. It would send an irresponsible message, provide solace to our enemies, and possibly be dangerous to pass such a resolution proposed by TPJC,” says Mrs. Hes.

She is encouraging people to send letters to town council members stating their concerns. Members can be reached at Town Council, Teaneck Municipal Building, Teaneck Road and Cedar Lane, Teaneck, NJ 07666.

A good time to discuss this issue would be Sunday, March 13 from 2-4 pm at the Teaneck Town Council’s “Coffee with Council,” the first in a series of informal get-togethers scheduled to be held in the Council Chambers, located on the first floor in the Municipal Building at 818 Teaneck Road.

Ms. Hes recognizes that this issue has national ramifications. Regardless of the results in Teaneck, she sees the need for activities protecting national security rights around the country.

“The primary obligation of a government it to protect its citizens. While there are no guarantees, we have a right to the best national security consistent with our laws. When there are attempts to limit or undermine our national security, we must oppose these efforts,” says Ms. Hes.

To that end, she has started a new organization called Americans for National Security Rights. Future efforts to “protect and enhance our national security rights” will be documented at the website at http://SecurityRights.org.

“Even towns that do not face anti-security resolutions can take actions to challenge this assault on our national security rights,” says Ms. Hes.

The fingerprint issue is very important. Not only have terrorists come into this country, and not returned to their own, others have assumed their identities to lead the government to think they'd left.

This happened with the Kansi guy who killed all those folks at the CIA several years back. He didn't immediately leave the country after the killings although another person used his passport on the same day as the killings.

He left weeks later and then hid out in Pakistan.

The people who don't want the fingerprints taken or compared actually do intend to make it difficult for us to find terrorists, particularly right after terrorist acts.

Best thing we can do is identify these people immediately, round them up, and imprison them for the duration of the war.

>>>In Teaneck, the primary organization working for the anti-Patriot Act resolution is the Teaneck Peace and Justice Coalition (TPJC), formerly known as the Teaneck Peace Coalition. They claim it is their “patriotic duty to stand up for our shared conviction that the United States government should immediately cease its occupation of Iraq, bring our troops home, and to abolish the obnoxious USA Patriot Act.”

Their website includes links to articles such as “Why We Must Lose This War” and organizations such as Not In Our Name.<<<<

Not in Our Name = SDS

Leonard Magruder has a list on his website that shows the group that started Not In Our Name were ANSWER and some of the same names are from the group that signed the People's Treaty to end the Vietnam War.

http://i-served.com/MagruderArticlesIndex.html

Supporting Hamas

According to the Record, “while [Mr. Khalid] does not condone the killing of civilians, he doesn’t blame Hamas for its terrorist activities either.” Speaking of Hamas as heroes, Mr. Khalid said, “They’re trying to get the occupiers out of their home.”

In October 1995, Mr. Khalid told the Record, “If he [Abdel-Rahman] was to be found guilty, [the government] should have produced some convincing evidence. But to us it looks like they just railroaded him.”
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Tidbits for kicks and giggles.

The Coptic family that was murdered in Jersey City. A relative of theirs was doing translations for the court case against Lynne Stewart.

Although 2 men were picked up for their murder/robbery, the men both said they owned money to someone. I would like to hear more about who they owned money too and if that was a motive against this specific family.