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Bush Signs Anti-Terrorism Law, Civil Rights Activists Distressed
WASHINGTON, Oct 26 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. President George W. Bush armed U.S. law enforcement Friday with "important new tools" to combat terrorism, signing a sweeping bill that enhances police and surveillance powers six weeks after the September 11 terror strikes.
"This legislation is essential not only to pursuing and punishing terrorists but also preventing more atrocities," Bush said before signing the measure, the Mobilization Against Terrorism Act (MATA) - dubbed the "USA Patriot Act" - into law in a White House ceremony.
The battery of measures will also tighten immigration and banking policies in response to last month's attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Amid concerns from some civil liberties groups, the Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly approved the anti-terror bill in a 98-1 vote that came a day after the House passed it by a 357-66 vote.
On Thursday, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said that "the hour" Bush signed the measure, he would distribute the new directives on intelligence gathering, criminal procedures and immigration violations to the 94 U.S. attorneys and 56 field offices of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
The bill expands electronic surveillance powers and intelligence information sharing, broadening the government's access to records from electronic communications service providers and authorizing courts to issue nationwide search warrants.
"Existing law was written in the era of rotary telephones. This new law that I sign today will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including e-mails, the Internet and cell phones," Bush said.
The act amends immigration laws to broaden the scope of aliens ineligible for admission and provide for the mandatory detention until deportation of an alien considered a suspected terrorist or a threat to national security.
"The new legislation greatly enhances the penalties that will fall on terrorists or anyone who helps them. Current statutes deal more severely with drug traffickers than with terrorists. That changes today," said the president.
The bill also sets out penalties for those in knowing possession - in certain circumstances - of biological agents, toxins, or delivery systems. Other offenses covered by the legislation include support of terrorism through expert advice or assistance as well as for harboring any person known to have committed or to be about to commit a terrorism offense.
It also increases civil and criminal penalties for money laundering.
"The bill before me takes account of the new realities and dangers posed by modern terrorists. It will help law enforcement to identify, to dismantle, to disrupt and to punish terrorists before they strike," said Bush.
Despite the overwhelming support, Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI), the lone Senate member to vote against the measure, said it went too far.
"We need to make sure we are not rewarding the terrorists by giving up the cherished freedoms they seek to destroy," he said in the run-up to the vote.
Others have been even more critical.
"This legislation is based on the faulty assumption that safety must come at the expense of civil liberties," said Laura Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington office.
Civil rights leaders have been gravely concerned that an already threatened American Muslim and Arab community would bear the greatest brunt of the bill, as they did after the passage of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which came in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing - citing the increasing anti-Muslim and Arab sentiment on the street both before and after the attacks on September 11th.
Of the roughly 30 people held on the secret evidence clause of the bill, at least 25 were Arab and or Muslim.
Since September 11, nearly 700 people, mostly of Middle Eastern background, have been detained under charges of immigration violations or on "material witness" orders.
A number of the measures included in the comprehensive bill, such as those on electronic surveillance, are to expire within four years, or by 2006, when Congress would re-examine the effectiveness of the measures.
Around 220 U.S. colleges and universities have turned over information about their international students to the FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), said Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO).
"This is an overly broad response," Corye Barbour, legislative director of the United States Student Association, said. "Student privacy has clearly been compromised."
Nassirian said AACRAO also found that in 34 instances, government investigators sought information about enrollment in specific courses. The "vast majority" of those cases dealt with inquiries into flight courses, Nassirian continued.
The two types of student visas scrutinized are F1, the traditional international student visa, and J1, the international scholar exchange category.
Although Ashcroft's repeated confirmations that the legislation is just a series of "modest steps" that give the government the tools it needs to effectively fight terrorism in the aftermath of the September 11, many believe it does not meet that goal.
"We don't want to be like countries that we criticize all the time when - if an American goes there, they can hold them without even telling them what they are holding them for," Senator Patrick Leahy, a prominent Democrat, said.
David Cole, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said, "It is not in any way carefully calibrated to the threat that we are facing," said Cole, an expert in constitutional law.
Cole said he is most troubled by proposals affecting immigrants, which could lead to the deportation of law-abiding, peaceful non-citizens merely because of "guilt by association," alluding to secret evidence.
He also said the proposals give the attorney general the power to place immigrants in detention merely because of suspicion, without any evidence against them.
Brian Forst, a professor of justice, law and society at American University, said that the potential for misusing those tools should give lawmakers pause.
"On the one hand, you can see that it could do a lot to help, and on the other hand you can also see how it can be abused," said Forst, mentioning the abuses of the McCarthy era, or the government's surveillance of civil rights leaders during the 1960s as lessons that should not be forgotten.
When asked about the proposals, Khaled Abu El Fadl, acting professor of law at the UCLA Law School and one of the leading authorities in Islamic law in the United States and Europe,
"As to the surveillance laws, the proposed laws would greatly expand the ability of the Federal government to conduct surveillance against what it designates as foreign terrorist organizations operating in the USA.
As to the anti-terrorism laws that apply to non-citizens, Abu El-Fadl said that the proposed amendments of the Immigration and Naturalization Act would enable the Attorney General to designate individuals as a terrorist risk.
"Once so designated, those individuals may be detained and/or closely monitored with practically no judicial supervision," said Abu El-Fadl.
When asked about the proposals' effect on civil liberties, Roger Cossack, a legal analyst, confirmed that increased security is a necessity in the time being. "Regarding our civil liberties, I am not sure where the line should be drawn," said Cossack.
"I know that if we turn the country into a police state, then we have lost the essence of America."
Abul El-Fadl went on to say "Rather, this failure [in protecting civil rights] is due to the fact that the Federal government allows foreign policy considerations to heavily affect its approach to national security."
With additional reporting by Sahar Kassaimah
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