Civil Liberties Restoration Act

CLRA Documents Civil Liberties Affirmative Legislative Proposals An Agenda To Restore Civil Liberties

CLRA will be first introduced in the Senate. Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) has agreed to co-sponsor the CLRA. We are also reaching out to Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Russell Feingold (D-WI) and Richard Durbin (D-IL) to serve as original co-sponsors. We expect the House version of the CLRA to be introduced by Reps. Howard Berman (D-CA) and Bill Delahunt (D-MA). The bill is expected to be introduced later this year.

In the over two years since September 11, 2001 there has been time to assess the impact and effectiveness of the government’s response to the attacks. Security experts, government auditors and community leaders have concluded that many of the government’s actions have not only failed to make us safer from future attacks, but in fact undermined our security, while eroding fundamental civil liberties. The Civil Liberties Restoration Act moves the nation forward with security and freedom as coequal and attainable goals. The Act redresses some of the excesses of the government’s response and restores critical protection and fundamental freedom without compromising our nation’s safety.

Secrecy and Elimination of Checks and Balances

Law enforcement policies that sweep too broadly and fail to respect basic individual rights will not make us safe from terrorist threats. Measures that make people suspect because of their ethnicity or religion rather than suspicious activity alienate immigrant communities, divert valuable resources from finding real terrorists, and ignore our nation’s commitment to freedom from heavy-handed government tactics. Hidden under a veil of secrecy, many of the government’s post-September 11 policies have compromised the rights of affected persons to receive impartial, timely, and individualized consideration of their cases. For example, the Department of Justice Inspector General report demonstrated that hundreds of people who had no connection to terrorism were detained after September 11 and that many of them were held for weeks or months without charges, kept from speaking to their families and their attorneys, and subjected to inhumane treatment. The proposed legislation protects against a repeat of these and other abuses by:

• Ending Blanket Secrecy and Arrest: The government’s current blanket authority to close all deportation hearings and thus cover up any misconduct can be curtailed without compromising the government’s ability to keep us safe from terrorism. A better approach would permit closure of all or part of a proceeding only after an individualized hearing before and immigration judge;
• Ensuring Fairness in our Legal System: As a free nation we must assure that individuals detained for immigration violations are charged within 48 hours and are given the right to a fair bond hearing;
• Eliminating Criminal Penalties for Technical Violations: We need restore proportionality to relatively minor immigration offenses such as the failure to report a change of address within 10 days and other registration requirements. Restoring such balance will also permit enforcement to be better targeted on those who mean us harm, and not on those who make minor mistakes.
• Establishing an Independent Immigration Court: Such a court is critical to assuring the fair administration of the immigration laws.

Privacy, Data-Mining and Surveillance

The Patriot Act amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to enable the government to secretly seize all private databases, including library, medical and credit card records, without any showing of a relationship to a suspected terrorist or to terrorist or criminal activity. The Patriot Act also amended FISA to permit secret surveillance to be used more extensively in criminal, as opposed to foreign intelligence, investigations. The proposed legislation protects privacy and due process rights by:

• Requiring Targeted Information Collection: In a free nation the government can’t be permitted to act in secret. Limiting the secret seizure of private databases and individual records to those records that pertain to a suspected terrorist or terrorist group strikes the necessary balance between protecting national security and preserving individual rights.
• Ensuring Access to the Legal System: Individuals who have been targeted by FISA surveillance and are subsequently charged with a crime must be able to challenge the legality of their surveillance in accordance with the provisions of the Classified Information Procedures Act.

If you would like to engage in grassroots advocacy around this bill, please contact Shoba Sivaprasad of the National Immigration Forum at [email protected]

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© 2003 Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union