Opinion

City Council outdoes itself — again

Two weeks ago I wrote about the City Council’s debate on whether to take away your right to smoke at a bar — the Council has yet to make a decision, but many members are adamant about taking this right away.

Now the Madison City Council has struck again. It has felt it necessary to spend time debating and passing a resolution criticizing the USA Patriot Act.

Mind you, this act was passed by the U.S. Congress 357-66, the U.S. Senate 98-1 and signed by the president almost one year ago — our City Council is not only going completely outside its jurisdiction, but it is also doing so a year after the fact.

The Madison Area Peace Coalition drafted the proposal. This is an organization that has views that are completely contradictory to reasonable solutions.

MAPC wants an end to the sanctions on Iraq, to reduce our dependency of foreign oil and to work with other countries to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction. Yet, they want this all to be done without stopping the number-one U.N. security resolution violator and the menace trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction. My guess is MAPC has no interest in the United States drilling in Alaska even though this is the only immediate way to reduce our dependency on foreign oil.

Seventeen of the 20 members of the City Council voted for the MAPC resolution, and some of them even believe it will instruct Madison police to abide by pre-existing law before the Patriot Act was passed. Despite this incredible amount of arrogance shown by these Council members, their measly resolution does not overrule federal law — which the Patriot Act became last October.

The USA Patriot Act simply affirms the government’s right to access and obtain records of individuals it reasonably believes may have terrorist ties.

The sad reality is that terrorists live among us in the United States.

In recent months, our federal government has collected evidence and arrested over a dozen U.S. citizens that are believed to have ties to al Qaeda. The serial sniper (or more likely, snipers) in D.C. may not have ties to al Qaeda, but he or she is a terrorist, and the Patriot Act gives the government authority to investigate and collect records in all these instances.

The notion that the USA Patriot Act is taking away the civil liberties of all Americans is just the far-left’s attempt to scare the public and criticize the president. The far-left Madison City Council is only attempting to hinder the war on terrorism by acting as though it can undermine federal law.

Everything in the Patriot Act, where police have been given expanded investigation power, is conditional on receiving a warrant from a federal judge. This has not changed; protection mechanisms are in place to protect the civil liberties of all citizens.

This is even explicitly stated in section 102 of the bill: “The civil rights and liberties of all Americans, including Arab Americans, must be protected, and every effort must be taken to preserve their safety.”

The Patriot Act also authorizes the tripling of security on our northern border and requires the Attorney General and the FBI to provide the State Department and INS with access to criminal-history extracts in order to determine whether or not a visa or admissions applicant should be admitted. This only strengthens our homeland security, and it can hardly be said this takes away my civil liberties.

The Patriot Act further allows the INS to deny admission or to deport an alien who is a representative of a political, social or similar group whose political endorsement of terrorist acts undermines U.S. anti-terrorist efforts. Denial or deportation can also occur if a person has been associated with a terrorist organization and intends to engage in threatening activities while in the United States.

None of these measures within the USA Patriot Act violates the law or takes away our civil liberties, as the City Council has falsely implied. The far-left has complained about the “eruption of civil liberties” ever since 9/11, but never can specific, truthful examples be provided.

Our Congress — in bipartisan fashion — wrote a good bill to help protect America from future terrorist attacks by giving police more authority. More police authority does not equal a loss of civil liberties.

One would hope the Madison City Council would have better, more important issues to debate than federal law. If this non-issue is the most important issue facing Madison —then we are lucky.

Somehow I doubt this is the case.

Matt Modell (mmodell@badgerherald.com) is a senior majoring in journalism and political science. He is in Washington, D.C. this fall for an internship.