[wvns] Arsalan Iftikhar: LOSING OUR LIBERTIES

LOSING OUR LIBERTIES
Arsalan Iftikhar
NPR
http://communities.justicetalking.org/blogs/day29/archive/2007/04/30/losing-our-liberties.aspx

More than five years removed from the 9/11 terror attacks-the greatest
tragedy to befall our nation in modern history-our country has learned
certain lessons regarding our role in the global community. But we
also have more to learn about treatment of our own citizens-lessons
that will hopefully lead us to a stronger, safer and more vibrant
society for people of all races, faiths and cultures who are all
treated equally under the law.

Since the 9/11 attacks, the most disturbing legal trend in America has
been the growing disparity in how American Muslims, Arabs and South
Asians have been treated under the law.

For example, in the months immediately after 9/11, Attorney General
John Ashcroft, using his powers under section 412 of the now infamous
USA PATRIOT Act, rounded up and imprisoned well over 1,200 Muslim and
Arab men based solely on pretextual immigration violations. The most
disturbing fact about these mass roundups was the fact that the
Justice Department refused to disclose the detainees' identities, give
them access to lawyers or allow them to have contact with their
families. The inspector general conceded in his official report that
they stopped counting the detainees after 1,200 because the
"statistics became too confusing."

Georgetown University law professor and civil liberties expert David
Cole has said that, "Thousands were detained in this blind search for
terrorists without any real evidence of terrorism, and ultimately
without netting virtually any terrorists of any kind."

In June 2002, Ashcroft instituted the National Security Entry-Exit
Registration System, more commonly referred to as NSEERS. One of the
most ambiguous and publicly debated aspects of NSEERS was known as
"Special Registration." Special Registration required all male
nationals over the age of 14 from 25 countries to report to the
government to be registered and fingerprinted. With the sole exception
of North Korea, every single one of the 25 countries on the Special
Registration bulletin was Muslim or Arab. The ACLU denounced the plan
as "a thinly veiled effort to trigger massive and discriminatory
deportations of certain immigrants."

In one year alone, the Special Registration program registered 83,310
foreign nationals, placing 13,740 into deportation proceedings.

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