Community Resolution for Groton, MA

ARTICLE 24: To see if the Town of Groton will urge its elected representatives in the U.S. House and Senate to monitor the implementation of the USA Patriot Act and related executive orders, and to actively work for the repeal of those portions of the Act that threaten civil liberties as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights
of the United States Constitution, particularly the rights to freedom of speech and assembly (sections 215, 216, 802), due process of law (section 412), freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures whether such searches and seizures take place in homes libraries, schools, or elsewhere, (sections 203, 213, 215, 216, and 901) and the right to counsel and to confront accusers (section 412); and ask the Town Clerk and Board of Selectmen to post and publish this resolution prominently and to send a copy of it to all Town departments, all public and private institutions of learning located within the town, the Middlesex County District
Attorney, the Massachusetts State Police, the Massachusetts General Court, the Attorney General and Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the United States Attorney for Massachusetts, the United States Attorney General, our elected representatives in Congress, and the President of the United States, for their action thereon.

Sponsored By: PETITION BY TOM CALLAHAN AND OTHERS

Board of Selectmen: Recommendation - Support
Finance Committee: Recommendation - No Position
Summary: Just 45 days after the September 11 attacks, with virtually no debate, Congress passed the USA Patriot Act. Many parts of this sweeping legislation take away checks on law enforcement and threaten the very rights and freedoms that we are struggling to protect. For example, without a warrant and without probable cause, the FBI now has to power to access your most private medical records, your library records, and your student records... and. can prevent anyone from telling you it was done, Since its passage, millions of people in at least 250 cities and towns have passed resolutions affirming those constitutional rights threatened by articles of the Act. Included is New York City, the very site of the devastating 9/11 attacks, whose resolution seeks to affirm and uphold civil rights and civil liberties.
And you will serve this warrant by posting a true and attested copy of the same in at least two public places in said Groton, fourteen days before the day appointed for said meeting.

Hereof fail not and make return of your doings to the Town Clerk on or before time of said meeting.

Given under our hands this 5th day of April in the year of our Lord, Two Thousand Four.

Page 12 of 12 April 26, 2004
Annual Town Meeting