Special Town Meeting
May 27, 2003
The following business was conducted at a legal Meeting of the Inhabitants of the Town of Shutesbury qualified to vote in elections and town affairs, held at the Shutesbury Elementary School, 23 West Pelham Road, on the third day of May in the year two thousand and three, in the presence of a quorum.
Article 10. A motion was made and seconded that the Town of Shutesbury, Massachusetts vote to accept the following resolution.
Calling on local government to defend state and federal Constitutions from threats imposed upon them by the USA PATRIOT Act
Whereas, the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution and the Constitution of Massachusetts guarantee those living in the United States the following rights:
- Freedom of speech, assembly and privacy;
- The rights to counsel and due process in judicial proceedings; and
- Protection from unreasonable searches and seizures; and
Whereas, we believe these civil liberties are precious and are now threatened by
- The USA PATRIOT Act, which
- All but eliminates judicial supervision of telephone and Internet surveillance;
- Greatly expands the government's ability to conduct secret searches;
- Gives the Attorney General and the Secretary of State the power to designate domestic groups as ""terrorist organizations'; and
- Grants the FBI broad access to sensitive medical, mental health, financial and educational records about individuals without having to show evidence of a crime and without a court order; and
- Federal Executive Orders, which
- Establish secret military tribunals for terrorism suspects;
- Permit wiretapping of conversations between federal prisoners and their lawyers;
- Lift Justice Department regulations against illegal COINTELPRO-type operations by the FBI (covert activities that in the past targeted domestic groups and individuals); and
- Limit the disclosure of public documents and records under the Freedom of Information Act; and
Whereas, this law and these Executive Orders particularly target foreign nationals and people of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent, but could affect any one of us in the U.S.A. acting and speaking legally in opposing government policy; and
Whereas, the Executive Order on secret military tribunals also undermines the U.S. government's ability to denounce atrocities carried out in secret by military tribunals elsewhere in the world; and
Whereas, several law enforcement officials, including previous heads of the FBI, have decried the USA PATRIOT Act and these Executive Orders as unnecessary to the prosecution of, and protection from, terrorism;
Therefore, we the people of Shutesbury, Massachusetts, call on our local government to act in the spirit of our state and federal Constitutions by asking local and state police, the local U.S. Attorney's office, and the FBI to:
- Report to citizens regularly and publicly the extent to and manner in which they have acted under the USA PATRIOT Act, new Executive Orders, or COINTELPRO-type regulations, including disclosing the names of any detainees;
- End racial profiling in law enforcement and detentions without charges;
- Not participate, to the extent legally permissible, in law enforcement activities that threaten civil rights and civil liberties of the people of Shutesbury, such as surveillance, wiretaps, and securing of private information, which the Act and Orders authorize; and
Therefore, we the people of Shutesbury, Massachusetts, call on our local government to:
- Openly work for the repeal of the parts of the Act and Orders that violate civil rights and civil liberties.
- Ask the Town Clerk to notify the above authorities of our action in this regard.
Passed by a majority.