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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2003-06-02 City Council (7)FROM: CITY MANAGER DEPARTMENT: COMMUNITY SERVICES DATE:JUNE 2, 2003 CMR: 301:03 SUBJECT:HUMAN RELATIONS COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION TO THE CITY COUNCIL TO ADOPT A RESOLUTION IN RESPONSE TO THE U.S.A. PATRIOT ACT, TO PROTECT CIVIL LIBERTIES IN PALO ALTO RECOMMENDATION Staff and the City of Palo Alto’s Human Relations CommissionSs (HRC) request that the City Council approve the adoption of a resolution to protect civil liberties in Palo Alto and direct the City Attorney to draft the final version of the resolution. The HRC recommends that the Mayor of the City of Palo Alto inform the federa! government about the action the City Council is taking and its concerns with the U.S.A. Patriot Act. BACKGROUND The U.S.A. Patriot Act was passed in October of 2001 by Congress after the bombing of the Twin Towers buildings in New York City. The U.S.A. Patriot Act is an acronym for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. The Act’s provisions include the following: 1. Expands the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. This court is composed of eleven federal district court judges appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and meets in secret to review government’s requests for electronic surveillance and physical searches. Allows the government to monitor the e-mail addresses that a person sends to or receives from and also the websites a person visits, by showing that it is relevant to a criminal investigation, making it much easier to meet the requirements of "’probable cause" or "reasonable suspicion". 3. Allows the government to delay notification of a search for a "reasonable period". This new authority allows the government to conduct searches of a person’s home in secret. 4. Allows the government broad access to records about a person. For example, the government can obtain from libraries or bookstores a list of the books that a person has borrowed or purchased. A libra,,, bookstore or other institution ordered to produce the information cannot disclose to the person that the request has been made. CMR:301:03 Page 1 of 3 5. Relaxes the standards to acquire an individual’s educational records. 6. Increases the government’s authority over immigrants by allowing detention for seven days or six months based on reasonable suspicion weakening the protections of individuals under the Constitution. 7. Amends the grounds for inadmissibility of non-citizens into the United States by expanding the definition of terrorist. The Secretary of State may designate. groups, foreign or domestic, as terrorist organizations. BOARD/COMMISSION REVIEW AND RECOMMENDATION The HRC discussed the issue of having the City of Palo Alto adopt a resolution to protect civi! liberties in Palo Alto during its regular monthly meeting. The Commissioners heard testimony from a number of Palo Alto residents and organization requesting that the City should go on record in support of civil liberties and in opposition to the many aspects of the U.S.A. Patriot Act. The HRC was given a copy of the Civil Liberty Association’s Resolution to Repeal the U.S.A. Patriot Act. After lengthy discussion, the HRC passed a motion to adopt the resolution in concept, with final language to be determined by a HRC committee and a draft resolution to be finalized at the next commission meeting. At the April 10t~ HRC meeting, the Commissioners heard further testimony from Palo Alto residents and reviewed and discussed a draft resolution written and presented by a sub-committee of the HRC. After extensive discussion the HRC passed a motion recommending that the City Council adopt a resolution to protect civil liberties in Palo Alto. Because the incoming Chief of Police had raised concerns about the draft resolution adopted by the HRC on April 10, the HRC convened a special meeting on May 22, 2003 to review the draft resolution jointly in an effort to seek agreement on a single draft resolution. After extensive discussion, the HRC and City staff agreed on a draft resolution to forward to the City Council for its review and approval. RESOURCE IMPACT The City Manager will request the information specified in the resolution by letter from the Federal Government. This should not be a significant impact on staff time. ATTACHMENTS Attachment A:Draft Resolution to Protect Civil Liberties CMR:301:03 Page 2 of 3 PREPARED BY: K~ ~’~YES INO~A~HO" ~"RI~ Dlre!t~IorY??t~man Services DEPARTMENT HEAD~,,, PAUL TmLTG~ ~ Director of Community Services CITY MANAGER APPROVAL: HARRISON Assistant City Manager CMR:301:03 Page 3 of 3 Attachment A DRAFT RESOLUTION TO PROTECT CIVIL LIBERTIES WHEREAS the City of Palo Alto is proud of its long and distinguished tradition of the civil rights and liberties of its residents; and WHEREAS the City of Palo Alto has a diverse population, including immigrants and students, whose contributions to the communit), are vital to its economy, culture and civil character; and WHEREAS the preservation of civil rights and liberties is essential to the well-being of a democratic socieD; and WHEREAS federal, state and local governments should protect the public from terrorist attacks, and should do so in a rational and deliberative fashion to ensure that any new securiD, measure enhances public safety without impairing constitutional rights or infringing on civil liberties; and WHEREAS government security measures that undermine fundamental rights do damage to the American institutions and values that the residents of the City of Palo Alto hold dear; and WHEREAS federal politics adopted since September 11,2001, including provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act (Public Law 107-56) and related executive orders, regulations and actions, threaten fundamental rights and liberties of all those who reside in, do business with, or visit the City of Palo Alto, by: (a) authorizing the indefinite incarceration of non-citizens based on mere suspicion, and the indefinite incarceration of citizens designated by the President as "enemy, combatants" without access to counsel or meaningful recourse to the federal court; (by limiting the traditional authority of federal court to curb law enforcement abuse of electronic surveillance in anti-terrorism investigations and ordinaD’ criminal investigations: (c) expanding the authority,’ of federal agents to conduct so-called "sneak and peek" or "black bag" searches, in which the subject of the search warrant is unaware that his property has been searched; (d) granting law enforcement and intelligence agencies broad access to personal medical, financial, library. and education records with little if any judicial oversight; (e) chilling constitutionally protected speech through overbroad definitions of"terrorism"; (f) driving a wedge between immigrant communities and the police that protect them by.’ encouraging involvement of state and local police in enforcement of federal immigration law; (g) permitting the FB1 to conduct surveillance of religious services, internet chatrooms, political demonstrations, and other public meetings of any kind without having any evidence that a crime has been or may be committed: WHEREAS many other communities throughout the countW have enacted resolutions reaffirn~ing support for civil rights and civil liberties in the face of government policies that threaten these values, and demanding accountability, from law enforcement agencies regarding their use of these new powers; and WHEREAS thirD.’ years ago California voters overwhelmingly adopted a Constitutional right to privacy to protect against a ~’proliferation of government snooping and data collecting [that] is threatening to destroy our traditional freedoms"; THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PALO ALTO: 1. AFFIRMS its strong support for fundamental constitutional rights and its opposition to federal measures that infringe on civil liberties. 2. AFFIRMS its strong support for the rights of immigrants and opposes measures that single out individuals for legal scrutiny or enforcement activity, based solely on their country of origin. 3. AFFIRMS its belief that organizations and individuals should not be monitored based solely on their religious or political views and no information about political, religious or social views, associations, or activities should be collected unless the information related to an imminent threat to public safety,, or reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. 4. Without implying that the Police Department has committed these acts before, DIRECTS the City Manager to ensure that the Police Department of the City of Palo Alto refrains from: a. engaging in the surveillance of individuals or groups of individuals based on their participation in actMties protected by the First Amendment, such as political advocacy or the practice of a religion, without particularized suspicion of criminal activity unrelated to the activity., protected by the First Amendment; b. collecting or maintaining information about the political, religious or social views, associations or actMties of any, individual, group, association, organization, corporation, business or partnership unless such information directly relates to an investigation of criminal activities, and there are reasonable grounds to suspect the subject to the information is or may be involved in criminal conduct; c. the use of the images from a video surveillance network except insofar as it is done in accordance with the restrictions contained in this resolution; d. the use of video surveillance as a form of intimidation, and only when the police have a reasonable suspicion that the subjects of the video surveillance have or are about to commit a crime; e. deploying any form of biotechnology, such as facial recognition technology,, prior to it being accepted as admissible evidence in the State of California; f. conducting searches, pursuant to warrants, without leaving a copy of the warrant for the individual whose premises have been the subject of search. g. utilizing race, religion, ethnicity or national origin as a factor in selecting which individuals to subject to investigatory., activities, except when seeking to apprehend a specific suspect whose race, religion, ethnicity or national origin is part of the description of the suspect: h, stopping drivers or pedestrians for the purpose of scrutinizing their identification documents without particularized suspicion of criminal activity’; i. relying solely, on information provided by Federal authorities, such as the Terrorism Information and Prevention System (TIPS), that encourages members of the general public to illegally gather information about their neighbors, colleagues or customers; 5. DIRECTS the City Manager to seek adequate written assurances from federal authorities that residents of the City, of Palo Alto and individuals in the custody of the City,," of Palo Alto who are placed in federal custody xvilt not be subjected to militaDr detention; secret detention; secret immigration proceedings; or detention without access to counsel, and refrain from assisting federal authorities in obtaining custody of such individuals absent such assurances; 6. DIRECTS the City. Manager to report to the City Council to the extent possible any extraordinary, requests by federal authorities that, if granted, would cause departments of the City, of Palo Alto to exercise powers or cooperates in the exercise of powers that do not meet the common standards of the city and are in apparent violation of any city ordinance or laws or Constitution of this State or the United States; 7. DIRECT the City.’ Manager to seek periodically from federal authorities the following information in a form the facilitates an assessment of the effect of federal anti-terrorism efforts on the residents of the City. of Palo Alto: a. The number of search warrants that have been executed in the City’ of Palo Alto without notice to the subject of the warrant pursuant to section 213 of the USA PATRIOT Act; b. The number of times education records have been obtained from public schools and institutions of higher learning in the City of Palo Alto under section 507 of the USA PATRIOT Act; c. The number of times library’ records have been obtained from libraries in the City; of Palo Alto under section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act; d. The number of times that records of the books purchased by store patrons have been obtained from bookstores in the City, of Palo Alto under section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act; e. The extent of electronic surveillance carried out in the City.’ of Palo Alto under powers granted in the USA PATRIOT Act: f. The names of all residents of the City, of Palo Alto who have been arrested or otherwise detained by federal authorities as a result of terrorism investigations since September 11,2001; the location of each detained; the circumstances that led to each detention; the charges, if any, lodged against each detainee; the name of counsel, if any, representing each detainee; g. The extent to which federal authorities are monitoring political meetings, religious gathering or other activities protected by the First Amendment within the City of Palo Alto; 8. DIRECTS the City, Manager to transmit to the City, Council no less than once evew six months a summaW of the information obtained pursuant to the preceding paragraph and, based on such information and any other relevant information, and assessment of the effect of federal anti-terrorism efforts on the residents of the City of Palo Alto; 9. DIRECTS the City Manager to transmit a copy, of this resolution to Senator Barbara Boxer, Senator Dianne Feinstein and Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, accompanied by a letter urging then to monitor federal anti-terrorism tactics and work to repeal provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act and other laws and regulations that infringe on civil rights and liberties; 10. DIRECT the City Manager to transmit a copy of this resolution to Governor Gray Davis, and appropriate members of the State Legislature, accompanied by a letter urging them to ensure that state anti- terrorism laws and policies be implemented in a manner that does not infringe on civil liberties as described in this resolution. 11. DIRECT the City Manager to transmit a copy of this resolution to President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft.