ACLU Hosts Citizens’ Meeting on Patriot Act: Councilor Griego Featured Speaker

From ACLU New Mexico:
ALBUQUERQUE –  On Monday, July 18th, at 6:00 PM the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico (ACLU-NM) is hosting the second in a series of “Reform the Patriot Act” town halls at the Peace and Justice Center at 202 Harvard SE in Albuquerque.  Featured speakers include Albuquerque City Councilor Eric Griego and Global Dialog Director Valerie Gremillion.

The bill to be considered next week will make permanent the parts of the Patriot Act that Congress initially intended to expire.  For example, it would make permanent the most unwise and intrusive provisions of the Patriot Act, such as those that give the government access to your medical, library, financial and other personal records, without any requirement that the federal government demonstrate that there are any facts connecting records about you to a foreign terrorist.

"Nearly 400 communities - including seven states - have passed resolutions calling on Congress to amend the Patriot Act to restore basic checks and balances," said ACLU of New Mexico Communications Manager Kimberly Lavender.  "Here in New Mexico, thirteen communities, the NM State House of Representatives, the NM Library Association, the NM Municipal League and others, passed resolutions within months of the Patriot Act’s passage."

ACLU members in New Mexico have been reaching out statewide to let their neighbors know how the Patriot Act affects them.  The ACLU Central New Mexico Chapter will be airing the movie “Unconstitutional” Thursday, July 21, at the Erna Ferguson Library Community Room at 6:15 PM.  The "Street Patriots" have been handing our information weekly in Albuquerque around town while wearing "sign" boards that display personal information, like "I took Viagra this morning" and "I keep a handgun hidden in my home office." Their message: the Patriot Act puts Americans’ privacy at risk by allowing law enforcement agencies access to medical, financial, religious, and gun purchase records.

The 16 expiring provisions of the Patriot Act were not properly vetted the first time, and included unwarranted expansions of federal power, yet some in Congress are poised to make them permanent with no real corrections. If they succeed, extreme provisions like Section 215 -- which gives the FBI broad access to your personal records without individual suspicion, probable cause or any meaningful ability to challenge the secret court order that allows this access -will forever be a fixture of our laws.

The following can be attributed to Lisa Graves, ACLU Senior Counsel for Legislative Strategy:

"Congress rightfully put sunsets on some provisions of the Patriot Act, so that lawmakers could reexamine the extraordinary powers when cooler heads would prevail. We cannot afford to sacrifice the very freedoms we seek to protect. Although the House Judiciary Committee’s base bill does not expand the Patriot Act in the unwise and unwarranted way the Senate Intelligence Committee proposed, it can and must be modified to ensure that Patriot powers are focused on terrorists, and not ordinary Americans whose civil liberties must be protected to preserve our American values." For more on the ACLU’s concerns with the Patriot Act, go to: https://www.reformthepatriotact.org

Kimberly Lavender, Communications Manager, ACLU of New Mexico at 505-266-4622
Go to our website at www.aclu-nm.org