As the American Civil Liberties Union paid homage to the Constitution yesterday, members of the liberal organization urged U.S. citizens to be cognizant of their own civil rights.
A panel discussion, led by law enforcement officials and civil liberties experts, focused on civil rights breaches in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, with featured speakers urging citizens to know their rights in a meeting Tuesday night at the Boston Public Library for “Constitution Day.”
“Within six weeks of 9/11, Congress had rushed through the Patriot Act and its ill-considered provisions,” said Tim Sparapani, a member of the legislative counsel for the national branch of the ACLU. “A lot of the goal of trying to find terrorists has led to the surveillance of all of us.”
Sparapani encouraged the audience to resist the Real ID Act — part of a 2005 bill that would pool citizens’ information in one database from information gathered on their drivers’ licenses.
“It would be widely inconsiderate not to examine six years after 9/11 why all of our surveillance capacity has been turned inward on us,” Sparapani said.
Former FBI Special Agent Mike German, now a member of the ACLU National Security Policy Counsel, also said people should question the protection the government offers.
“From a threat’s perspective, six years after President Bush started a global war on terrorism, despite the loss of civil liberties, we are no safer than we were,” German said. “That is something we have to speak out about more.”
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