F.C. Council Urged to Take Stand vs. Patriot Act Excess

Bearing petitions with signatures of 175 City of Falls Church residents, a delegation of 18 citizens petitioned the City Council Monday to pass a resolution in opposition "to parts of the U.S.A. Patriot Act and other federal measures that infringe on the civil liberties of the residents of our city."

In response to the petition, Vice Mayor Marty Meserve tasked the City staff to draft a proposed resolution in consultation with the Council at a work session and members of relevant City boards and commissions.

Sarah Eggleston, speaking on behalf of the citizen delegation, noted that the legislatures of four states and governing bodies of 318 cities and counties have passed such resolutions, including two neighboring jurisdictions: the City of Alexandria and Arlington County.

She noted that George Mason, after whom Falls Church's middle and high schools are named and a City Hall plaque dedicated, is remembered as the "Father of the Bill of Rights," opposing ratification of the U.S. Constitution until the first 10 amendments guaranteeing civil liberties, were included. "I believe the City of Falls Church should assume its historic duty to preserve those rights our founding fathers, many of whom were Virginians, fought so hard to achieve and guarantee," she said.

Former Falls Church School Board member Steve Spector commended to the Council a sermon on the Patriot Act delivered by the Hazzan Sunny Schnitzer of his Bethesda Jewish Congregation. Having studied the texts of the Patriot Act, Schnitzer states that it "is fundamentally flawed because it relies on a false premise, that America can be safer if we do away with basic checks and balances. By undermining the role of the courts, Congress, and the press in providing a real check on executive power, the act directs its ire at the institutions of our democracy instead of at the terrorists that threaten it. In so doing it, it threatens to undermine the rights of ordinary people and, ironically, the war against terrorism."

Peter Davis, an eighth grader at George Mason Middle School, reminded the Council of the "sneak and peek" provisions of the act, and the powers it gives the government to detain and even deport individuals without probable cause. Carol LeClair and Paul Bugg also petitioned the Council on the subject.