<\/center><\/p>\n
June 4, 2002<\/p>\n
Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr.
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on the Judiciary
2138 Rayburn HOB, Washington, DC 20515<\/p>\n
Representative John Conyers
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on the Judiciary
2138 Rayburn HOB, Washington, DC 20515<\/p>\n
Dear Chairman Sensenbrenner and Representative Conyers:<\/p>\n
We write to you on behalf of a broad range of organizations across the country about the decision of the Attorney General to loosen the guidelines that restrict the surveillance of religious and political organizations in the United States. This decision raises matters of Constitutional authority that require immediate Congressional attention. We do not believe that the Attorney General has the legal authority to pursue domestic spying. We urge you to conduct oversight hearings on the new guidelines.<\/p>\n
We are particularly concerned about elements of the guidelines that appear to give the FBI the authority to search through electronic databases without satisfying any legal standard or requiring any judicial review. Such an approach to police authority in the United States is directly contrary to the First and Fourth Amendment and the system of checks and balances established by our form of government.<\/p>\n
We are also concerned that the changes authorize unchecked surveillance of lawful religious and political activity, and that such surveillance will be targeted against Arab-Americans, Muslim and immigrants among others.<\/p>\n
We urge you to convene a public hearing with the Attorney General so that the following issues may be addressed:<\/p>\n
We would be pleased to work with you and your staff on this important matter.<\/p>\n
Sincerely,<\/p>\n
Marc Rotenberg
Executive Director
Electronic Privacy Information Center<\/p>\n
Nan Aron
President
Alliance for Justice<\/p>\n
Kareem Shora
Legal Advisor
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)<\/p>\n
Laura W. Murphy
Director Washington Office
American Civil Liberties Union<\/p>\n
Paula Johnson
Co-President
American Law Teachers<\/p>\n
Emily Sheketoff, Executive Director
American Library Association Washington Office<\/p>\n
Tom DeWeese
President
American Policy Center<\/p>\n
Amy Isaacs
National Director, Americans for Democratic Action<\/p>\n
Majed Jafari
Director, Government Relations
Arab American Institute<\/p>\n
Margaret Fung
Executive Director
Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund<\/p>\n
Kent Pollock
Executive Director
California First Amendment Coalition<\/p>\n
Nancy Chang
Staff Attorney
Center for Constitutional Rights<\/p>\n
James X. Dempsey
Deputy Director
Center for Democracy and Technology<\/p>\n
Jeff Chester
Executive Director
Center for Digital Democracy<\/p>\n
Kate Martin
Director
Center for National Security Studies<\/p>\n
Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney
Christian Defense Coalition<\/p>\n
Ken McEldowney
Executive Director
Consumer Action<\/p>\n
Jason Erb
Director, Governmental Relations
Council on American-Islamic Relations<\/p>\n
Lee Tien
Senior Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation<\/p>\n
Steven Aftergood
Project Director
Federation of American Scientists<\/p>\n
Kit Gage
Director
First Amendment Foundation and NCARL<\/p>\n
Florence C. Kimball
Legislative Education Secretary
Friends Committee on National Legislation<\/p>\n
David J. Theroux
Founder and President
The Independent Institute<\/p>\n
Mark Graham
Institute for Global Communication<\/p>\n
Elisa Massimino
Director, Washington office
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights<\/p>\n
J. Daryl Byler, Director
Mennonite Central Committee U.S., Washington Office<\/p>\n
James Landrith
Editor & Publisher
The Multiracial Activist<\/p>\n
Julian Bond
Chairman
NAACP<\/p>\n
Kit Gage
National Coordinator
National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom<\/p>\n
Susan Grant
Vice President for Public Policy
National Consumers League<\/p>\n
Heidi Boghosian
Director
National Lawyers Guild<\/p>\n
Dan Kesselbrenner
Director
National Immigration Project
National Lawyers Guild<\/p>\n
Audrie Krause
Director
NetAction<\/p>\n
Morton H. Halperin
Director
Open Society Policy Center<\/p>\n
Ralph G. Neas
President
People For the American Way<\/p>\n
Deborah Pierce
Executive Director
Privacyactivism<\/p>\n
Beth Givens
Executive Director
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse<\/p>\n
Manjit Singh
Executive Director
Sikh Mediawatch and Resource Task Force (SMART)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
June 4, 2002Joint Letter to Chairman Sensensenbrenenr and Ranking Member ConyersAttorney General Guidelines on Domestic Surveillance PDF version available here. June 4, 2002 Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. U.S. House of Representatives Committee on...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[60,9],"tags":[142],"class_list":["post-1027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters-to-government-agencies-signed-by-tma","category-advocacy-and-letters","tag-advocacy-letters"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Advocacy-Work.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p89tuq-gz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1027"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4040,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions\/4040"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}