I hope this piece will explain why I asked you for caution I hope you will not be offended so we may all learn to avoid what happened to the Japanese during the WW2 here in the USA not to long ago. Part off the reason of that article is to justify this bill Read on and Thanks for listening Habib Diab Ghanim MEMORANDUM TO: Interested Persons FROM: Gregory T. Nojeim, Legislative Counsel, American Civil Liberties Union RE: Terrorism Bill, H.R. 2184, Scheduled for Subcommittee Mark-up in the Week of June 21, 1999 DATE: June 16, 1999 BACKGROUND The House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims is scheduled to mark up during the week of June 21 an anti-terrorism bill, H.R. 2184, introduced to Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.) on June 14. The ACLU urges members of the Subcommittee to oppose the bill because it would result in deportation of aliens based merely on their speech or their associations with others, including aliens who have not and would not engage in violent terrorist activity. In so doing, the bill would resurrect the "guilt by association" principles of the McCarran-Walter Act, even though McCarran- Walter was ridiculed as unfair and was repealed by Congress in 1990 after a federal district court declared it unconstitutional. The bill ignores one of the most fundamental aspects of constitutional law in this area: people should be deported based on their violent activities, not based on constitutionally-protected activity, such as membership in a group and mere speech. Rejecting these most fundamental principles, the Andrews bill would: * allow for deportation of aliens based merely on their membership in a "terrorist" organization, regardless of whether the organization is formally designated a terrorist organization, and no matter how innocent an individual's membership; * render the process in current law for designating organizations "foreign terrorist organizations" a virtual nullity for immigration purposes because it would allow for the deportation of members of organizations that are not designated as "foreign terrorist organizations;" * effectively place in the hands of the Immigration and Naturalization Service the power to decide which domestic organizations are "terrorist organizations" the non-citizen members of which can be deported, because the bill fails to define "terrorist organization," or even limit "terrorist organizations" to foreign organizations; * make protected political speech that merely "encourages" another individual or a terrorist organization to engage in terrorist activity conduct for which a person may be deported or denied admission, even if the speech is uttered in circumstances that do not indicate the intention or ability to cause harm; * render inadmissible every alien who knows that another person conducted an act of terrorist activity if the alien fails to report the act to law enforcement authorities, and even if the alien had nothing to do with the act. Read literally, it renders inadmissible virtually every alien around the world because they failed to report to law enforcement agencies that Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City, and would render inadmissible every alien who watches the news and thereby learns of the next act of terrorism, but fails to report it to the police. H.R. 2184 is the third in a series of bills Rep. Andrews has introduced that would unconstitutionally infringe on the rights of non-citizens to associate with others. The first of these bills, H.R. 334, simply states that aliens who associate with "terrorists" are deportable. The second bill, H.R. 1745, says the same thing, but attempts to equate association with a person with aiding and abetting terrorist activity. At May 18, 1999 hearings on H.R. 1745, this created concern both from the Clinton Administration and from members of the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims that the bill could be interpreted as requiring deportation based on mere association. H.R. 2184 is consistent with its predecessors in that it unconstitutionally punishes association in the form of membership in a group, instead of violent or illegal conduct. ----- Action requested by the ACLU: The bill is tentatively scheduled to be marked up at the House immigration Subcommittee on Tues. June 22 or Thursday, June 24. Please contact key members of the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Immigration and urge them to oppose this legislation. Jackson-Lee (D-TX); Staff = Leon Buck; phone 225-2329; fax 225-1845 Berman (D-CA); Staff = Aarti Kohli; phone 225-4695; fax 225-3196 Frank (D-MA); Staff = Ron Randhava; phone 225-5931; fax 225-0182 Lofgren (D-CA); Staff = Sue Ramanathan; phone 225-3072; fax 225-3336 Meehan (D-MA); Staff = Jeff Miller; phone 225-3411; fax 226-0771 Cannon (R-UT); Staff = Todd Thorpe; phone 225-7751; fax 225-5629 Goodlatte (R-VA); Staff = Shelley Hanger; phone 225-5431; fax 225-9681 Pease (R-IN); Staff = Joy Trimmer phone 225-5805; fax 225-5794 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------