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New Breed of Patriots Speaking Up
By Scott Martelle, Times Staff Writer
EUGENE, Ore. -- Hope Marston keeps the seeds of revolution in four plastic crates stacked on the planked floor of her overcrowded bungalow here at the southern edge of this left-leaning college town. There are pamphlets and petitions, news stories and political analyses, all part of Marston's battle against what she sees as the excesses of the USA Patriot Act, a sweeping federal law enacted after last year's terrorist attacks that broadens the government's ability to use secret searches, wiretaps and other covert surveillance techniques in the pursuit of terrorists. While the law's defenders say average citizens have nothing to fear, civil libertarians like Marston believe the law opens the door for government agents to resume the kind of domestic spying that flourished under J. Edgar Hoover, when affiliation with radical ideas was enough to get someone a place in the FBI's secret files. Under pressure from a campaign that drew together liberals and Libertarians, Democrats and even a few Republicans, the Eugene City Council recently joined a growing list of local governments calling for a full or partial repeal of the Patriot Act, part of a nascent nationwide effort organizers hope will persuade Congress to undo the law. Last week, city councils in Sebastopol, about 50 miles north of San Francisco, and Burlington, Vt., joined with their own resolutions, and activists are busy in Pasadena, Santa Barbara and at least eight other California communities.

The campaign began in November 2001 in Northampton, Mass., although the first cities to pass resolutions were Ann Arbor, Mich., and Denver, said Nancy Talanian, one of the Massachusetts organizers. So far, 17 cities have passed resolutions, and campaigns are underway in at least 50 cities in 25 states."Resolutions passed by elected local leaders carry a lot more weight than letters from individual citizens," Talanian said. Still, the resolutions are largely symbolic, as local governments have no authority over federal laws or issues. The campaign echoes the grass-roots efforts of a generation ago in which local groups lobbied cities to declare themselves nuclear-free zones, a largely symbolic show of hands of those opposing the development, use, transport and storage of nuclear weapons. "The most important aspect is to build a national consortium, a groundswell, and by making these somewhat symbolic resolutions cities are taking a stand," said Brian Michaels, a Eugene attorney who helped draft the local resolution. "You do what you can to slow these things down." The resolutions differ from place to place, each tailored to local political concerns. But most call for the federal government to reveal what local acts they've taken under the USA Patriot Act, and demand that Congress either repeal the law or revoke some of its elements allowing domestic spying.

posted by A Curmudgeon 9:43 AM