"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin, 1759

March 23, 2004

Chairwoman Linda Saul-Sena, and
The Tampa City Council
315 Kennedy Blvd. 3rd Floor
Tampa, FL 33602

Dear Honorable Chairwoman Saul-Sena and All City Council Members:

We write to ask for your support and your vote for the enclosed Proposed Resolution of the City of Tampa. This Resolution declares Tampa's support for fundamental civil liberties and urges our Congressional delegation to seek the repeal or reform of the USA Patriot Act, a sweeping piece of Federal legislation, passed by Congress in great haste immediately after 9/11, which threatens our essential American freedoms without enhancing our security and safety at home. We are the community organizations and individuals of TAMPA SAFE AND FREE. We are residents and taxpayers, citizens, visitors, and voters, and we are very concerned about preserving our basic civil rights and the rights of our neighbors in Tampa from ever increasing encroachment by laws such as the USA Patriot Act which compromise our freedom without enhancing our security.

We believe that efforts to respond to acts of terrorism require extensive coordination among the Federal, State and local governments. However, such efforts should not unduly infringe upon the essential civil rights and liberties of the people of the United States, particularly when these laws are not necessary to serve the important goals of our anti-terrorism efforts. We believe that a number of the provisions of the USA Patriot Act threaten the essential rights of Tampa residents. Such provisions of the Act include:

* Permitting police to perform searches with no one present and to delay notification of the search of a resident's home (Section 213);

* Permitting the FBI to seek records from bookstores and libraries including book patrons' records based on minimal evidence of wrongdoing and prohibiting librarians and booksellers' employees from disclosing the fact that they have been ordered to produce such documents (Section 215)

* Amending the legal "probable cause" requirement before conducting secret searches or surveillance to obtain evidence of a crime (Section 218)

* Permitting law enforcement to have broad access to sensitive mental health, library, business, financial, and educational records despite the existence of previously adopted State and federal laws which were intended to strengthen the protection of these types of records (Sections 215, 218, 358 and 508)

* Giving the U.S. Secretary of State broad powers to designate domestic groups as "terrorist organizations" and the Attorney General the power to subject immigrants to indefinite detention or deportation, even if no crime has been committed (Sections 411 and 412)

* Limits and in some cases eliminates effective judicial oversight of intrusive investigative activities depriving the courts of the power to prevent abuses of power. (Sections 208, 213, 215 and 505).

Though the TAMPA SAFE AND FREE Proposed Resolution is largely symbolic, the issues it addresses are also core concerns of local government, and impact the fiscal oversight responsibilities of City Council. To date therefore, over 270 municipalities, cities, towns, counties and States throughout the United States representing over 47 million residents agree, and their local governments have already passed similar local Resolutions urging Congressional repeal or reform of the USA Patriot Act.

The National League of Cities, (NLC), which claims Tampa as a member, is the oldest and largest organization advocating for the interests of cities with the Federal government. At its last annual meeting in Dec. 2003, the NLC passed a similar resolution calling for amendments to the USA Patriot Act to restore the fundamental liberties of Americans and to repeal the unfunded mandates on State and local entities provided for in the Act. Municipal budgets are strained across the nation, and the added homeland security duties compelled by the USA Patriot Act constitute an unfunded mandate on local police, libraries, universities and other municipal budgets that cities such as Tampa can not afford. The Act's directives also revise local law enforcement priorities without local input, shifting police and first responders away from crime prevention and prosecution to enforcement of Federal immigration policies and domestic intelligence gathering, potentially making us less safe at home. This unfunded mandate on local police to enforce Federal immigration law and Federal intelligence priorities also threatens to destabilize relations between our residents, particularly between our minority and immigrant communities, and local law enforcement. For these reasons, numerous civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and the National Council for Community and Justice have endorsed these resolutions around the country and here, in Tampa.

Opposition to the USA Patriot Act crosses and unites many disparate communities. Opposition is bipartisan. Many of the reform and repeal measures currently proposed in Congress have been spearheaded jointly by Republican and Democratic legislators, and our organization has many Republican and Democratic members, as well as endorsements by other political interests. Opposition is ecumenical. Churches, meetings, mosques and synagogues across the country have come forward to oppose those portions of the Act which threaten our fundamental freedoms, including those protected by the First Amendment, such as rights of assembly and congregation. Opposition is representative of a very diverse population and a broad spectrum of primary interests from librarians and environmentalists to lawyers and English professors. Opposition by this City Council would be a strong, responsible and effective response of local government to the ineffective and invasive laws and policies of the Federal government which chill the constitutional rights of individuals whom local government officials are sworn to protect.

For all of these reasons we respectfully call on the Tampa City Council to vote to adopt the Proposed Resolution, to declare Tampa a "Civil Liberties Safe Zone," and to call upon our congressional delegation to repeal, curtail or reform the USA Patriot Act and other federal Executive Orders and laws which unnecessarily threaten the basic, fundamental civil rights of Tampa residents. Should the Chair or Council determine that a public hearing on this matter is necessary prior to a vote on the Proposed Resolution, we request that the hearing be scheduled for the April 15, 2004 meeting of the Council.

Respectfully submitted by,

Rochelle A. Reback
for TAMPA SAFE AND FREE, endorsed by:
National Bill of Rights Defense Committee
ACLU - Greater Tampa Chapter
ACLU - Pinellas County Chapter
Hillsborough County NAACP
The National Conference for Community and Justice - Tampa Bay
United Faculty of Florida (USF Chapter)
The Faculty of the School of Library and Information Science at USF
(not speaking for USF)
American Association of University Professors - University of Tampa Chapter
National Lawyers Guild - Tampa Bay Chapter
Hillsborough County Criminal Defense Lawyers Association
American Immigration Lawyers Association
Council on American Islamic Relations
National Council of Jewish Women - Tampa Chapter
Hillsborough County Democratic Executive Committee
I-4 Corridor Association (Democratic Political)
Hillsborough County Friends of the Library [Endorsement limited to criticizing USPA's overbroad provisions with respect to libraries and USPA provisions providing for invasion of confidentiality of library records." See resolution.]
The Nathan B. Stubblefield Foundation, Inc./WMNF 88.5 Community Radio
The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) - Tampa Friends
St. Pete Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
Unitarian Universalist Church of Tampa
The Humanists of Florida Association
Americans United for Separation of Church and State,
Tampa/Hillsborough County Chapter
National Center for Lesbian Rights - Tampa
Equality Florida
Amnesty International Tampa Bay
Green Party of Hillsborough
Libertarian Party of Hillsborough County
Voice of Freedom
Arab American Student Alliance at USF
Alliance of Concerned Students - USF
CC: ALL CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS