JACL Signs Onto Amicus Briefs in Lawsuits Challenging Domestic Spying Program
Lawsuits filed by the ACLU and CCR demand that the Bush Administration cease unwarranted wiretapping of Americans.
“Japan Pictured As A Nation of Spies.” “Japanese Here Sent Vital Data to Tokyo.” “The Fifth Column on the Coast.” “Suicide Reveals Spy Ring Here.”
The weight of the words that blare forth from early 1940s headlines taken from the pages of the Los Angeles Times are a chilling reminder of the environment Japanese Americans experienced pre-World War II when every JA was looked upon as potential spies for Imperialist Japan.
Now replace the country of Japan with the Middle East and insert Muslim and Arab Americans where the word Japanese appears and you will be propelled several decades forward to the current environment that many feel exists in the United States today.
The New York Times revealed late last year that the Bush Administration has allowed the National Security Administration (NSA) to conduct warrantless surveillance on Americans since the tragic Sept. 11 attacks of 2001, especially on those who have been in contact with Muslim persons and Middle East countries. In response to the disconcerting disclosure, several groups and individuals have raised their voices in protest charging the White House with violating the constitutional rights of privacy and free speech of Americans and violating FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) rules.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) have filed lawsuits challenging the NSA’s current domestic surveillance program and are calling for the immediate dissolution of the NSA. And recently several civil rights groups, including the JACL, and business leaders have thrown their support behind the lawsuits signing onto amicus briefs. Joining JACL are: the NAACP, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), and the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF).
“The JACL can’t stand idly by without considering the profound impact of the issue of domestic surveillance on the rights of citizens, especially in light of the years of surveillance placed upon the Japanese American communities prior to the outbreak of war with Japan,” said John Tateishi, JACL executive director. “The sweep and arrest of Issei leaders didn’t make this country any safer, and one has to wonder if the current policies of this administration has a basis in fact.”
“During World War II, a misguided case was made that the pool of potential spies for Japan who might cause horrific damage to our country were limited to people of Japanese descent,” said Laila Al-Qatami, ADC communications director. “Thus, focusing on Arabs and Arab Americans not only flies against our constitutional dedication to equality under the law, but it is also ‘dumb’ law enforcement and retroactive thinking.”
No JA was ever charged with and convicted of spying for Japan prior to or during WWII. But throughout the years leading up to and during the war several newspapers and rhetoric from national leaders and military officers vocally accused members of the JA community with spying for their ancestral home.
The accusations and vitriol would ultimately lead to the internment of 110,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast, most of them U.S. citizens.
In the ongoing debate on the war against terrorism the experiences of the JA community has often been referred to again and again in protesting the Bush Administration’s handling of those from the Muslim and Arab American communities.
“Japanese Americans of the World War II era were unjustly painted with a broad brush of suspicion; the same thing is happening to Arab Americans and Muslims today,” said Shayana Kadidal, CCR staff attorney. “So it’s important to us to have both groups signed on to a friend-of-the-court brief in our case challenging the NSA’s warrantless surveillance.”
“We’ve been through this, we know the devastation it causes to families and communities, especially when such action is taken without substantial evidence of the need to do so. We know too well that if you threaten the rights of one group of citizens, it threatens the rights of all Americans,” said Tateishi.
The ACLU lawsuit (ACLU vs. NSA) and the CCR lawsuit (CCR vs. Bush) both accuse the White House of warrantless eavesdropping and monitoring of phone calls and e-mails of Americans, including U.S. citizens. They argue that the U.S. government is violating FISA rules established in 1978 which requires the government to head to a FISA court for a warrant within 72 hours of setting up a domestic wiretap.
The amicus briefs filed on behalf of the civil rights organizations note how previous administrations have used domestic spying tactics to deliberately intimidate and monitor civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and wholesale groups of individuals such as the JA community pre-WWII.
“Throughout history, whenever we have allowed the executive to conduct surveillance without a warrant — without proving probable cause for suspicion to a judge — we’ve seen both things happen: minority groups become targets because of the prejudices of law enforcement, and in the end following those prejudices proves to be a waste of law enforcement resources as well as a national disgrace,” said Kadidal.
The Bush Administration has been candid about their current domestic surveillance program. The administration argues that Bush’s constitutional powers as the president and a congressional resolution passed shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks give him the legal authority for the current wiretap program. And on April 6 Attorney General Alberto Gonzales did not rule out the possibility of warrantless surveillance on domestic calls of Americans in congressional testimony.
Since the Bush ordered surveillance was revealed, several corporations and their handover of confidential client information has been exposed in the media, including companies like AT&T, Yahoo!, AOL, and MSN. CCR recently filed a class action lawsuit against AT&T accusing the company of housing secret spying rooms to gather electronic client data.
The Justice Department is expected to file a response to both the ACLU and CCR lawsuits May 19. Oral arguments are set for June 12.
“Today’s NSA program is already proving to be inefficient and ineffective … It remains to be seen who they were listening in on, but if history is any guide, it will turn out to be people selected for the worst of reasons: because of their ethnicity, national origin, or political beliefs,” said Kadidal.
“If the rights of one group of Americans are threatened, the rights of all of us are threatened,” said Tateishi. “If it’s the Arab and Muslim communities today, who will it be tomorrow?”
Print This Article-
Email This Article