wfn.org | NCC Praises Senate Caution on Patriot Act Renewal

["NCC News" <pjenks@ncccusa.org>]

NCC welcomes the Senate's caution
about renewal of the USA Patriot Act

New York, December 19, 2005 -- The National Council of Churches today praised
the U.S. Senate for its caution when it declined to end a filibuster blocking
the renewal of the USA Patriot Act. 

"The Patriot Act was hastily enacted after 9/11 in an attempt to protect U.S.
citizens from further terrorist violence," said Dr. Antonios Kireopoulos,
associate general secretary of the NCC for International Affairs and Peace.
"It's now time to ask ourselves what this law has meant with respect to our
most basic freedoms." 

Last month, the General Assembly of the NCC and Church World Service passed a
resolution calling for "ever-vigilant" support of civil and religious
liberties. The resolution expresses concern that the Patriot Act "has the
potential for vastly eroding" those liberties. 

"The provisions of the act are in seeming conflict with the Fourth Amendment
prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures," the resolution
states.  "These provisions include:  delayed-notice search warrants to
secretly investigate potential criminals; national security letters to
secretly gather private and confidential information; relaxed restrictions on
wiretapping; and extensive use of deportation and denial of immigrant
applications based on unknowing associations."	

Last week President Bush admitted authorizing wiretaps on U.S. citizens and
said they were necessary to uncover terrorist plans. Even so, many of the 40
Democrats and four Republicans who voted against a motion to end the
filibuster cited this unusual measure as one of their concerns. 

In a series of public statements, Mr. Bush has defended the Patriot Act as a
necessary weapon for the war on terrorism. "In the war on terror, we cannot
afford to be without this law for a single moment," he said. The Patriot
Act's 16 major provisions will expire Dec. 31 unless Congress extends them.
 
"We're not calling upon the government to abandon its responsibility to
defend its citizens," said the Rev. Dr. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the
NCC. "At the same time, there is no more eloquent rebuke to our terrorist
enemies than to show we will never back away from the religious and civil
liberties they seem to hate so much." 

The full text of the General Assembly's "Resolution on the Threat to Civil
and Religious Liberties in Post-9/11 America" can be found at
http://www.ncccusa.org/news/051130GAResolutions.html#Liberties

The National Council of Churches USA is composed of 35 Protestant, Anglican,
Orthodox, historic African American and peace communions representing 45
million Christians in 100,000 local congregations in the United States.

Contact NCC News: Philip E. Jenks, 212-870-2252, pjenks@ncccusa.org; or
Leslie Tune, 202-544-2350, ltune@ncccusa.org