WASHINGTON — If you think the Jewish community has been quiet on the civil liberties debate lately, just wait.
A resolution charging that the United States has not struck a balance between civil rights and national security in certain areas is expected to be the most hotly discussed issue at the annual conference of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs here next week.
The civil liberties resolution slated for debate at the JCPA plenum has been proposed by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the congregational arm of the Reform movement.
In putting forth the resolution, the Reform movement and its co-sponsors, the community relations councils of Detroit and St. Louis are challenging the organized Jewish community to take a stand.
“It’s time for the organized Jewish community to express a cautious concern of the rolling back of civil liberties in the face of terrorism,” said David Bohm, president of the St. Louis Jewish Community Relations Council and the co-chair of a JCPA task force on Jewish security and the Bill of Rights.
Others who believe the issue deserves more study will offer an alternative resolution to postpone any action. Opponents of the resolution worry that voicing opposition to some anti-terrorism measures would send the wrong message to the White House as it pushes forward with its fight against terrorism, which benefits Israel and is supported by most Americans. It’s not clear which path will prevail when the debate gets going among delegates during the Sunday to Tuesday gathering of the JCPA, an umbrella group of 13 national organizations and 123 local federations and community relations councils.
Since Sept. 11, the country has been embroiled in debate about how to increase security — especially throughout the nation’s airports — but not violate personal rights.
Jewish groups have, for the most part, kept relatively silent on the topic, parting company with civil rights groups they are often aligned with.
When the anti-terrorism bill moved quickly through Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, Jewish groups found it hard to quickly assess the nuances of the bill.
Then the Department of Justice issued a number of directives that raised some concern.
The UAHC resolution “applauds the Bush Administration for its overall efforts to make our nation and our world safe for us and for our children.”
But it details three areas where the group says the Bush administration is not appropriately balancing combating terrorism and protecting civil liberties:
*Attorney-client privilege: The resolution says the Department of Justice directive allowing federal officials to listen in on conversations between certain detained individuals and their counsel undermines due process. The directive has the effect of weakening not only the protection of attorney-client privilege, but the basic right to competent legal counsel altogether.
*The detention of immigrants: The resolution says many feel that detaining suspects without charge for an unspecified “reasonable time” during a “national emergency” violates not only the due process protections of the Sixth Amendment, but also the will of Congress.
*Military tribunals: The resolution objects to the proposed use of closed-door military tribunals. “Open military tribunals, bound by the traditional protections that govern both our civilian and military courts, might be an important tool in prosecuting the exponents of terror,” the resolution says, but courts should not operate behind closed doors without many of the constitutional and procedural safeguards.
Despite the delicate nature of the debate there is a lot of restlessness in the field to get some clarity on the issue of civil liberties, according to Hannah Rosenthal, JCPA’s executive director.
The quandary, she and others say, is how to fight the war against terrorism but still maintain the protections under which the Jewish community in particular has benefited.
“We can’t subvert the values we have here at home,” she said.
Now is the time to stake out a position, according to Mark Pelavin, associate director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
The resolution is not extreme, Pelavin said. There are fundamental concerns about where civil liberties are heading now and the resolution is intended to be a voice of caution.
Others, however, think more reflection is needed. They say it is difficult to determine where to draw the line between national security and individual freedoms.
The JCRC of Bergen County, N.J., will offer an alternative to the resolution, calling for more study of the three points and several additional issues, including the idea of issuing national identity cards and profiling.
But Bohm said that protecting civil liberties is paramount. He worries about a willingness to accept restrictions because the enemy is Arab or Muslim.
“When you weaken the protections of civil liberties of any group there is a danger,” Bohm said. “Eventually it could come back to haunt the Jewish community.”