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Statement of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida on the
FDLE's Assessment of Florida's Anti-terrorism Capabilities
Statement by Howard Simon, Executive Director, and Larry Spalding, Legislative Staff Counsel
October 1, 2001
The ACLU supports legitimate security measures designed to assist law enforcement in preventing acts of terrorism.
However, the ACLU believes it is unacceptable to simply take past legislative proposals that have not found favor in either the United States Congress or in the Florida Legislature and to wrap them in the American flag and the War Against Terrorism, and enact them into law with little or no meaningful debate.
We must keep our eye on the true objectives of any reform legislation dealing with terrorism: legitimate security interests and minimal intrusion into the privacy rights of Americans. We must resist radical security measures that will make us neither secure nor free.
The American people have been slow to authorize statewide databases on its citizens, expand wiretap authority, restrict access to open records, grant immunity from civil liability for providing false or incorrect information of criminal or terrorist activity, permit detention of citizens for less than probable cause, and impose harsh laws on immigrants.
Many of these proposed laws have been rejected by Congress or the Florida Legislature in years past because the legislation either violated Fourth Amendment protections or the American people were not prepared to accept them and recognized them as unwarranted intrusions on their right of privacy and other constitutional rights. To proceed down the path urged by Attorney General Ashcroft and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement involves a substantial surrender of some of our fundamental civil liberties.
The ACLU has faith that the members of Congress and the Florida Legislature will act in the best interests of our nation and within the confines of our Constitution IF there is an open and honest debate on these issues.
Of particular concern in the Assessment of State Anti-terrorism Capabilities issued today are proposals to lessen the oversight role of the judiciary as the protector of our civil liberties, as well as efforts to exempt law enforcement from much of the open records law. Such should not be necessary except in cases of legitimate security concerns. Even in those circumstances, however, we believe that law enforcement should have a significant burden of proof to warrant the adoptions of policies that will restrict the rights of Americans. The mere assertion by the FDLE that there is a security interest is not enough.
