WHEREAS, the United States of America was established as a constitutional democracy, governed by laws guaranteeing those accused of crimes due process, habeas corpus, the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury, to be informed of the charges against them and to have legal counsel, and

WHEREAS, the United States is a strong supporter of international human rights for all peoples and takes great pride in promoting democracy and the rule of law at home and abroad and even publishes a yearly scorecard of how other nations are doing in regard to judicial guarantees, and

WHEREAS, the Bush Administration, in response to the terrible events of September 11, has proposed to try non-citizens in military tribunals which will be closed to public scrutiny, where normal rules of civilian or military justice will not apply, where defendants can be sentenced to death without unanimity and where there is no right to appeal the sentence to a higher court; and has further detained numerous aliens in secret without disclosing their identities or the charges against them and where the detained  appear to have limited access to legal counsel; and  has, in addition, selected for questioning thousands of young men from  targeted countries which is a clear case of ethnic and racial profiling, a practice which should be abhorrent to all Americans; and whose Attorney General, representing the Administration, has tried to intimidate critics of these actions and proposals  by accusing them of being unpatriotic.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Santa Clara County Democratic Central Committee calls upon the Administration to balance the need to be secure against the ever present danger of losing our treasured civil liberties, to recognize that dissent is an important part of our Democratic process, and to listen with an open mind to the many critics of its plans including much of the national press and even some members of the Republican Party.

THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we call upon all Democratic Party elected officials at a local, state and national level not to be intimidated by public support for some of these extreme measures, and to speak out continuously and fearlessly to protect our Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms and against selecting one group of people as less deserving of internationally agreed upon civil rights than others and who are suspect merely because of a shared nationality or religion with terrorists.

Approved by Santa Clara County Democratic Central Committee Executive Board, 18 December 2001.