Silver City Won't Let It Happen Here

In November of 2005, Silver City residents passed a resolution during their town advisory board meeting affirming the Bill of Rights and opposing the overreaching sections of the PATRIOT Act, including 215, the section that the National Security Agency (NSA) used to justify collection of phone metadata and internet surveillance with PRISM. The resolution also detailed opposition to the use of local resources for immigration enforcement, which is the responsibility of the federal government

Among other points, the resolution included the following language, “Be it further resolved that an agency or instrumentality of Silver City may not 1) use state, county or city resources or institutions for the enforcement of federal immigration matters, which are responsibilities of the federal government. 2) collect or maintain information about the political, religious, or social views, associations, or activities of any individual, group, association, organization, corporation or business or partnership unless the information direclty relates to an investigation of criminal activities based on probable cause, not mere suspicion, of criminal conduct. 3)engage in racial, religious or etnhic profiling or use national origin or any other identifiable characteristics as factors in selecting individuals or groups to target for investigation except where race, religion, ethnicity or natioanl origin is a part of the description fo a specific suspect.”

One area newspaper reported at the time that “the town board and about 20 residents” were in attendance, but that was incorrect. I was at that meeting, which was at the Fire House because the original School House/community center had been destroyed in a fire the year before and hadn’t yet been rebuilt. It was a packed, standing room only meeting and I was among a number of people who stood throughout the meeting because all other chairs were taken. I’d estimate there were 40 to 50 people in the room (Silver City has a population of about 150, so that represents a sizeable chunk of the adult population).

This is significant because the vote to pass this resolution took place back in the good old days when Silver City residents were still able to nominate and vote for their own town advisory board members (the County Commission has since stripped communities of this option), and during the time when strawpoll votes were allowed on issues presented during the monthly town board meetings. In other words, the Resolution was adopted by Silver City townsfolks in a fair and representative process.

The Silver City Town Advisory Board’s 2005 action affirmed the Bill of Rights and opposed any provisions of the Patriot Act that violate peoples' civil rights. Among other things, the resolution opposed government efforts to collect information about a person's library lending or research records, or book purchases. Also forbidden: ethnic profiling or gathering information about a person's political, religious or social views.

This essay by Quest Lakes was originally published as an column in the Mason Valley News in May of 2018.

PHOTO by marksearch.org from their summer 2017 research in Silver City as part of their residency with the Resident Artist Program in Silver City, Nevada.