Debate Heats Up Over 'Sunsetting' Parts of Patriot Act

June 29, 2005 -- -- Talat Hamdani wears her feelings about the need to keep America safe from terrorism on her chest -- in a pin bearing a photograph of her son looking proud in his New York City police cadet's uniform.

Mohammed Salman Hamdani disappeared on Sept. 11, 2001, and -- even though he was a part-time EMT and training to be a police officer -- there soon were media reports that he was being investigated for suspected involvement in the attacks.

Hamdani, who said she and her husband came to America from Pakistan in 1979 "in search of the American dream," tried for months to get information about whether her son was dead or alive, if he was in custody or had even possibly gone into hiding.

Finally, in March 2002 she was told that his remains had been identified at Ground Zero, and in April he was given a hero's funeral by the city.

What Hamdani did not know was that just 45 days after Sept. 11, her son's bravery had been written into controversial legislation passed by Congress.

The final text of the USA Patriot Act, the sweeping legislation presented by the Bush administration as necessary measures to keep America safe from future terrorist attacks, referred to her son in the first few pages -- not as a suspected terrorist, but as an example of why it was wrong to look at all Muslims as terrorists.

"Many Arab Americans and Muslim Americans have acted heroically during the attacks on the United States, including Mohammed Salman Hamdani, a 23-year-old New Yorker of Pakistani descent, who is believed to have gone to the World Trade Center to offer rescue assistance and is now missing," reads Section 102 of the legislation.

Almost four years after losing her son, Hamdani remembers the accusations against him, and now she is speaking out against the legislation that contains his name.

"The reason he was accused of being a terrorist is that his first name is Mohammed," she said at a recent meeting in New York City organized by civil liberties groups. Participants planned activities designed to convince Congress not to renew sections of the Patriot Act that are set to expire at the end of the year, and to toss out other sections of the sweeping law. The gathering was one of dozens held around the country as civil liberties groups gear up to push Congress over the act.