FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.: Nearly two dozen cities around the country have passed resolutions urging federal authorities to respect the civil rights of local citizens when fighting terrorism. Efforts to pass similar measures are under way in more than 60 other places.

While the resolutions are largely symbolic, many of them provide some legal justification for local authorities to resist cooperating in the federal war on terrorism when they deem civil liberties and constitutional rights are being compromised.

Most of the resolutions have passed in liberal bastions like Boulder, Colo.; Santa Fe, N.M.; Cambridge, Mass.; and Berkeley, Calif., where opposition to government policy has long been a tradition. But less ideological places have also acted, with more localities considering it, from big cities like Chicago to smaller towns like Grants Pass, Ore.

Many communities are getting help from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, a grass-roots group in Florence, Mass. “People are very, very willing and committed to do everything reasonably possible about terrorist threats,” said Elliot Mincberg, legal director of People for the American Way, a nonprofit group that works for constitutional protections. “But there is a growing concern about how the executive branch is handling this, a unilateral assertion of power that, in many instances, intrudes on people’s privacy and is carried out in a very secretive manner.”

Art Babbott, the City Council member who sponsored the resolution in Flagstaff that passed last week after intense debate, said: “We’ve been singing the same song in this country for more than 200 years. It’s a very good song, and I want to keep singing it. I’m very leery of changing the lyrics.”

Supporters of the resolutions say the measures have grown out of a belief that the Patriot Act of 2001, the Homeland Security Act passed this year and a series of executive orders have given the federal government too much muscle in its war against terrorism at the expense of average Americans, especially Muslims.

The Patriot Act expands government powers in such matters as electronic surveillance, search warrants and detention. The Homeland Security Act created a cabinet department for national defense.

In most places, the resolutions carry no legal weight, merely affirming civil rights as federal authorities intensify antiterrorist efforts in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

But resolutions passed by some towns like Amherst, Mass., have a sharper tone, going so far as to direct city personnel not to help federal or state officials in activities that could be considered in violation of civil rights or liberties.

The Amherst measure, for example, says, “to the extent legally possible, no town employee shall officially assist or voluntarily cooperate with investigations, interrogations or arrest procedures” that may be judged to violate civil rights or liberties.

(By Permission, The New York Times)