[ql06] Re: CRIMINAL: U.S. Uses Terror Law to Pursue Crimes From Drugs toSwindling

  • From: "Dawn Livicker" <dlivicker@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: ql06@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 06:18:05 -0400

Don't forget... this is happening in Canada too!
The practice of holding suspected terrorists in Canada on what is called a 
security certificate is a heinous violation of due process. Right now, in 
our own country, there are people being held who have not been charged (some 
for as much as 18 months) with any crime, have never appeared before a 
judge, and who have had their right to counsel severely restricted. All it 
takes to be committed on a security certificate is the signature of the 
Prime Minister and two cabinet ministers. The latest cases of those students 
being arrested for alleged security risks (many of whom have now been 
released for lack of evidence thanks to some sharp immigration adjudicators) 
hinged on an admission of guilt obtained by Saudi police after 16 hours of 
interrogation (don't forget, torture is a legitimate part of interrogation 
in Saudi Arabia).

A quote echoes in my mind...
"When they came for the communists, I wasn't a communist so I said nothing. 
When they came for the Jews, I wasn't a Jew so I said nothing. Now they've 
come for me, and there is no one left to say anything."  (my apologies if I 
have paraphrased - also I can't remember who said it). I wish I knew what I 
could do to register my disgust with how we are allowing this to happen.

Dawn
----Original Message Follows----
From: Sheldon Erentzen <sheldon.erentzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: ql06@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: ql06@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ql06] Re: CRIMINAL: U.S. Uses Terror Law to Pursue Crimes From 
Drugs to Swindling
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 19:22:40 -0400

This kinda stuff really freaks me out, both because it betrays the
checks and balances that serve to protect our fragile democracatic
freedoms, and because it highlights a scary apathy prevalent in North
American society.
It is amazing the degree to which Americans and Canadians are willing to
accept the loss of civil liberties in the name of the defence of those
very civil liberties. Our civil liberties, our democratic freedoms are
being threatened by external forces so before we can lose them, we give
them up.

There is a terrible contempt expressed for the rule of law when the
application of power becomes confused with the application of justice.

It seems almost ironic to me that the courts are making a stand in the
name of the civil rights of business's on the Do-Not-Call list case, but
in a case that speaks to the fundamental rights of individual citizens
they are dragging their heels.

sheldon

"Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things
for granted.
     Aldous Huxley

"Big Brother is watching you."
George Orwell (1903 - 1950)


Ken Campbell -- LAW'06 wrote:

 >Once you start bending the rules of criminal process, this is what you
 >get. Which is why Gary Trotter has been going on for weeks about
 >thresholds of prosecutorial behavior -- and Stan in PUBLIC has been
 >talking about statutory limits of duty -- including the writ of Habeas
 >Corpus, which has been thwarted by the US in Guantanamo.
 >
 >The USA Patriot Act becomes a "Trojan horse" allowing broader and
 >broader police powers.
 >
 >The ACLU has been saying that all along, and a few of the less
 >jelly-like politicians.
 >
 >I think the ACLU chap is right, herein:
 >
 >    Anthony Romero, executive director of the American
 >    Civil Liberties Union, said, "Once the American
 >    public understands that many of the powers granted
 >    to the federal government apply to much more than
 >    just terrorism, I think the opposition will gain
 >    momentum."
 >
 >Ken.
 >
 >--
 >A little sincerity is a dangerous thing;
 >And a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
 >        -- Oscar Wilde
 >
 >
 >--- cut here ---
 >
 >U.S. Uses Terror Law to Pursue Crimes From Drugs to Swindling
 >
 >By ERIC LICHTBLAU
 >New York Times
 >September 28, 2003
 >
 >
 >WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 ? The Bush administration, which calls the USA
 >Patriot Act perhaps its most essential tool in fighting terrorists, has
 >begun using the law with increasing frequency in many criminal
 >investigations that have little or no connection to terrorism.
 >
 >The government is using its expanded authority under the far-reaching
 >law to investigate suspected drug traffickers, white-collar criminals,
 >blackmailers, child pornographers, money launderers, spies and even
 >corrupt foreign leaders, federal officials said.
 >
 >Justice Department officials say they are simply using all the tools now
 >available to them to pursue criminals ? terrorists or otherwise. But
 >critics of the administration's antiterrorism tactics assert that such
 >use of the law is evidence the administration is using terrorism as a
 >guise to pursue a broader law enforcement agenda.
 >
 >Justice Department officials point out that they have employed their
 >newfound powers in many instances against suspected terrorists. With the
 >new law breaking down the wall between intelligence and criminal
 >investigations, the Justice Department in February was able to bring
 >terrorism-related charges against a Florida professor, for example, and
 >it has used its expanded surveillance powers to move against several
 >suspected terrorist cells.
 >
 >But a new Justice Department report, given to members of Congress this
 >month, also cites more than a dozen cases that are not directly related
 >to terrorism in which federal authorities have used their expanded power
 >to investigate individuals, initiate wiretaps and other surveillance, or
 >seize millions in tainted assets.
 >
 >For instance, the ability to secure nationwide warrants to obtain e-mail
 >and electronic evidence "has proved invaluable in several sensitive
 >nonterrorism investigations," including the tracking of an unidentified
 >fugitive and an investigation into a computer hacker who stole a
 >company's trade secrets, the report said.
 >
 >Justice Department officials said the cases cited in the report
 >represent only a small sampling of the many hundreds of nonterrorism
 >cases pursued under the law.
 >
 >The authorities have also used toughened penalties under the law to
 >press charges against a lovesick 20-year-old woman from Orange County,
 >Calif., who planted threatening notes aboard a Hawaii-bound cruise ship
 >she was traveling on with her family in May. The woman, who said she
 >made the threats to try to return home to her boyfriend, was sentenced
 >this week to two years in federal prison because of a provision in the
 >Patriot Act on the threat of terrorism against mass transportation
 >systems.
 >
 >And officials said they had used their expanded authority to track
 >private Internet communications in order to investigate a major drug
 >distributor, a four-time killer, an identity thief and a fugitive who
 >fled on the eve of trial by using a fake passport.
 >
 >In one case, an e-mail provider disclosed information that allowed
 >federal authorities to apprehend two suspects who had threatened to kill
 >executives at a foreign corporation unless they were paid a hefty
 >ransom, officials said. Previously, they said, gray areas in the law
 >made it difficult to get such global Internet and computer data.
 >
 >The law passed by Congress just five weeks after the terror attacks of
 >Sept. 11, 2001, has proved a particularly powerful tool in pursuing
 >financial crimes.
 >
 >Officials with the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement have
 >seen a sharp spike in investigations as a result of their expanded
 >powers, officials said in interviews.
 >
 >A senior official said investigators in the last two years had seized
 >about $35 million at American borders in undeclared cash, checks and
 >currency being smuggled out of the country. That was a significant
 >increase over the past few years, the official said. While the
 >authorities say they suspect that large amounts of the smuggled cash may
 >have been intended to finance Middle Eastern terrorists, much of it
 >involved drug smuggling, corporate fraud and other crimes not directly
 >related to terrorism.
 >
 >The terrorism law allows the authorities to investigate cash smuggling
 >cases more aggressively and to seek stiffer penalties by elevating them
 >from what had been mere reporting failures.
 >
 >Customs officials say they have used their expanded authority to open at
 >least nine investigations into Latin American officials suspected of
 >laundering money in the United States, and to seize millions of dollars
 >from overseas bank accounts in many cases unrelated to terrorism.
 >
 >In one instance, agents citing the new law seized $1.7 million from
 >United States bank accounts that were linked to a former Illinois
 >investor who fled to Belize after he was accused of bilking clients out
 >of millions, federal officials said.
 >
 >Publicly, Attorney General John Ashcroft and senior Justice Department
 >officials have portrayed their expanded power almost exclusively as a
 >means of fighting terrorists, with little or no mention of other
 >criminal uses.
 >
 >"We have used these tools to prevent terrorists from unleashing more
 >death and destruction on our soil," Mr. Ashcroft said last month in a
 >speech in Washington, one of more than two dozen he has given in defense
 >of the law, which has come under growing attack. "We have used these
 >tools to save innocent American lives."
 >
 >Internally, however, Justice Department officials have emphasized a much
 >broader mandate.
 >
 >A guide to a Justice Department employee seminar last year on financial
 >crimes, for instance, said: "We all know that the USA Patriot Act
 >provided weapons for the war on terrorism. But do you know how it
 >affects the war on crime as well?"
 >
 >Elliot Mincberg, legal director for People for the American Way, a
 >liberal group that has been critical of Mr. Ashcroft, said the Justice
 >Department's public assertions had struck him as misleading and perhaps
 >dishonest.
 >
 >"What the Justice Department has really done," he said, "is to get
 >things put into the law that have been on prosecutors' wish lists for
 >years. They've used terrorism as a guise to expand law enforcement
 >powers in areas that are totally unrelated to terrorism."
 >
 >A study in January by the General Accounting Office, the investigative
 >arm of Congress, concluded that while the number of terrorism
 >investigations at the Justice Department soared after the Sept. 11
 >attacks, 75 percent of the convictions that the department classified as
 >"international terrorism" were wrongly labeled. Many dealt with more
 >common crimes like document forgery.
 >
 >The terrorism law has already drawn sharp opposition from those who
 >believe it gives the government too much power to intrude on people's
 >privacy in pursuit of terrorists.
 >
 >Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties
 >Union, said, "Once the American public understands that many of the
 >powers granted to the federal government apply to much more than just
 >terrorism, I think the opposition will gain momentum."
 >
 >Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the
 >Judiciary Committee, said members of Congress expected some of the new
 >powers granted to law enforcement to be used for nonterrorism
 >investigations. But he said the Justice Department's secrecy and lack of
 >cooperation in putting the legislation into effect made him question
 >whether "the government is taking shortcuts around the criminal laws" by
 >invoking intelligence powers ? with differing standards of evidence ? to
 >conduct surveillance operations and demand access to records.
 >
 >"We did not intend for the government to shed the traditional tools of
 >criminal investigation, such as grand jury subpoenas governed by
 >well-established precedent and wiretaps strictly monitored" by federal
 >judges, he said.
 >
 >Justice Department officials say such criticism has not deterred them.
 >"There are many provisions in the Patriot Act that can be used in the
 >general criminal law," Mark Corallo, a department spokesman, said. "And
 >I think any reasonable person would agree that we have an obligation to
 >do everything we can to protect the lives and liberties of Americans
 >from attack, whether it's from terrorists or garden-variety criminals."
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >

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