Focus: Ashcroft and the USA PATRIOT Act

Last June, in California, a man, while sitting in his car, accidentally detonated the… Last June, in California, a man, while sitting in his car, accidentally detonated the homemade pipe bomb that he had resting on his lap. He was arrested and charged with “terrorism using a weapon of mass destruction,” according to a press release from the Los Angeles Division of the FBI.

On a similar note, Attorney General John Ashcroft has just finished a 13-city, whirlwind tour, on which he embarked in an effort to squelch rumors that law enforcement officers were using the newfound powers granted them in the USA PATRIOT Act too liberally.

Ashcroft, echoing sentiments Bush has repeatedly emphasized, assured people that the law-abiding public had nothing to worry about, that the measures are meant only for bad guys, and that all warrants require a court to sign off on them.

I wonder if this unfortunate Californian man – who knows what can be injured when a pipe bomb explodes in your lap – is one of the 255 people who, Ashcroft brags, have had criminal charges brought against them using the PATRIOT Act.

Or if, after the provisions of the act labeled him a terrorist, he was subject to one of the 18,000 subpoenas and search warrants issued under the act.

Wait a second. That can’t be right – 18,000 subpoenas and search warrants have led to only 255 criminal charges – a 71-1 ratio?

Not very impressive, but don’t worry, Bush and Ashcroft have an answer. That pesky “get a judge to approve subpoenas” measure is their stumbling block, and they want to eliminate it.

At least, that’s what I imagine their thought process to be, considering Bush’s recent push to allow administrative subpoenas to be issued in terrorism cases. An administrative subpoena doesn’t require a judge’s approval. Even more interesting is that, when you receive one, you’re prohibited from telling anyone except your lawyer.

“We don’t want to tie the hands of prosecutors behind their backs,” Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo told The New York Times.

Now, I think a decent argument can be made to prove that yes, tying prosecutors’ hands is exactly what the law is for. And that, when the law cannot hinder its executors, they will, in turn, be able to execute any law in any manner that they see fit, and without accountability to anyone. But hey, that whole judicial branch, checks-and-balances thing was going out of style anyway.Administrative subpoenas are already available in 300 kinds of investigations, such as health care fraud and child sex abuse. The thing is, these sorts of investigations primarily end up in civil court.

Allowing such power as a means to criminal proceedings is licensing judicial circumvention, by allowing it access to a realm in which it has no business being.

And combined with the simultaneous effort, proposed by Bush in a speech last Saturday, to make it nearly impossible for people suspected of being terrorists to get bail, the result is that prosecutors can effectively assume the role of judge and jury in cases involving terrorism.

Even Arlen Specter, who is sponsoring legislation to expand the death penalty to numerous terrorism-related charges, thinks this is too much. He told The New York Times, “The Justice Department has gone too far. You have to have a reason to detain.”

Perhaps, if the world was a very different place and, therefore, our government’s rhetoric was consistent with that world, all this could be justified. If terrorism was defined limitedly, still only as embassy bombings and planes flying into buildings, then sure, allow certain extra freedoms to law enforcement officers.

But that just isn’t the way things are. “Terrorism” has become a tainted and elusive term more often used abstractly by our leaders, to scare us into an obedient trance, than it is to describe a material threat.

In courtrooms all around the country, the terrorists we’re fighting, with billions upon billions of dollars, are revealed as fools from California. And their weapons of mass destruction are discovered as amateur pipe bombs unable, even, to kill the terrorists who make them.

With results like these, it’s no wonder that the Justice Department, in its effort to enforce the law more often, is seeking to move further and further away from the judiciary, the body created to remind them what that law is supposed to be.

Questions, comments, insights or suggestions? WMinton@pittnews.com