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Thorn
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Asheville, NC
May 1999
time: 00:30
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I warned people then that this would happen, now it looks like I'm right again unfortunately.
quote:
By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press Writer
PHILADELPHIA - In the two years since law enforcement agencies gained fresh powers to help them track down and punish terrorists, police and prosecutors have increasingly turned the force of the new laws not on al-Qaida cells but on people charged with common crimes.
The Justice Department (news - web sites) said it has used authority given to it by the USA Patriot Act to crack down on currency smugglers and seize money hidden overseas by alleged bookies, con artists and drug dealers.
Federal prosecutors used the act in June to file a charge of "terrorism using a weapon of mass destruction" against a California man after a pipe bomb exploded in his lap, wounding him as he sat in his car.
A North Carolina county prosecutor charged a man accused of running a methamphetamine lab with breaking a new state law barring the manufacture of chemical weapons. If convicted, Martin Dwayne Miller could get 12 years to life in prison for a crime that usually brings about six months.
Prosecutor Jerry Wilson says he isn't abusing the law, which defines chemical weapons of mass destruction as "any substance that is designed or has the capability to cause death or serious injury" and contains toxic chemicals.
Civil liberties and legal defense groups are bothered by the string of cases, and say the government soon will be routinely using harsh anti-terrorism laws against run-of-the-mill lawbreakers.
"Within six months of passing the Patriot Act, the Justice Department was conducting seminars on how to stretch the new wiretapping provisions to extend them beyond terror cases," said Dan Dodson, a spokesman for the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys. "They say they want the Patriot Act to fight terrorism, then, within six months, they are teaching their people how to use it on ordinary citizens."
Prosecutors aren't apologizing.
Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) completed a 16-city tour this week defending the Patriot Act as key to preventing a second catastrophic terrorist attack. Federal prosecutors have brought more than 250 criminal charges under the law, with more than 130 convictions or guilty pleas.
The law, passed two months after the Sept. 11 attacks, erased many restrictions that had barred the government from spying on its citizens, granting agents new powers to use wiretaps, conduct electronic and computer eavesdropping and access private financial data.
Stefan Cassella, deputy chief for legal policy for the Justice Department's asset forfeiture and money laundering section, said that while the Patriot Act's primary focus was on terrorism, lawmakers were aware it contained provisions that had been on prosecutors' wish lists for years and would be used in a wide variety of cases.
In one case prosecuted this year, investigators used a provision of the Patriot Act to recover $4.5 million from a group of telemarketers accused of tricking elderly U.S. citizens into thinking they had won the Canadian lottery. Prosecutors said the defendants told victims they would receive their prize as soon as they paid thousands of dollars in income tax on their winnings.
Before the anti-terrorism act, U.S. officials would have had to use international treaties and appeal for help from foreign governments to retrieve the cash, deposited in banks in Jordan and Israel. Now, they simply seized it from assets held by those banks in the United States.
"These are appropriate uses of the statute," Cassella said. "If we can use the statute to get money back for victims, we are going to do it."
The complaint that anti-terrorism legislation is being used to go after people who aren't terrorists is just the latest in a string of criticisms.
More than 150 local governments have passed resolutions opposing the law as an overly broad threat to constitutional rights.
Critics also say the government has gone too far in charging three U.S. citizens as enemy combatants, a power presidents wield during wartime that is not part of the Patriot Act. The government can detain such individuals indefinitely without allowing them access to a lawyer.
And Muslim and civil liberties groups have criticized the government's decision to force thousands of mostly Middle Eastern men to risk deportation by registering with immigration authorities.
"The record is clear," said Ralph Neas, president of the liberal People for the American Way Foundation. "Ashcroft and the Justice Department have gone too far."
Some of the restrictions on government surveillance that were erased by the Patriot Act had been enacted after past abuses — including efforts by the FBI (news - web sites) to spy on civil rights leaders and anti-war demonstrators during the Cold War. Tim Lynch, director of the Project on Criminal Justice at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said it isn't far fetched to believe that the government might overstep its bounds again.
"I don't think that those are frivolous fears," Lynch said. "We've already heard stories of local police chiefs creating files on people who have protested the (Iraq (news - web sites)) war ... The government is constantly trying to expand its jurisdictions, and it needs to be watched very, very closely." |
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Comrade Tassadar
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Heres a bit of text that caught my eye. Obiviously I'm not going to search everything up, so I'll leave that to someone who can:
quote:
`MANDATORY DETENTION OF SUSPECTED TERRORISTS; HABEAS CORPUS; JUDICIAL REVIEW
`SEC. 236A. (a) DETENTION OF TERRORIST ALIENS-
`(1) CUSTODY- The Attorney General shall take into custody any alien who is certified under paragraph (3).
`(2) RELEASE- Except as provided in paragraphs (5) and (6), the Attorney General shall maintain custody of such an alien until the alien is removed from the United States. Except as provided in paragraph (6), such custody shall be maintained irrespective of any relief from removal for which the alien may be eligible, or any relief from removal granted the alien, until the Attorney General determines that the alien is no longer an alien who may be certified under paragraph (3). If the alien is finally determined not to be removable, detention pursuant to this subsection shall terminate.
`(3) CERTIFICATION- The Attorney General may certify an alien under this paragraph if the Attorney General has reasonable grounds to believe that the alien--
`(A) is described in section 212(a)(3)(A)(i), 212(a)(3)(A)(iii), 212(a)(3)(B), 237(a)(4)(A)(i), 237(a)(4)(A)(iii), or 237(a)(4)(B); or
`(B) is engaged in any other activity that endangers the national security of the United States.
`(4) NONDELEGATION- The Attorney General may delegate the authority provided under paragraph (3) only to the Deputy Attorney General. The Deputy Attorney General may not delegate such authority.
`(5) COMMENCEMENT OF PROCEEDINGS- The Attorney General shall place an alien detained under paragraph (1) in removal proceedings, or shall charge the alien with a criminal offense, not later than 7 days after the commencement of such detention. If the requirement of the preceding sentence is not satisfied, the Attorney General shall release the alien.
`(6) LIMITATION ON INDEFINITE DETENTION- An alien detained solely under paragraph (1) who has not been removed under section 241(a)(1)(A), and whose removal is unlikely in the reasonably foreseeable future, may be detained for additional periods of up to six months only if the release of the alien will threaten the national security of the United States or the safety of the community or any person.
`(7) REVIEW OF CERTIFICATION- The Attorney General shall review the certification made under paragraph (3) every 6 months. If the Attorney General determines, in the Attorney General's discretion, that the certification should be revoked, the alien may be released on such conditions as the Attorney General deems appropriate, unless such release is otherwise prohibited by law. The alien may request each 6 months in writing that the Attorney General reconsider the certification and may submit documents or other evidence in support of that request. |
http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html
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tandeetaylor
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Las Vegas
Apr 2001
time: 21:30
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The intent to kill people and the intent to sell them drugs are two different things, and they should be punished accordingly (aside from any considerations about whether drugs should be legal). The punishment should fit the crime. Just because someone is a "scumbag" doesn't mean they should go to jail for the rest of their lives.
And the fear is real that these laws (plural) are being used in ways they were not intended for, and therefore they could be stretched and increased more. Don't think the police should have a right to wiretap your phone? Tough, you shouldn't have been saying things you shouldn't in the first place. Don't think the police should have right to barge into your home without any evidence of wrongdoing? Tough, you shouldn't have been doing anything illegal in the first place. Right?
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:30
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quote:
It's up to the elected legislatures to determine what they feel are the appropriate punishments, within the limits of the Eighth Amendment. |
Obviously, but I think what she's saying (and I, by the way, agree) is that just because the legislature CAN set certain punishments for certain actions doesn't mean that they SHOULD do so.
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The Templar
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People's Republic of the East Village
Oct 2001
time: 00:30
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quote:
Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
quote:
if prosecutors could be held accountable for attempting to stretch the law (a fine, some time in gen pop with the people they put there) would make these *******s thing twice about stretching the law to look tough |
So defense lawyers should be off the hook for attempting the stretch the law?  |
Defense lawyers don't bring cases. And given the harsh penalties for crimes, prosecutors should be staying fairly close to the text of statutes. Too often, moral wrongs and crimes get conflated. The criminal justice system should not be used as a system to enforce the moral norms of society.
quote:
quote:
The statute is a chemical weapons statute - not a drug statute. The lesgislative purpose is thereby announced in the prohibition of weapons. |
It doesn't matter what the 'intent' is. What matters is the text. If they wanted to make it simply a 'weapons statute', they should have specifically said so. If the text can apply to other things, then it applies to other things. |
NOW you're a textualist. (In all honesty, you must admit, this will depend entirely on the judge you go before. For example, Stevens loves intent and legislative history.)
But they did say they wanted a weapons statute - when they used the word 'weapon'.  How much more specific does the legislature need to be? Unless you are throwing crystal meth in someone's eye - I fail to see how the weapons requirement can be met. Note that the word 'weapon' is used in the statute so either the legilature was creating a new word 'weapon' which looks a lot like the regular word 'weapon', or the purpose of the statutory definition is to clarify (although it fails to do so) the use of 'weapon'. But if clarification is the point of the definition then any clarification of the use of the word must remain within in the accepted definition. And since crystal meth is bought to get high - not to injure - this prosecutor has exceeded the meaning of the word 'weapon' even if he has remained within the rather awful clarification used in the statute.
Or are you saying 'weapon' in the statute does not mean weapon? If so, couldn't the legislature have made its purpose in enacting the statute clear by not using the word 'weapon' and instead using a word that would extend to crystal meth? Given that the text itself mentions 'weapon' does that not mean when employing the statute I should look for a weapon and then see if the clarifying definition admits the particular weapon? That is, shouldn't the existence of the word 'weapon' in the statute tell me that the purpose of the statute in fact is to be employed against weapons?
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14-09-2003 22:46
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