Anti-terror laws increasingly used against common criminals

Associated Press ^ | 09-14-03

[Brian S]

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.

[concerned about politics]

The law was designed to catch terrorism, but if crimminals are caught in the process, it's an added blessing.
I don't see a problem. Go ahead, get them off the street. They're CRIMMINALS anyway! We're SUPPOSE to arrest them if we can catch them! Sheesh.

[John Beresford Tipton]

"I don't see a problem. Go ahead, get them off the street. They're CRIMMINALS anyway!"

Maybe they will get you off the street. There are enough laws, and vague ones at that, that you might be a "criminal" and not even know it.

All it takes is a prosecutor to target you and voila you're a "criminal", and all the rest of us can rejoice with a hearty:

"I DON'T SEE A PROBLEM"

That there are too many such laws and that a prosecutor can pick his victim and then find the law to nail him is well known. Justice Jackson, a former US Attorney General and later Justice of the Supreme court wrote:

"With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some sort on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who committed it, it is a question of picking the man, and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him."

[Noachian]

This is exactly what I feared would happen when the Patriot Act was passed.

It's the unintended consequences of curbing Constitutional liberties in the name of doing good things.

Sure, we'll catch crooks with this Act and some people will say: "So what? They deserve to be caught." Yes they do, but the problem is the PA wasn't set up to catch crooks. So, now we've went from catching terrorists, to catching crooks, and who will we catch next with the PA? Speeders? People smoking in restaurants?

Once you put a law on the books that can be interpreted by any police department as they see fit you have a potential disaster in the offing.

In all probability this board, and these postings, are being put into a database to be scanned by government officials for comments made here about the opposition to the PA, opposition the government itself, and whatever else comes into the minds of government bureaucrats. There was a time when this would have been unthinkable.

If this nation winds up with another Clinton-type as president, how long will it take for a police state to follow?

[Teacher317]

Good thing the Law of Unintended Consequences doesn't apply when Republicans are in office! What's that? They do? Huh! Imagine THAT!

/sarcasm>

and so, the expansion of government authority, size, power, and methods continues under this "conservative" administration. Our great-grandchildren may never know Freedom.

[concerned about politics]

but it does seem that the prosecutors are overriding the legislative intent.

So the question here is: If they catch a crimminal while passing through, they shoud let him/her go? I think they should still hold the crimminal. It could save a lot of damage later.
Now, I limit that thought to major crimes. Jay walking, no. Parking tickets, no. Let the "little guys" deal with those "little crimes".
Escaped felons or wanted felons, drug dealers, islomofacists, ELF, ALF, all should be put behind bars. If we find them , we should keep them.

[John Beresford Tipton]

"ALF should be put behind bars"

Wasn't it bad enough they cancelled his series?

[Mulder]

If this nation winds up with another Clinton-type as president, how long will it take for a police state to follow?

This is already a quasi-police state. Another "terrorist act", and the ensuing legislation that follows will likely make it a full blown police state.

[Mulder]

If they catch a crimminal while passing through, they shoud let him/her go? I think they should still hold the crimminal.

Sounds good in theory, but the bitch is that we're all criminals. How many people can honestly say that they haven't broken any laws in the last 24 hours?

[opusprime]

And Bush calls himself a Conservative?

As the Ashcroft/Bush cabal move us closer to tyranny, they will make harder and harder to repeal these laws.

Bush is a national disgrace, and Ashcroft should be imprisoned for treason.

Anybody but Bush in 2004! End Tyranny!

[Willie Green]

Tough beans for the crooks.
Lock 'em up and toss away the key.
If they whine too much, fry 'em.

[Badray]

ping

[dogbyte12]

I have no problem if the government wants to make the penalty for setting up a meth lab 12 years. However, when the punishment is 6 months, and they charge the guy for making chemical weapons, it is an assault on the constitution.

I often use the Hillary test. If Hillary became president, how could these laws be used. You mix your own gunpowder, that is a chemical weapons violation.

You get caught with an "assault weapon", that is a weapon of mass destruction. I wish people would stop letting Ashcroft get away with this, just because of the (R) after his name. Who here would let Bill or Hillary do this while smiling quietly? Anybody?

Ashcroft needs to resign for trying to gut our constitution. If he won't resign, the President needs to fire him. You couple this with Ashcroft trying to get a law passed that says subpoenas can be served at his choosing without first consulting a judge or a grand jury, and you can see how this is heading. Imagine Janet Reno with that power.

I grieve often for the victims of 9/11. I grieve every day though for our constitution. I am offended by those who passively let our constitutional rights go in order to "stay safe". I will pick danger over a police state. If we need a police state to keep safe, why bother? You don't stay free by giving up your freedoms.

[Viva Le Dissention]

What? You mean the government is abusing its power?

No, I refuse to believe it. Nothing but lies, damn lies!

[dogbyte12]

"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."

Think about it folks. Seminars within 6 months to D.A.'s telling them how to gut the constitution by maliciously applying laws intended to go after terrorists, instead after whomever they feel like at the time.

[Wayland]

With the detentions of citizens as enemy combatants and denying them representation and due process one could argue that a "police state" has started already under Bush.

[Wayland]

Do you think a light cigarette or cigar would qualify as well?