[dead]

Greenpeace is annoying, but Ashcroft is dangerous.

[Behind Liberal Lines]

Did Ashcroft go too far in Greenpeace indictment?

No.

Next question.

[Neanderthal]

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

[JoJo Gunn]

Ashcroft dangerous? Perhaps he's looking at the wrong law book. Supposedly there are laws against being boarded. Piracy, I think it's called....

[JAWs]

STOP THE PRESS GANGS!

[Fierce Allegiance]

I like the resourcefulness. I enjoy my freedom, but if they had boarded my means of providing for my family, they'd have been shot.

[goodnesswins]

"Ashcroft's jihad against free speech, however, is not limited to environmentalists. Consider the case of three Dominican nuns. Last year, Sister Ardeth Platte, 66, Sister Jackie Hudson, 68, and Sister Carol Gilbert, 55, participated in a peaceful demonstration for nuclear disarmament."

"As part of the protest, the three nuns cut through a chain-link fence around a Minuteman III missile silo. There is only a light fence because the missile is protected by a 110-ton concrete cap designed to withstand a nuclear explosion. The nuns proceeded to paint crosses on the cap and symbolically hit it with hammers. They then knelt, prayed, sang religious songs, and waited for arrest. The most the government could allege in terms of damage was $3,000."

Soooo....Jonathon Turkey.....if a pro-life person as much as TOUCHED an abortion clinic what would happen?

[Tai_Chung]

If the law is bad, it should be abolished.

Many don't like enforcing immigration laws either, but it doesn't mean others should ignore it.

[CHUCKfromCAL]

Liberals don't mind when anti-abortion protesters are persecuted and arrested. But they sure don't like it when their groups are threatened.

[Southack]

They should be charged under maritime law for illegal boarding and given the stiffest punishment possible; preferably hanging.

Shoot, GreenPeace certainly isn't complaining about Chirac ordering the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior these days (which killed one GreenPeace sailor), so they should hardly mind any other such punishments.

[CHUCKfromCAL]

Liberals don't mind when anti-abortion protesters are persecuted and arrested. But they sure don't like it when their groups are threatened.

[theDentist]

Greenpeace could lose its tax-exempt status - a potential death knell

Yeeeee-haaawwwwwww!

[PhilipFreneau]

>> Greenpeace is annoying, but Ashcroft is dangerous.

Greenpeace is trash. Ashcroft is the trash man.

[rogue yam]

I like the way the article gracefully ellides over the fact that the ship was not engaged in the illegal activity that the Greenpeace pirates proffered as their excuse for interfering with its operations.

[Alberta's Child]

Not only is the law being used to prosecute one of the administration's most vocal critics in an unprecedented attack on the First Amendment . . .

If criminal trespass is protected as "free speech" in this country, then I expect the Bergen Record to provide moral and financial support to the person who burns their office to the ground to protest their idiotic articles.

/sarcasm off/

[Darth Reagan]

The 1872 law is a legal relic that must have required much archeological digging through law books to find.

I found this pretty quickly, and it looks like it might be the applicable law -- easily found in the current printing of the U.S. Code:

18 U.S.C. 2194 - Shanghaiing sailors

Whoever, with intent that any person shall perform service or labor of any kind on board of any vessel engaged in trade and commerce among the several States or with foreign nations, or on board of any vessel of the United States engaged in navigating the high seas or any navigable water of the United States, procures or induces, or attempts to procure or induce, another, by force or threats or by representations which he knows or believes to be untrue, or while the person so procured or induced is intoxicated or under the influence of any drug, to go on board of any such vessel, or to sign or in anywise enter into any agreement to go on board of any such vessel to perform service or labor thereon; or

Whoever knowingly detains on board of any such vessel any person so procured or induced to go on board, or to enter into any agreement to go on board, by any means herein defined -

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both

It may be the one Ashcroft is using, and if so, it seems a stretch.

More importantly, can you say "Shanghaiing" anymore?

[cyncooper]

So who clunked Jonathan Turley on the head and made him lose all reason?

He used to sound so sensible, despite his democrat affiliation.

Invading the boat physically goes beyond "free speech" and I am not alarmed that such action is being prosecuted.

[INSENSITIVE GUY]

Good for Ashcroft!Any means at all to nail enviro-wackos is fine with me.

[Prime Choice]

Hmmm...GreenPEACE...Religion of PEACE...hmmmm...

There's a satire just waiting to happen here somewhere...hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

[EUPHORIC]

"Greenpeace is annoying, but Ashcroft is dangerous."

That kind of "dangerous" we need MORE of. I'd love to see GreenPeace litigated out of existence the same way they and other left wing focus groups such as PETA routinely do to those they target.

At least this AG is closer to the correct targets then Reno and her crusade against a Bible study group that happened to have guns on the premises and an evil "white separtist" who just wanted to live in the backwoods and be left alone.

[bert]

He is after the bad guys. The court will decide if the old anciend etc law is the law. The court will decide if GreenPeace broke it.

Death by small cuts is the way to bleed them to death.