<p>IT HAS lain dormant in the darkest recesses of American law for 125 years, but last month Attorney General John Ashcroft introduced critics of the administration to his latest weapon in law enforcement.</p>
<p>In a Miami federal court, the attorney general charged the environmental group Greenpeace under an obscure 1872 law originally intended to end the practice of "sailor-mongering," or the luring of sailors with liquor and prostitutes from their ships. Ashcroft plucked the law from obscurity to punish Greenpeace for boarding a vessel near port in Miami.</p>