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Smorgasbord of investigations Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/6880191.htmhttp://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/6880191.htm
Posted on Sun, Sep. 28, 2003
Patriot Act has been invoked in a smorgasbord of investigations
Ashcroft insists it's an antiterror tool, but the record shows far more
ERIC LICHTBLAU
New York Times
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration, which calls the USA Patriot Act one of its essential tools in fighting terrorists, has begun using the law in criminal investigations that have little or nothing to do with terrorism.
The government is using its expanded authority under the far-reaching law to investigate people suspected of drug trafficking, white-collar crime, blackmail, child pornography and money laundering. It has even been used against foreign leaders considered corrupt by U.S. officials.
Justice Department officials say they are simply using all the tools now available to them to pursue criminals. But critics of the administration's antiterrorism tactics say such use of the law is evidence the administration has misled the public, using terrorism as a guise to pursue broader goals.
A new Justice Department report, given to members of Congress this month, cites more than a dozen cases not directly related to terrorism. In them, federal authorities have used their expanded power to investigate individuals, initiate wiretaps and seize millions in assets.
Department officials said the report includes just a smattering of the hundreds of nonterrorism cases pursued under the law.
Publicly, Attorney General John Ashcroft and his aides have portrayed their expanded power almost exclusively as a means of fighting terrorists, with little or no mention of other criminal uses.
"We have used these tools to prevent terrorists from unleashing more death and destruction on our soil," Ashcroft said last month in a speech in Washington, one of more than two dozen he has given in defense of the law that has come under growing attack. "We have used these tools to save innocent American lives."
Internally, however, Justice Department officials have emphasized a much broader mandate.
A guide to a Justice Department employee seminar last year on financial crimes, for instance, said: "We all know that the USA Patriot Act provided weapons for the war on terrorism. But do you know how it affects the war on crime as well?"
Elliot Mincberg, legal director for People for the American Way, a liberal group that has been critical of Ashcroft, said the Justice Department's public assertions struck him as misleading and perhaps dishonest.
"What the Justice Department has really done," he said, "is to get things put into the law that have been on prosecutors' wish lists for years. They've used terrorism as a guise to expand law enforcement powers in areas that are totally unrelated to terrorism."
A study in January by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, concluded that while the number of terrorism investigations at the Justice Department soared after the Sept. 11 attacks, 75 percent of the convictions that the department classified as "international terrorism" were wrongly labeled. Many dealt with more common crimes like document forgery.
The terrorism law has already drawn sharp opposition from those who believe it gives the government too much power to intrude on people's privacy.
Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said, "Once the American public understands that many of the powers granted to the federal government apply to much more than just terrorism, I think the opposition will gain momentum."
Department officials said such criticism had not deterred them.
"There are many provisions in the Patriot Act that can be used in the general criminal law," Mark Corallo, a department spokesman, said. "And I think any reasonable person would agree that we have an obligation to do everything we can to protect the lives and liberties of Americans from attack, whether it's from terrorists or garden-variety criminals."
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