Tuesday, September 16, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: Stretching Patriot

Critics warned the expanded police powers authorized by the Patriot Act -- ratified weeks after the terror attacks of Sept. 11 -- would soon be used by opportunistic cops and prosecutors in areas far afield from any threat of al-Qaida-style terrorism.

Nonsense, supporters replied. New government powers to read every e-mail passing through an Internet Service Provider; to conduct roving wiretaps without informing their victims; to snoop on our book buying and library borrowing habits; to secretly rake through our private financial data; to hold some suspects indefinitely without right to counsel; to "enhance" criminal sentences till they stretch for decades ... would be used only when necessary to prevent for "another Sept. 11."

Guess what.

"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," reports Dan Dodson, a spokesman for the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys.

The Justice Department doesn't even deny this.

Stefan Cassella, deputy chief for legal policy in Justice's asset forfeiture and "money laundering" section, told The Associated Press last week 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 variety of cases."

And when are these "temporary" suspensions of our rights likely to end? No one will say.

"But you won't have any problem if you just obey orders and keep your mouth shut," the champions of creeping tyranny insist. "After all, do you have something to hide?"

Now, there's a handsome new motto for the "land of the free." Shall we start printing it on the money?