posted 09-20-2001 12:00 PM            

FROM WIRE REPORTS Sep 20, 2001

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration asked Congress yesterday to let prosecutors use information that was collected by foreign governments in ways that are unconstitutional in the United States.

The administration also wants to let the FBI and other police agencies seize billing information, such as credit card numbers, from Internet companies without a court order, according to a Justice Department analysis of the anti-terrorism legislative package it plans to submit tomorrow.

"In many cases, users register with Internet service providers using false names, making the form of payment critical to determining the user's true identity," said the analysis, which was provided yesterday to senators.

A foreign affair
In the documents, the Justice Department said it envisions that information obtained by foreign police agencies "will come to play a larger role in federal prosecutions" of terrorists. Still prohibited, it noted, would be the use in court of information gathered unconstitutionally overseas if U.S. prosecutors participated in ordering its collection.

But Attorney General John Ashcroft's proposed legislation would allow the use of electronic surveillance gathered by foreign governments, via methods that violate the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure, in American courts against American citizens.

Meanwhile, an unusual liberal-conservative alliance is decrying as an assault on civil liberties the changes in law being sought in response to last week's suicide airliner hijackings.

'Well beyond the scope'
"This proposal addresses issues that are well beyond the scope of fighting terrorism," said David Sobel of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Sobel's group is one of several that has signed a letter to lawmakers stating they should "resist the temptation to enact proposals in the mistaken belief that anything that may be called anti-terrorist will necessarily provide greater security."

Ashcroft, standing outside the site where one of the hijacked planes slammed into the Pentagon, said yesterday he is deeply concerned about civil liberties. But "we will not fail to use any tools that can promote apprehension and disruption of the networks that caused these damages and prevent similar recurrences in the future."

Senior lawmakers already are indicating that Ashcroft's legislation will not move through Congress as quickly as he sought earlier this week.

House Judiciary Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis., said he would hold hearings before moving the legislation. And Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., said he was working on his own version of an anti-terrorism bill.

"We're trying to find a middle ground, and I think we can," Leahy said after meeting with Ashcroft.

In addition to the provisions Ashcroft announced publicly, his legislation, according to the Justice Department analysis, would:

Expand the definition of terrorist in the Alien Terrorist Removal Court to anyone who knows or should know that an organization he supports in any way is a terrorist organization.
Make illegal giving expert advice to terrorists, "for example, advice provided by a person with expertise in aviation matters to facilitate an aircraft hijacking."
Allow seizing the property of any person, organization or country that attacks the United States, even without a declaration of war.
Allow access to educational records of suspected terrorists. Currently, officials cannot look at anyone's educational records without the consent of students or their parents.
Allow the attorney general to offer any amount as a reward to fight terrorists, lifting the $2 million current limit.
Allow police to take DNA samples from convicted terrorists.
In an unusual coalition, the American Civil Liberties Union has allied with an array of conservative groups, including the American Conservative Union, in an attempt to slow down the momentum of Ashcroft's legislation.

"I don't want to come across as a person who's not concerned about national security" in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, said ACLU Washington director Laura Murphy. But "the history of these kinds of bills is, once they are passed, it takes a very long time to remove them from the statutes."

As drafted, the legislation would expand federal authority to tap the telephone conversations, seize voice-mail messages and read e-mail of suspected terrorists. It also would allow deportation of immigrants who are suspected terrorists, with no judicial review.

The administration already has revised federal rules to allow the detention of immigrants for up to 48 hours before charges are filed. And in time of emergency, noncitizens could be held indefinitely.

Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., has sent a letter to Ashcroft protesting efforts to expand law enforcement powers. "Broad investigative and surveillance authority invites abuse," he wrote.

Barr said the failure to stop the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 "did not occur due to lack of authority, but the lapse of intelligence" as well as lax enforcement of current laws.

Meantime, the FBI investigated the possibility yesterday that some of last week's suspected suicide hijackers used fake identities of people who might still be alive. The FBI also sent a list to banks asking them to search for any financial transactions involving 21 people wanted in connection with the terrorist attacks.

New information also emerged about why Sept. 22 has been focused on by investigators.

Authorities have evidence that at least four people being sought in the terror investigation, including a doctor now in custody, were booked on one or more flights that day leaving San Antonio. Some were headed to Denver; others continuing to California.

The cluster of four people linked to the probe on flights that day raised intrigue, as did the fact that President Bush was tentatively scheduled to visit San Antonio the day before.

But the sources said an intensive investigation has developed no information to date suggesting any attacks were planned on Bush, San Antonio, on flights or in other cities on Sept. 22, a Saturday with many college football games and the Miss America contest on the schedule.

posted 09-20-2001 04:15 PM            

Using a national emergency as an excuse to degrade Americans' freedoms is probably going to work, too. As a nation we're so enraged by the attack that we're willing to undergo sacrifice (or at least we are as of right now) in an effort to defeat the forces of evil, etc.

And yet, losing our freedoms will not necessarily increase our national or individual security, as one of those quoted in the reprint said.

Had we used our intelligence-sharing potential under existing satutes, we'd probably have been able to catch those cockroaches before they did their deeds. the failure was not one of law, but of the 'intelligence' community.

In a way, it's sort of like the gun-ban people who want just one more law, which will, of course, eliminate gun crime and make America a safe place For The Children once again.

And, of course, the NRA and its allies make a valid point when they say that if the existing laws were followed, we wouldn't need any new laws. And its the same way with these new statutes being danced through Congres in light of the attack.

Now I'll admit that extraordinary government powers have, in the past, been nullified when the emergency which led to them was over. But the difference today is that we've already suffered an extensive erosion of our freedoms in the fifty-six years since the last major upheaval; as a result, i feel that there's a good chance that htis recent assault on our liberties might not go away.