Mission creep... Mission creep... part deux
The New York Times is reporting that MiniLuv--oops, I mean, The Justice Department, is "using its expanded authority under the far-reaching [USA-PATRIOT Act] to investigate suspected drug traffickers, white-collar criminals, blackmailers, child pornographers, money launderers, spies and even corrupt foreign leaders, federal officials said. Justice Department officials say they are simply using all the tools now available to them to pursue criminals terrorists or otherwise."
Ahhhh. And these people are all terrorists? Right? Because that's what the law was for? Ahhh... they're "otherwise." Because that's what the law was.... oh.
In the meanwhile, kids, don't worry! They're not using it against the libraries! Remain calm... all is well, America. Your reading materials are safe. Hey... you're not one of them... potheads... are ya?
on
| § 3
§ 3 Comments
[ You're too late, comments are closed ]
Anyone who believed that
Anyone who believed that these spiffy new police powers would only be used against terrorists is a complete jackass. It is not that the people in the Justice Deptartment and the associated alphabet soup of enforcement agencies are inherently bad, but it is in the nature of bureacracies to expand their power wherever possible, and then dig in to resist any future contraction.
The abuse of previous expansions, most notably the RICO statutes and civil foreiture, has been a windmill for me for a while, and it looks like this will go the same way.
There is no real way to distinguish laws for terrorists and those for "regular" criminals. Powers granted to law enforcement will be used against all targets of investigation.
Some aspects of the Patriot Act were reasonable - like the changing of the wiretap rules so that a warrant for a wiretap applies to a person, rather than a phone. In this era, with cheap cell phones, that makes sense. Similarly, some of the email rules closely mirrored similar rules for phones and letters. Fair enough.
We should be careful what we throw out, because some of this is undoubtedly useful in the big war on terror. But we really need to rein in all these organizations. We have far too many federal law enforcement agencies.
Yes, we should be careful
Yes, we should be careful what we throw out, but yet again, we have a parable for the dangers of leaving laws on the books unenforced, rather than repealing them.
Random thought: we've had a bad run of Atty Gen's here.
I agree. The pornography
I agree. The pornography busts are a good example of unenforced laws recently brought back to life. We have had a bad run of Atty Genruls. Janet Reno was worse - she started her career ruining the lives of parents with recovered memory sexual abuse cases, and went downhill from there. Waco was a nightmare, Ruby ridge was terrible, and Elian Gonzales merely the capper. The abuse of civil foreiture reached new heights under Reno.
I think Ashcroft is a more moral person than Reno, but that does not necessarily make him a better Atty Gen. He is, I think, doing what feels is necessary and right, but that is not exactly what we need done.