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Old September 14, 2003, 13:46   #1
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New Terror Laws Used Vs. Common Criminals
I warned people then that this would happen, now it looks like I'm right again unfortunately.

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By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press Writer

PHILADELPHIA - In the two years since law enforcement agencies gained fresh powers to help them track down and punish terrorists, police and prosecutors have increasingly turned the force of the new laws not on al-Qaida cells but on people charged with common crimes.

The Justice Department (news - web sites) said it has used authority given to it by the USA Patriot Act to crack down on currency smugglers and seize money hidden overseas by alleged bookies, con artists and drug dealers.


Federal prosecutors used the act in June to file a charge of "terrorism using a weapon of mass destruction" against a California man after a pipe bomb exploded in his lap, wounding him as he sat in his car.


A North Carolina county prosecutor charged a man accused of running a methamphetamine lab with breaking a new state law barring the manufacture of chemical weapons. If convicted, Martin Dwayne Miller could get 12 years to life in prison for a crime that usually brings about six months.


Prosecutor Jerry Wilson says he isn't abusing the law, which defines chemical weapons of mass destruction as "any substance that is designed or has the capability to cause death or serious injury" and contains toxic chemicals.


Civil liberties and legal defense groups are bothered by the string of cases, and say the government soon will be routinely using harsh anti-terrorism laws against run-of-the-mill lawbreakers.


"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," said Dan Dodson, a spokesman for the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys. "They say they want the Patriot Act to fight terrorism, then, within six months, they are teaching their people how to use it on ordinary citizens."


Prosecutors aren't apologizing.


Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) completed a 16-city tour this week defending the Patriot Act as key to preventing a second catastrophic terrorist attack. Federal prosecutors have brought more than 250 criminal charges under the law, with more than 130 convictions or guilty pleas.


The law, passed two months after the Sept. 11 attacks, erased many restrictions that had barred the government from spying on its citizens, granting agents new powers to use wiretaps, conduct electronic and computer eavesdropping and access private financial data.


Stefan Cassella, deputy chief for legal policy for the Justice Department's asset forfeiture and money laundering section, said 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 wide variety of cases.


In one case prosecuted this year, investigators used a provision of the Patriot Act to recover $4.5 million from a group of telemarketers accused of tricking elderly U.S. citizens into thinking they had won the Canadian lottery. Prosecutors said the defendants told victims they would receive their prize as soon as they paid thousands of dollars in income tax on their winnings.


Before the anti-terrorism act, U.S. officials would have had to use international treaties and appeal for help from foreign governments to retrieve the cash, deposited in banks in Jordan and Israel. Now, they simply seized it from assets held by those banks in the United States.


"These are appropriate uses of the statute," Cassella said. "If we can use the statute to get money back for victims, we are going to do it."


The complaint that anti-terrorism legislation is being used to go after people who aren't terrorists is just the latest in a string of criticisms.


More than 150 local governments have passed resolutions opposing the law as an overly broad threat to constitutional rights.


Critics also say the government has gone too far in charging three U.S. citizens as enemy combatants, a power presidents wield during wartime that is not part of the Patriot Act. The government can detain such individuals indefinitely without allowing them access to a lawyer.





And Muslim and civil liberties groups have criticized the government's decision to force thousands of mostly Middle Eastern men to risk deportation by registering with immigration authorities.

"The record is clear," said Ralph Neas, president of the liberal People for the American Way Foundation. "Ashcroft and the Justice Department have gone too far."

Some of the restrictions on government surveillance that were erased by the Patriot Act had been enacted after past abuses — including efforts by the FBI (news - web sites) to spy on civil rights leaders and anti-war demonstrators during the Cold War. Tim Lynch, director of the Project on Criminal Justice at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said it isn't far fetched to believe that the government might overstep its bounds again.

"I don't think that those are frivolous fears," Lynch said. "We've already heard stories of local police chiefs creating files on people who have protested the (Iraq (news - web sites)) war ... The government is constantly trying to expand its jurisdictions, and it needs to be watched very, very closely."
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Old September 14, 2003, 13:52   #2
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Use your vote next year to stop this nonsense
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Old September 14, 2003, 14:06   #3
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Lets hope our judges stop the nonsense this year
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Old September 14, 2003, 14:16   #4
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Patriot Act
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Old September 14, 2003, 15:08   #5
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By all means, let's let criminals keep their profits offshore without harassment, and let's keep charging them under liberal half-assed laws that don't give more than a slap on the wrist.

If you have somebody not guilty of a crime falsely prosecuted under PATRIOT, tell me about it. If common scumbag criminals have a hard time, ask me how much I'm concerned.
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Old September 14, 2003, 15:11   #6
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If common scumbag criminals have a hard time, ask me how much I'm concerned.
Well that works, provided that these criminals are actually guilty, which the patriot act removes the courts to determine this, so you trust the government not to give you your consitutional rights if you are arrested?
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Old September 14, 2003, 15:20   #7
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by Jerry Wilson's definition of chemical weapons, almost everything is one. booze, rubbing alcohol, draino...
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Old September 14, 2003, 15:26   #8
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The problem is that Ashcroft and Bush stand up and ask Congress and the American people to give them more powers to fight terrorism:power they say they already use against drug traffickers. Obvioiusly, if they have to use PATRIOT USA Act laws against meth dealers, they didn't have those powers in the first place.

I hate it when prosecutors use unrelated (or remotely-related) laws in order to prosecute someone. If someone's busted running a meth lab, they should be charged with running a meth lab, not with manufacturing chemical weapons. If the laws aren't strong enough in the eyes of the prosecutor, well, tough luck, because that's how democracy works: the people we elected decided what the punishments for certain activities are.

It's like when they add tax evasion charges to a drug dealer's list of charges because the guy didn't pay taxes on the drugs he was selling. That's not coherent and it has little to do with the actual crime he was committing -- it's just a trick to keep someone in prison longer for the same crime.
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Old September 14, 2003, 15:31   #9
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Quote:
Originally posted by Thorn
the patriot act removes the courts to determine this, so you trust the government not to give you your consitutional rights if you are arrested?
Bullshit. You don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about. Cite the specific provisions of the act that you think do what you claim. Not some whacked site's opinion, not your opinion, the actual text of the law.

Come on, you can do it. (except nothing like what you claim is in PATRIOT, but details, details. )
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Old September 14, 2003, 15:35   #10
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Considering that the PATRIOT ACT is over 300 pages long and that its sequel is over 400 pages long, I certainly wouldn't mind if someone cited a newspaper columnist.
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Old September 14, 2003, 15:42   #11
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Heres a bit of text that caught my eye. Obiviously I'm not going to search everything up, so I'll leave that to someone who can:

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`MANDATORY DETENTION OF SUSPECTED TERRORISTS; HABEAS CORPUS; JUDICIAL REVIEW
`SEC. 236A. (a) DETENTION OF TERRORIST ALIENS-

`(1) CUSTODY- The Attorney General shall take into custody any alien who is certified under paragraph (3).
`(2) RELEASE- Except as provided in paragraphs (5) and (6), the Attorney General shall maintain custody of such an alien until the alien is removed from the United States. Except as provided in paragraph (6), such custody shall be maintained irrespective of any relief from removal for which the alien may be eligible, or any relief from removal granted the alien, until the Attorney General determines that the alien is no longer an alien who may be certified under paragraph (3). If the alien is finally determined not to be removable, detention pursuant to this subsection shall terminate.
`(3) CERTIFICATION- The Attorney General may certify an alien under this paragraph if the Attorney General has reasonable grounds to believe that the alien--
`(A) is described in section 212(a)(3)(A)(i), 212(a)(3)(A)(iii), 212(a)(3)(B), 237(a)(4)(A)(i), 237(a)(4)(A)(iii), or 237(a)(4)(B); or
`(B) is engaged in any other activity that endangers the national security of the United States.
`(4) NONDELEGATION- The Attorney General may delegate the authority provided under paragraph (3) only to the Deputy Attorney General. The Deputy Attorney General may not delegate such authority.
`(5) COMMENCEMENT OF PROCEEDINGS- The Attorney General shall place an alien detained under paragraph (1) in removal proceedings, or shall charge the alien with a criminal offense, not later than 7 days after the commencement of such detention. If the requirement of the preceding sentence is not satisfied, the Attorney General shall release the alien.
`(6) LIMITATION ON INDEFINITE DETENTION- An alien detained solely under paragraph (1) who has not been removed under section 241(a)(1)(A), and whose removal is unlikely in the reasonably foreseeable future, may be detained for additional periods of up to six months only if the release of the alien will threaten the national security of the United States or the safety of the community or any person.
`(7) REVIEW OF CERTIFICATION- The Attorney General shall review the certification made under paragraph (3) every 6 months. If the Attorney General determines, in the Attorney General's discretion, that the certification should be revoked, the alien may be released on such conditions as the Attorney General deems appropriate, unless such release is otherwise prohibited by law. The alien may request each 6 months in writing that the Attorney General reconsider the certification and may submit documents or other evidence in support of that request.
http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html
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Old September 14, 2003, 15:45   #12
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Quote:
Originally posted by rev
Obvioiusly, if they have to use PATRIOT USA Act laws against meth dealers, they didn't have those powers in the first place.

I hate it when prosecutors use unrelated (or remotely-related) laws in order to prosecute someone. If someone's busted running a meth lab, they should be charged with running a meth lab, not with manufacturing chemical weapons.
Since the meth lab idiot was charged under a new state law in North Carolina, what is the relevence to the Federal PATRIOT act?

Quote:
It's like when they add tax evasion charges to a drug dealer's list of charges because the guy didn't pay taxes on the drugs he was selling. That's not coherent and it has little to do with the actual crime he was committing -- it's just a trick to keep someone in prison longer for the same crime.
It's quite coherent, since one's legal obligation to pay taxes on income exists regardless of whether the source of the income was a legal activity or an illegal one. The purpose isn't often to lengthen a sentence (since Federal laws allow large scale traffickers to be sentenced to life without parole), but to create a stronger legal trustee relationship with the money earned from the activity. This expands to government's money seizure powers and their investigative reach offshore to other countries which have tax treaties with the US.
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Old September 14, 2003, 16:33   #13
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Quote:
Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Since the meth lab idiot was charged under a new state law in North Carolina, what is the relevence to the Federal PATRIOT act?

Cut the guy some slack - he's probably not a lawyer.

Now you tell me - since when is crystal meth a chemical weapon. The prosecutor in this case is obviously stretching the rather weak definition used in the statute. This is the very sort of thing that annoys me about prosecutors - stretching the letter of the law to send it places it was not intended to go. I.e. crystal meth is in no way a chemical weapon and this doofus prosecutor knows that. And you wonder why people are skeptical when politicians claim that a law will only be used on terrorists?

As for your earlier comment about "scumbags" - if the politicians say the law won't be so used then it shouldn't be so used, your opinion not withstanding.
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Old September 14, 2003, 16:38   #14
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Alien terrorism?
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Old September 14, 2003, 18:29   #15
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Quote:
Originally posted by The Templar



Cut the guy some slack - he's probably not a lawyer.
He's obviously not one, but the popular paranoid neurotic whining about fictionalized evils supposedly in the PATRIOT Act don't do much to help the cause of getting some intelligent critical attention focused on proposed extensions of the law that go far beyond what's really in PATRIOT. The biggest ally the malevolent part of the right has is the ignorant whiner faction on the left.

Quote:
Now you tell me - since when is crystal meth a chemical weapon. The prosecutor in this case is obviously stretching the rather weak definition used in the statute. This is the very sort of thing that annoys me about prosecutors - stretching the letter of the law to send it places it was not intended to go. I.e. crystal meth is in no way a chemical weapon and this doofus prosecutor knows that.
It obviously isn't, and the prosecutor is most likely testing whether he can get away with this on appeal, but if the state of North Carolina wants to lock up meth lab operators that's their business.

Quote:
And you wonder why people are skeptical when politicians claim that a law will only be used on terrorists?
Not at all. They're dumbasses if they believe any verbal PR from any politician, as opposed to the actual language of the law in question. And most people who rant off about the evils (actual or supposed) of the PATRIOT act don't know squat about it's actual provisions. They just rant off of whatever rumor or propaganda source they had spoonfeed them the interpretation of the week. Welcome to American politics.

Quote:
As for your earlier comment about "scumbags" - if the politicians say the law won't be so used then it shouldn't be so used, your opinion not withstanding.
What a politician says is meaningless. The provisions contained within the law itself are controlling, subject to interpretation and action by the judiciary. If a politician tells you the sun is going to start rising in the west, do you believe it or expect that's the way it should be?
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Old September 14, 2003, 18:29   #16
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The intent to kill people and the intent to sell them drugs are two different things, and they should be punished accordingly (aside from any considerations about whether drugs should be legal). The punishment should fit the crime. Just because someone is a "scumbag" doesn't mean they should go to jail for the rest of their lives.

And the fear is real that these laws (plural) are being used in ways they were not intended for, and therefore they could be stretched and increased more. Don't think the police should have a right to wiretap your phone? Tough, you shouldn't have been saying things you shouldn't in the first place. Don't think the police should have right to barge into your home without any evidence of wrongdoing? Tough, you shouldn't have been doing anything illegal in the first place. Right?
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Old September 14, 2003, 18:43   #17
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Quote:
Originally posted by tandeetaylor
The intent to kill people and the intent to sell them drugs are two different things, and they should be punished accordingly (aside from any considerations about whether drugs should be legal). The punishment should fit the crime. Just because someone is a "scumbag" doesn't mean they should go to jail for the rest of their lives.
It's up to the elected legislatures to determine what they feel are the appropriate punishments, within the limits of the Eighth Amendment.


Quote:
Don't think the police should have a right to wiretap your phone? Tough, you shouldn't have been saying things you shouldn't in the first place.
Well, they've been able to get a warrant signed by a judge or magistrate upon showing reasonable cause before PATRIOT. The only diffence now is that the warrant follows the individual suspected of committing a crime, not the obviously inanimate telephone number.

Quote:
Don't think the police should have right to barge into your home without any evidence of wrongdoing? Tough, you shouldn't have been doing anything illegal in the first place. Right?
Show me the specific language and case law where police have a right to warrantless entry and search. All you have to do is ask them through the door if they have a warrant, and if no, tell them you have nothing to say and no they can't come in.
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Old September 14, 2003, 18:45   #18
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It's up to the elected legislatures to determine what they feel are the appropriate punishments, within the limits of the Eighth Amendment.
Obviously, but I think what she's saying (and I, by the way, agree) is that just because the legislature CAN set certain punishments for certain actions doesn't mean that they SHOULD do so.
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Old September 15, 2003, 01:26   #19
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Quote:
Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
It obviously isn't, and the prosecutor is most likely testing whether he can get away with this on appeal, but if the state of North Carolina wants to lock up meth lab operators that's their business.
The statute is a chemical weapons statute - not a drug statute. The lesgislative purpose is thereby announced in the prohibition of weapons. Common sense is on call here ...

What the prosecutor in this case is doing is stretching the weak definition beyond the legislative intent. And he is probably doing this to assist his own political ambition by being tough on crime or whatever.

Quote:
What a politician says is meaningless. The provisions contained within the law itself are controlling, subject to interpretation and action by the judiciary. If a politician tells you the sun is going to start rising in the west, do you believe it or expect that's the way it should be?
But, a politician can tell us the intent behind a bill. In fact, this bill is an anti-weapons statute as indicated by the fact that it addresses chemical weapons. No need to even comb legislative history, the intent (i.e. weapons) is enacted in the bill itself.

[rant] if prosecutors could be held accountable for attempting to stretch the law (a fine, some time in gen pop with the people they put there) would make these *******s thing twice about stretching the law to look tough [/rant]
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Old September 15, 2003, 01:32   #20
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if prosecutors could be held accountable for attempting to stretch the law (a fine, some time in gen pop with the people they put there) would make these *******s thing twice about stretching the law to look tough
So defense lawyers should be off the hook for attempting the stretch the law?

Quote:
The statute is a chemical weapons statute - not a drug statute. The lesgislative purpose is thereby announced in the prohibition of weapons.
It doesn't matter what the 'intent' is. What matters is the text. If they wanted to make it simply a 'weapons statute', they should have specifically said so. If the text can apply to other things, then it applies to other things.
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Old September 15, 2003, 01:53   #21
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Quote:
Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Quote:
if prosecutors could be held accountable for attempting to stretch the law (a fine, some time in gen pop with the people they put there) would make these *******s thing twice about stretching the law to look tough
So defense lawyers should be off the hook for attempting the stretch the law?
Defense lawyers don't bring cases. And given the harsh penalties for crimes, prosecutors should be staying fairly close to the text of statutes. Too often, moral wrongs and crimes get conflated. The criminal justice system should not be used as a system to enforce the moral norms of society.

Quote:
Quote:
The statute is a chemical weapons statute - not a drug statute. The lesgislative purpose is thereby announced in the prohibition of weapons.
It doesn't matter what the 'intent' is. What matters is the text. If they wanted to make it simply a 'weapons statute', they should have specifically said so. If the text can apply to other things, then it applies to other things.
NOW you're a textualist. (In all honesty, you must admit, this will depend entirely on the judge you go before. For example, Stevens loves intent and legislative history.)

But they did say they wanted a weapons statute - when they used the word 'weapon'. How much more specific does the legislature need to be? Unless you are throwing crystal meth in someone's eye - I fail to see how the weapons requirement can be met. Note that the word 'weapon' is used in the statute so either the legilature was creating a new word 'weapon' which looks a lot like the regular word 'weapon', or the purpose of the statutory definition is to clarify (although it fails to do so) the use of 'weapon'. But if clarification is the point of the definition then any clarification of the use of the word must remain within in the accepted definition. And since crystal meth is bought to get high - not to injure - this prosecutor has exceeded the meaning of the word 'weapon' even if he has remained within the rather awful clarification used in the statute.

Or are you saying 'weapon' in the statute does not mean weapon? If so, couldn't the legislature have made its purpose in enacting the statute clear by not using the word 'weapon' and instead using a word that would extend to crystal meth? Given that the text itself mentions 'weapon' does that not mean when employing the statute I should look for a weapon and then see if the clarifying definition admits the particular weapon? That is, shouldn't the existence of the word 'weapon' in the statute tell me that the purpose of the statute in fact is to be employed against weapons?
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Old September 15, 2003, 02:07   #22
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Well the feds and states ended up using asset forfeiture laws designed for drug "kingpins" on people who weren't kingpins, hell, they used them on farmers whose land was used by others to grow a few pot plants without the knowledge of the owner. The idiotic rationalisation was that politicians didn't want drug kingpins using the assets from their drug trade to hire lawyers. Excuse me, but doesn't that assume guilt before a conviction? How can people defend themselves when their money is stolen by prosecutors before the trial? The case of Donald Scott exemplifies the evils of how laws designed for one group of people end up being used on the rest of us, so it won't be long before prosecutors use these laws for non-terrorists if they aren't already.

The abuses of asset forfeiture laws led to a backlash and the re-instatement of stricter controls over what prosecutors could get away with, but plenty of people were victimised by a$$hole prosecutors before the backlash. How many times does this have to happen before people stop believing the nonsense that a proposed law will only apply to the really bad people? RICO was another set of laws designed to go after the Mafia and ended up being used on other people.

I heard of a case up in Minnesota about an 18 year old boy being convicted of pedophilism for having sex with his 17 year old girlfriend. The kid was put on one of those "sexual offender" lists and even the politician who wrote the stupid law said he never meant it to be used for high school sweathearts, etc...
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