Ashcroft: Tougher Patriot Act needed

Saying the Patriot Act has helped prevent further terrorist attacks on America, Attorney General John Ashcroft yesterday called for even tougher law-enforcement tools.

Ashcroft argued that law enforcement needs more powers, not fewer. Among those he called for are the power for investigators to subpoena business records in terrorism investigations on their own rather than through a grand jury and a federal death penalty for some terrorism attacks in which people are killed.

Well, let's see here. Where to begin...

Let's start with the whopper. Apparantly, Ashcroft thinks that the Patriot Act has been responsible for preventing further terrorist attacks. Just a few months ago he was claiming that parts of that law haven't even been used. You can't have it both ways, Ashcroft; either the law has been used, possibly in a manner offensive to the Constitution, or it hasn't. Not both. Of course, there's ample wiggle room in his statements; I just find it amusing the way he dances between interpertations depending on what he's trying to convey.

If he's right, though, and the Patriot Act has prevented terrorist attacks, it's funny that very few of those attacks have shown up in the news. Sure, there have been some arrests -- but no details on "attacks" that were "stopped". If he's going to claim credit for stopping attacks he damn well needs to specify some of the stopped attacks. But then, under the Patriot Act, those details are secret.

In case you haven't noticed, secrecy is one of the overriding themes in the Patriot Act. You can get secret authorization to secretly search a suspected terrorist's home and business records based on secret evidence, and the people you have to talk to to get the information have to keep it a secret. Of course, if it's all secret, there's no way to tell if it actually works. That's part of the point.

Ashcroft is also asking Congress to allow judges to impose the death penalties for those convicted of terrorist activities that do not now have death penalty specifications.

Y'know, maybe I just don't have access to all of Ashcroft's secret evidence... but I suspect that suicide bombers aren't deterred by the threat of the death penalty. Worse, I suspect that most of the terrorists would rather be executed than spend their life in prison. Now, I agree that it's kind of pointless to lock up terrorists for their natural lives; much simpler to execute them (preferably quickly and humanely, with due process of law as appropriate). But I'm concerned about why there needs to be new law to accomplish this. Most terrorist acts are already criminal acts that carry the death penalty.

But I've got an inkling of why he wants this particular change, and it's not pretty. You see, under the Patriot Act, just about any criminal act is also an act of terror, if the crime was committed with intent to influence the policy of the United States. And there have been a number of incidents where government attorneys have charged local criminals with terrorism based om that law and similar laws -- charges that are completely unjustified by any rational analysis.

So what's the deal? Why does Ashcroft want a blanket death penalty for terrorist acts? Simple: if any crime can be spun as a terrorist act, and that is the case, then the death penalty becomes a prosecutorial bargaining stick. It's like a great big club that Ashcroft can threaten "terrorists" and minor criminals with. "Confess, and I'll take the death penalty off the table". It removes the need for Ashcroft to actually convict his "terrorists" of anything; lots of them will confess to anything so long as they can avoid being executed.

Whether or not they're guilty of anything.

And that sort of confession will inevitably generate lots of good publicity for Ashcroft and Bush in an election year. The only reason I can think of for Ashcroft to want that change in the law is to provide some convenient confessions for the news cameras, since he apparantly is unable to provide any real terrorists, at least not in the US.

I don't think providing political cover for Ashcroft and Bush is a suitable reason to expand the death penalty. What say you?