ashcroft

White House Hoist on the Patriot Act?

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Maybe.
Samual Dash argues that the perps who leaked Plame’s identity appear to have violated at least 2 sections of the Patriot Act and should, under the act, be considered domestic terrorists.
Furthermore, Dash then suggests the additional set of tools that the Justice Department could be bringing to bear:

Can they treat this investigation differently from any other terrorist investigation? Under the Patriot Act, they have acquired expanded powers to wiretap and search. Will they place sweeping and roving wiretaps on White House aides? Will they engage in sneak, secret searches of their offices, computers and homes? Will they arrest and detain incommunicado, without access to counsel, some White House aides as material witnesses?
Certainly, nobody expects they will and I hope they would not employ such police-state tactics.

While no law enforcement officials should have police-state tools at their disposal the current administration is certainly a deserving target if said tools are going to be used against anyone.
The entire article is worth a read.
Via Talkleft.

Soaring Eagles

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Need a little break this afternoon? Give this a listen:

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft ended a speech at a Charlotte, North Carolina seminary with a rousing rendition of a song he wrote called ‘Let The Eagles Soar’ (February 25)

Well, he probably sings better then I but……..
Via The Gamer’s Nook.

It’s ok, we didn’t use it…

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At Talkleft Jeralyn Merritt asks:

As to the library records, if none have been requested in the aftermath of 9/11, why does the Government need the power to get them?

A few points:

1) Sure, lack of use is a reason to strike this from the books. But why exempt just library records?
2) ashcroft’s statement speaks only to library records which are the most visible issue but not the only things that Section 215 subject to star chamber searches:

may make an application for an order requiring the production of any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities

3) The no use argument obscures the more basic issue: this power should never have been enacted into law. Something is broken in a system that even allows such a proposal to see the light of day.

And Jacob Sullum gets Zero Reassurance from ashcroft’s ‘no use’ assertion. Sullum notes:

the government is making liberal use of another PATRIOT Act provision with even looser requirements. Under Section 505, the Justice Department, including FBI field offices, can issue “national security letters” demanding telephone, Internet, credit, and bank records. This power has been used enough times in the last two years to fill a five-page, blacked-out list obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act.

There is a lot more objectionable stuff in the patriot act. Let’s just scrap the whole thing except for maybe Section 600 which deals with ‘providing for victems’ which should have been handled separately anyway.

ashcroft on NPR

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NPR did a segment today on ashcroft’s Patriot Act tour. He sounds just like Lis describes him:

Ashcroft came across so smug and smarmy that I had a fingernails across the blackboard reaction and may have yelled back at the radio.

You can find the audio links at NPR (down toward the bottom….and you might want to listen to the preceding music button after the ashcroft segment to relax a bit) or go directly to the recording: WM……RA.