DdC

Washington — The Bush administration, which calls the USA Patriot Act perhaps its most essential tool in fighting terrorists, has begun using the law with increasing frequency in many criminal investigations that have little or no connection to terrorism.

The government is using its expanded authority under the far-reaching law 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. But critics of the administration's antiterrorism tactics assert that such use of the law is evidence the administration has sold the American public a false bill of goods, using terrorism as a guise to pursue a broader law enforcement agenda.

Justice Department officials point out that they have employed their newfound powers in many instances against suspected terrorists. With the new law breaking down the wall between intelligence and criminal investigations, the Justice Department in February was able to bring terrorism-related charges against a Florida professor, for example, and it has used its expanded surveillance powers to move against several suspected terrorist cells.

But a new Justice Department report, given to members of Congress this month, also cites more than a dozen cases that are not directly related to terrorism in which federal authorities have used their expanded power to investigate individuals, initiate wiretaps and other surveillance, or seize millions in tainted assets.

For instance, the ability to secure nationwide warrants to obtain e-mail and electronic evidence "has proved invaluable in several sensitive nonterrorism investigations," including the tracking of an unidentified fugitive and an investigation into a computer hacker who stole a company's trade secrets, the report said.

Justice Department officials said the cases cited in the report represent only a small sampling of the many hundreds of nonterrorism cases pursued under the law.

The authorities have also used toughened penalties under the law to press charges against a lovesick 20-year-old woman from Orange County, Calif., who planted threatening notes aboard a Hawaii-bound cruise ship she was traveling on with her family in May. The woman, who said she made the threats to try to return home to her boyfriend, was sentenced this week to two years in federal prison because of a provision in the Patriot Act on the threat of terrorism against mass transportation systems.

And officials said they had used their expanded authority to track private Internet communications in order to investigate a major drug distributor, a four-time killer, an identity thief and a fugitive who fled on the eve of trial by using a fake passport.

In one case, an e-mail provider disclosed information that allowed federal authorities to apprehend two suspects who had threatened to kill executives at a foreign corporation unless they were paid a hefty ransom, officials said. Previously, they said, gray areas in the law made it difficult to get such global Internet and computer data.

The law passed by Congress just five weeks after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has proved a particularly powerful tool in pursuing financial crimes.

Officials with the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement have seen a sharp spike in investigations as a result of their expanded powers, officials said in interviews.

A senior official said investigators in the last two years had seized about $35 million at American borders in undeclared cash, checks and currency being smuggled out of the country. That was a significant increase over the past few years, the official said. While the authorities say they suspect that large amounts of the smuggled cash may have been intended to finance Middle Eastern terrorists, much of it involved drug smuggling, corporate fraud and other crimes not directly related to terrorism.

The terrorism law allows the authorities to investigate cash smuggling cases more aggressively and to seek stiffer penalties by elevating them from what had been mere reporting failures.

Customs officials say they have used their expanded authority to open at least nine investigations into Latin American officials suspected of laundering money in the United States, and to seize millions of dollars from overseas bank accounts in many cases unrelated to terrorism.

In one instance, agents citing the new law seized $1.7 million from United States bank accounts that were linked to a former Illinois investor who fled to Belize after he was accused of bilking clients out of millions, federal officials said.

Publicly, Attorney General John Ashcroft and senior Justice Department officials have portrayed their expanded power almost exclusively as a means of fighting terrorists, with little or no mention of other criminal uses.

"We have used these tools to prevent terrorists from unleashing more death and destruction on our soil," Mr. Ashcroft said last month in a speech in Washington, one of more than two dozen he has given in defense of the law, which has come under growing attack. "We have used these tools to save innocent American lives."

Internally, however, Justice Department officials have emphasized a much broader mandate.

A guide to a Justice Department employee seminar last year on financial crimes, for instance, said: "We all know that the USA Patriot Act provided weapons for the war on terrorism. But do you know how it affects the war on crime as well?"

Elliot Mincberg, legal director for People for the American Way, a liberal group that has been critical of Mr. Ashcroft, said the Justice Department's public assertions had struck him as misleading and perhaps dishonest.

"What the Justice Department has really done," he said, "is to get things put into the law that have been on prosecutors' wish lists for years. They've used terrorism as a guise to expand law enforcement powers in areas that are totally unrelated to terrorism."

A study in January by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, concluded that while the number of terrorism investigations at the Justice Department soared after the Sept. 11 attacks, 75 percent of the convictions that the department classified as "international terrorism" were wrongly labeled. Many dealt with more common crimes like document forgery.

The terrorism law has already drawn sharp opposition from those who believe it gives the government too much power to intrude on people's privacy in pursuit of terrorists.

Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said, "Once the American public understands that many of the powers granted to the federal government apply to much more than just terrorism, I think the opposition will gain momentum."

Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said members of Congress expected some of the new powers granted to law enforcement to be used for nonterrorism investigations.

But he said the Justice Department's secrecy and lack of cooperation in implementing the legislation have made him question whether "the government is taking shortcuts around the criminal laws" by invoking intelligence powers — with differing standards of evidence — to conduct surveillance operations and demand access to records.

"We did not intend for the government to shed the traditional tools of criminal investigation, such as grand jury subpoenas governed by well-established precedent and wiretaps strictly monitored" by federal judges, he said.

Justice Department officials say such criticism has not deterred them. "There are many provisions in the Patriot Act that can be used in the general criminal law," Mark Corallo, a department spokesman, said. "And I think any reasonable person would agree that we have an obligation to do everything we can to protect the lives and liberties of Americans from attack, whether it's from terrorists or garden-variety criminals."

Complete Title: U.S. Uses Terror Law To Pursue Crimes From Drugs To Swindling

U.S. Uses Terror Law To Pursue Crimes
Source: New York Times (NY)
Author: Eric Lichtblau
Published: September 28, 2003
Contact: letters@nytimes.com * Website

DdC

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Jurors should acquit, even against the judge's instruction... if exercising their judgement with discretion and honesty they have a clear conviction the charge of the court is wrong.
-- Alexander Hamilton, 1804

House Lawmakers Seek To Curtail Terrorism Laws
Ashcroft Limits Prosecutor Discretion
Target: 'Narco-Terror' - ABCNews.com

When it shall be said in any country in the world, my POOR are happy,
neither distress nor ignorance is to be found among them;
my JAILS are empty of prisoners, my streets of BEGGARS;
the AGED are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive . . .
when these things can be said,
then may that country boast its constitution and its government."

I PUT the following work under your protection.
It contains my opinions upon Religion. You will do me the justice to remember,
that I have always strenuously supported the Right of every Man to his own opinion,
however different that opinion might be to mine.
He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion,
because he precludes himself the right of changing it.
-- Thomas Paine



As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances,
there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged,
and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air,
however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
-- Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

Ashcroft Nation

The only freedom which counts is the freedom to do what some other people think to be wrong. There is no point in demanding freedom to do that which all will applaud. All the so-called liberties or rights are things which have to be asserted against others who claim that if such things are to be allowed their own rights are infringed or their own liberties threatened. This is always true, even when we speak of the freedom to worship, of the right of free speech or association, or of public assembly. If we are to allow freedoms at all there will constantly be complaints that either the liberty itself or the way in which it is exercised is being abused, and, if it is a genuine freedom, these complaints will often be justified. There is no way of having a free society in which there is not abuse. Abuse is the very hallmark of liberty.
-- Former Lord Chief Justice Halisham



The Tribunal of US Drug War Crimes
US Drug War Crimes Cartoon
Nazism or WoD

There are always a few, better endowed than others, who feel the weight of the yoke and cannot restrain themselves from attempting to shake it off.... These are in fact the men who, possessed of clear minds and far-sighted spirit, are not satisfied, like the brutish mass, to see only what is at their feet, but rather look about them, behind and before, and even recall the things of the past in order to judge those of the future, and compare both with their present condition. These are the ones who, having good minds of their own, have further trained them by study and learning. Even if liberty had entirely perished from the earth, such men would reinvent it. For them slavery has no satisfactions, no matter how well disguised.
--Etienne de la Boetie, The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude

Village Idiots & Rebel Cures

By far the most numerous and most flagrant violations of personal liberty and individual rights are performed by governments ... The major crimes throughout history, the ones executed on the largest scale, have been committed not by individuals or bands of individuals but by governments, as a deliberate policy of those governments ...that is, by the official representatives of governments, acting in their official capacity. --John Hospers

Our Duty Jdg Harlan
Atlas Shrugged

It is not only the juror's right, but his duty to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgement and conscience, though in direct opposition to the instruction of the court. --John Adams, 1771

Free Speech: Void Where Prohibited
Planned Pownal Pot Event Canceled

wondering

__________________

Puffman

Man, I'm sorry, but I REALLY hate all of your posts.

You never give your opinion, you just copy out a ridiculously long article from cannabisnews.com. We are all capable of going to that site and reading the articles. The point of a forum is to give and read opinions. You never do that, I have never read a post where you actually wrote anything yourself. I don't know if you make all those pictures, they aren't bad.

And another thing, you seem to be OBSESSED with reading news on mary jane. I think you should go outside and actually DO something about it, instead of just spreading around anti-illegalization propagana.

I'm sorry, but I think this needed to be said.

Real Corona

OWNED

DdC

Man, I'm sorry, but I REALLY hate all of your posts.

***Your hate is what keeps me going. I've never been bothered by yours. You don't seem to have the balls to post one. Not that that would stop me from passing them by. Seems I don't like the author anyway, why would I waste my time. Only a moron bitches about what they can pass by.

You never give your opinion,

***The post is my opinion asshole. You would know that if you bothered to read them.

you just copy out a ridiculously long article from cannabisnews.com.

***And other places, then provide links to verify or reject the author. Besides I do it for my own benefit not yours. Fuck off.

We are all capable of going to that site and reading the articles.

***You obviously have me confused with someone who gives a shit what you do. Fuck off again.

The point of a forum is to give and read opinions.

***Your opinion of what a forum is or isn't doesn't interest me, don't you get it? Fuck off.

You never do that,

***Then why do you insist on returning? Mor fucking on!

I have never read a post where you actually wrote anything yourself.

****Your good at making an ass of yourself. I rant all the time. Again fuck off and find something you agree with and don't sprain your brain. Go back to your bong and try not to tip it so far next time since snorting the bong water isn't doing you a bit of good. The schwagg you smoke isn't either. So once again fuck off.

I don't know if you make all those pictures, they aren't bad.

***Oh well, now I can sleep good tonight knowing that boring tidbit...

And another thing, you seem to be OBSESSED with reading news on mary jane.

***As if any of this was your business? Fuck off with your obsession of co dependenting me. I wonder why anyone would post cannabis info at Yahooka? That is a tricky one. Mooooooron!

I think you should go outside

***You and thinking don't seem to be very well aquainted. I suggest you try something else, like blubbering or you garble nonsense for your own lack of brain cells to figure it out. What you don't understand you destroy puff. Go tell jane, dick and spot or someone else whos interested. If you can't add to the post then pass it by. Readers only see your disruptions as narkshit or redneck blather, as I see it. Those afraid of the darkness cursing the light. What a pussy you are. Its only words man, lighten up.

and actually DO something about it,

***Well I do each day puffy. You would know that if you actually read the post and weren't whining about them cutting into copshop budgets if others catch on to this bogus war. Fuck off. Saying that to you is getting way too pleasurable.

instead of just spreading around anti-illegalization propagana.

***Like you asshole? No thanks. Whining about me when others give thanks for the info is only showing your cards narkshit. Go befriend someone and snitch on them bitch. You lowlifes will be held accountable and that day won't come too soon for me. Hopefully the info we share hear will get into the hands of writers and legislators who can do something. You do absolutely nothing asshole. Fuck off, Eat shit and die! I mean that in a nice way.

I'm sorry,

***As sorry as the other boring braindeads around here. The audacity of some pissant telling others how to express themselves. Commie sluts! What fascist censorship loving liberty phobe kkklan you come from boy?

but I think this needed to be said.

***I'm sure you think you think but alas its only mouth farts coming out.

Peace, Love and Liberty or Asshole sheople and DEAth
DdC



The Tribunal of US Drug War Crimes

__________________

Real Corona

Instead of reading all that crap I will perform a brief summary for those of my fellow ADD heads.


Ddc to puffman : FUCK OFF

DdC

Thats Fuck Off! x 5 I believe, although you'll miss all the wonderfully unique wittisisms inbetween the fuck offs if you do. Open the asylum doors and let the wingnuts out! I'm ready for em! I'll give em lessons in how not to click on a post that might scare them into such public displays of bawling like a baby and hissing like a cat. Very comical. And if there are any dictators out there forcing these twits into clicking on a post without their consent, just stop it before the moderators get wind! btw there are no dictators out there, I checked.
Peace, Love and Liberty or Not with DEAth
DdC

K2nme

anyways_This big wOt has encompassed the old WOD_almost like it was planned that way...hmmm?
Ddc is the most diligent, informed, norml, warrior on the WAR on prohibition, on this board it seems.
Besides_Ddc's gotten stoned with the Gods...Jack H and Ed R._who gave Holland their jewels of knowledge, to begin with, so I am eternally grateful to both.
(I read the posts and follow most of the links_great stuff!)

__________________
Klootzakken!

patriot

Most of DdC's posts. I try to read them when I have time. He really digs stuff up.

I don't enjoy people bad mouthing each other on here, including DdC. We are all on the same side here. We should support each other. We can either hang together, or hang seperately.

Heil Dubya!!!!

__________________
A true patriot is always ready to stand up against his own government.

We can't be using plants that come from the Lord for beneficial purposes. Now hurry up, or we'll be late for church.

The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.-Adolf Hitler

Legalizing marijuana won't grow our economy-Barack Hussein Obama 2009

Puffman

I wasn't badmouthing him, I was simply stating that I didn't like his style of posts.

He seemed to take great offense to that. He says that why bitch about something when I could simply pass it by, when clearly he doesn't follow that principle.

He obviously spent a solid chunk of time setting up his whole rebuttal, just to prove something (I'm not really sure what).

Look, all I'm saying is that your posts are boring and way to big. I have passed them by the entire time I have been posting on these forums (since about the beginning of summer) and they always annoyed me. Everyone of your posts just includes a series of links and pictures.

Didn't mean to offend you there, just commenting on your post.

And seriously, get out of your basement.

Hedons

U.S. Uses Terror Law To Pursue Crimes

And does this suprise you?

Isn't this the type of behavior we should expect from our esteemed government representatives?

Using a loophole in a law to bypass personal rights and liberties is nothing new.

The Clinton administration did the same thing, however not on a (immediately obvious) far reaching scale as the Bush administration's recent bastardization of law. Remember Waco?

A "suspected crystal meth lab" was an excuse used to exploit a loophole in the Posse Comitatus Act. There was no evidence, then or now, for the BATF’s assertion that the Branch Davidians were manufacturing methamphetimine. However the government only needed a reason (excuse) to use the US military against US civilians.

Ben Franklin wrote, "Those that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Unfortunately most Americans ARE willing to give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary or safety. They keep electing the same people to office on both sides of the isle, and often it is because they DON'T want "the other guy" to win. It is both pathetic, sickening, and frightening, what we have for a government.

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!


-Hedons


""Those who cannot remember the past are
condemned to repeat it.""
-George Santayana

DdC

It is difficult to get a man to understand something
when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
-- Upton Sinclair, "The Jungle"

"They say you can't legislate morality.
Well, you certainly can."
John Ashcroft Chicago Tribune May 25, 1998



"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
- Hermann Goering, April 18, 1946, while awaiting the Nuremberg trials.

"Terrorist operatives infiltrate our communities, plotting, planning and waiting to kill again....To those who scare peace loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics only aid terrorists."
United States Attorney General John Ashcroft

The Ganjawar is a Product Sold by D.E.A.th to Profit Fascist

kamikazi89

nice point...

.and kamikazi to Carona....fuck off... a single DdC post contain more info then all of yours mine and puffmans combined

CowMan

I actually feel sick after reading this thread. I don't understand how they could vote him in again. I don't understand the fear that has grasped everyone and is holding tight. I'm fearful of our actions more then those of others against me. And I don't know what we can do.

This is all going to boil over soon and we'll see a major change in the world once again. Perhaps the fear is warrented. Perhaps this is the end.

God Bless.

PsyOpKing

Kosh there are currently 7 million in Us Prisons. That was at 1.2 milion before Bush became dictator in 2000. Thas coming from a Lou Dobbs special on exporting america a few months back. The us is currently #1 on the percentage of its population in prison. Higher then russias. Even if that number were to drop down to 2mil. the us would still be # 1.


US A' Ok ...you numba one

Ego Tripping

This is truly an exciting time to be alive. It's going to suck ass, but we are going to witness another great change as there have been numerous times before. But there's changes within the cycles, and it's not hard to see that we've reached the end of this one.

__________________

K10

I saw this shit coming right after the legislative push after 9/11.

"What works in war, works in peace."

I reccomend you all read The Road to Serfdom by: F.A. Hayek

For those who don't wish to read all that, I would reccomend The Road to Serfdom in Cartoons: Click Here

__________________
Just because you tie dye your wool, doesn't mean
you're not a sheep.
R.I.P. Alice D.

snapshot

For real. I think it's going to be a real test of human potential to see how far we have evolved since the last time the leaders screwed over the people who voted for them

__________________
We are all atheists about most of the gods that society has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
-Richard Dawkins

Flowerchild

As usual a good read Ddc! Keep em coming

Ego Tripping

Awesome link.

And the scary thing is, Bush is "respected" by his supporters exactly for this reason:




Bush is often citing as being a great leader because "he sticks to his guns," even if they are pointed in the wrong direction! He's basically doing exactly what is depicted in the pictures: doing what he wants.

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