- WASHINGTON - Attorney General
John Ashcroft is pushing for enhanced law enforcement powers to conduct
the nation's ongoing war on terrorism, but the White House is taking a
cautious route in the face of some public and congressional reservations.
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- Ashcroft, the moving force behind the USA-PATRIOT Act,
said the law he credited with helping to "save innocent lives"
nonetheless contains "several weaknesses which terrorists could exploit,
undermining our defenses."
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- With that in mind, the Justice Department continues to
work on what is popularly referred to as PATRIOT II, which would further
broaden law enforcement's mandate. Ashcroft already is publicly lobbying
for three changes - making it unlawful to fight for a designated terrorist
organization, imposing the death penalty for various terrorist actions
and extending pre-trial detention for those arrested for terrorism-related
offenses.
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- Several members of Congress, including Republicans like
Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Judiciary
Committee, have expressed concerns about providing law enforcement with
much more authority, raising questions about civil liberties.
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- "I believe the (Justice) Department and Congress
must be vigilant toward short-term gains which ultimately may cause long-term
harm to the spirit of liberty and equality which animate the American character,"
Sensenbrenner said.
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- Now the White House is sending signals that it prefers
a slow approach to dealing with any changes and is promising to work with
lawmakers in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the anti-terrorism
laws.
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- Ari Fleischer, the president's press secretary, said
the administration is constantly reassessing the status of anti-terrorism
laws, "because it's an ongoing issue against opponents who quickly
realize what strengths we have and then design ways to get around our strengths
to exploit potential weaknesses."
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- It's likely, he said, that the period of constant review
will continue for an extended period.
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- "And this will also be, of course, done with an
eye toward maintaining civil liberties and constitutional protections,"
Fleischer said. "And this is where it's very important to continue
to discuss these matters with members of Congress in both parties who have
important thoughts about this."
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- Asked specifically if President Bush supports Ashcroft's
push for broader powers, Fleischer said, "the president wants to work
closely with members of Congress on anything that will help strengthen
our ability to fight terrorism, and it depends on the specifics and we'll
work with Congress on those."
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- Recent reports have raised questions about the USA-PATRIOT
Act as it pertains, for instance, to holding individuals in police custody
without a warrant while authorities investigate their immigration status.
A recent inspector general's report criticized the Justice Department for
the treatment accorded some illegal aliens who were rounded up and detained
even though it turned out they had no connections with terrorism.
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- Ashcroft is unapologetic, insisting that the USA-PATRIOT
Act has resulted in "steady progress in America's war on terrorism."
The Justice Department, he said, has reached plea agreements with 15 individuals
charged under the law who are providing "critical intelligence about
al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, about their safe houses, their training
camps, their recruitment, their tactics in the United States and the operations
of terrorists who mean to do citizens harm, both here and abroad."
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- http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=BUSH-ASHCROFT-06-12-03&cat=WW
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-
-
- Comment
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- From Alfred Lehmberg
Lehmberg@snowhill.com
6-13-3
-
- I feel like I'm putting myself at peril, a little bit,
here (and resent being compelled to feel that way by present national circumstances),
but why do we treat Senator Ashcroft (a failed politician who couldn't
even beat a DEAD man in his own state election) as a person whose judgment
could be remotely considered, trusted, or acted upon regarding =anything=?
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- Verily, he's a self-anointed and puddle-deep religious
fundamentalist, a wool-dyed social neo-conservative with an up-tight authoritarian
mien, and is, in his own way, as loopy as Osama Bin Laden is supposed to
be. Moreover, can't any -other- fellow American perceive that it is not
about control of manufactured *terrorists* and inveterate *criminals* that
is the issue at hand (and who can blithely end-run most of the Senator's
disingenuous initiatives in their lawlessness); it is the -control- of
rank and file citizens that Ashcroft covets, their -domination- that he
desires, and their -subjugation- to his two-color and people-hating (and
hate mongering!) religious -will- that he would have.
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- ...Impeach NOW! He's the -real- terrorist!
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-
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- Comment
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- From Alfred Lehmberg
6-15-3
-
- [...] A telling addendum to my comments above (which
I perceive to be at -least- as "fair", "balanced",
and "accurate" as anything I see on "Fox-snooze" and
"BSN") regretfully follows. My wife, a German National I met,
fell in love with, and married while stationed overseas in Germany in 1972,
is extremely upset that my comments were published on the Rense site at
all... why is she fearful?
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- She's not concerned that I might be further associated
with "ufological loopy-ness", "abduction nonsense",
or "Crap Circles"! She's concerned, fearfully (and chillingly!),
regarding the horror (and aftermaths of horror!) she and her parents experienced
in the 30's and 40's in her own nation (Hitler's Germany) where she spent
the first 25 years of her life. She fears the Fascist Gestapo!
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- She's concerned, genuinely, that the smirking men in
black leather dusters are going to show up at the house and take me away!
She's concerned that our military retirement check is going to be stopped,
and our taxes called into specious question! She's concerned that we are
going to be placed under surveillance and our neighbors are going to be
questioned (smearing our reputation and standing in the community). She's
concerned that her boss (who has a contract with the U.S. government) is
going to fire her from her part time job (which is the only thing keeping
our heads above water). She's concerned that we are going to get death
threats!
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- In a recent conversation with her father, a veteran of
the second great war who served on the transcendingly -ghastly- Russian
Front, she remarked to him that she was more than a little intimidated
by this new "American" nationalism that unites disparate social
factions into a United States... somehow fundamentally different since
9/11. His reply was that, "we [Germany] had that once... but it went
-bad-, it likely -always- goes bad. It will go bad for the US, too, and
for the same reasons."
-
- I think that he's right. I think that corporate interests
and government facility have met in an unholy alliance of faculty, purpose,
and execution (that Eisenhower warned us against), and that we are -well-
on the way to our -own- fascist state... encompassing all the abject fear,
eventual horror, and degrading misery that that evil path entails! Our
liberty is in peril, our livelihoods are compromised, and our sense of
well being is devalued! Our citizenship has -already- been asked to spy
on that same citizenship and soon we could, nationally, be naught but a
mad dog eating its own tail, just like NAZI Germany of last century!
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- As you read these words, conflicted law-makers are signing
volumes of immutable infidelity into law that they have neither read nor
understand! I remind the reader (in light of these observations on the
political health of our nation) that we are still at the point where -each-
of us only has to be only a -little- bit brave... to combat this turn to
the worst that our nation fatuously pursues! We are Americans, damn it!
Individually, we love liberty and aspire to fairness. Individually, we
appreciate that we are -nothing- if we are not champions of free speech
and proud of our right to lawful dissent. Individually, we are what America
is -supposed- to be, not what Multi-national corporations and their articulate
talking heads coerce it towards!
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- We can turn this tide if we are just a little braver
as individuals, now. A little bravery from everyone NOW will preclude
any one of us from having to be =consummately= brave later on. The time
to act is now. The time to speak out is now. The time to respect individual
sensibility and freedom of expression is now! The time to demand more
than an illusion of civil liberty is now! We can't wait another minute!
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- Truly, being just a little more brave -now- will preclude
law abiding, tax paying, and freedom loving persons (such as my innocent
but still, astonishingly, government terrorized wife!) from that which
is elected, subsidized, and legislated to protect them, and NOT make them
miserable and fearful! That's not the America that I've sworn oaths too,
and which I've put my life on the line to defend! Not by a long shot!
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- I abhor what my nation is becoming if it can make my
wife, who has ALWAYS been an American asset, fearful of =being= an American,
thinking what an American thinks, and doing what an American does (by right)
-- LIVING FREE! Free of fear, free of minimal want, and freedom from
corporate neo-conservative (and increasingly more fascist!) government
tyrannies!
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- Be brave people! Spit in fear's eye! The life that
that fear dictates is not worth living, verily! My wife, bless her heart
of hearts, deserves more than that, and so do YOU!
-
- Lehmberg@snowhill.com ~~Ö~~ EXPLORE "AlienViews"
at: http://www.alienview.net
-
- "I cleave the heavens and soar to the infinite.
What others see from afar, I leave _far_ behind me." - Giordano Bruno,
scourged by the scabrously specious scurrilous.
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