Ashcroft initially wanted Congress to pass his anti-terrorism package by week’s end, but it wasn’t only liberal Democrats who had objections. House Republican leader Dick Armey emerged from a midweek meeting with Ashcroft and other congressional leaders openly cool to the rushed timetable. When reporters asked how long it would take to reach consensus for passage, Armey said several weeks.
Ashcroft will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to lobby for his proposals. The notion that the Senate would pass his package without debate, or even holding a hearing, is not the way Congress does business. Ashcroft can be forgiven for thinking he could skip the normal legislative process given the enormity of the events he is dealing with as the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer. But the coalition of groups and lawmakers who see themselves as protectors of civil liberties also got a wake-up call on that fateful Tuesday, and that is that they must maintain their vigilance in the face of almost overwhelming pressure to do otherwise in the name of national security.
There are some things the administration and even staunch civil-libertarians in the Congress can agree upon. Topping the list is the need to update wiretap laws to accommodate cyberspace. The FBI already has the right to conduct “roving” wiretaps in criminal cases, meaning one court order allows them to tap not just one phone but a variety of telephonic and computer communications connected to an individual. Expanding that to intelligence gathering even when there is no evidence of a crime is a “no-brainer,” says an aide to Sen. Patrick Leahy, who chairs the Judiciary Committee.
The more problematic area of Ashcroft’s proposal has to do with immigrants who may be in violation of the law and what rights they have when they are taken in for questioning. Ashcroft has already under existing legal authority extended the time that the government can hold such people from 24 hours to 48 hours-and longer in an emergency. This is relevant today because the FBI has some 75 people in custody for questioning in connection with the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. How long before they break down and reveal a crucial piece of information that could save American lives in the future? Conversely, what if they’re innocent?
Ashcroft would like authority for the government to indefinitely detain and possibly deport immigrants if there’s any suspicion they are linked to terrorist activity. The broad language stirs memories of how Japanese-Americans were herded into camps during World War II, and has echoes today in the way some Americans are taking out their anger on Muslims living in their communities. One provision favored by Ashcroft would give the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) rather than a judge, as under current law, the power to declare someone a terrorist. That is one of several areas that unite right and left, and where Ashcroft will almost certainly not get what he wants.
A TERRORISM CZAR? More than 40 government agencies have some jurisdiction over terrorism, and the result is that sometimes it feels like nobody’s in charge. A former Justice Department official finds it “appalling” that the U.S. “devotes more resources to defending our interests in the Pacific than in defending New York.” That’s about to change. “Homeland defense” is the new buzzword on Capitol Hill. For starters, Senate Intelligence Chairman Bob Graham of Florida has a bill that would establish a terrorism czar appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. In theory at least this person would ease the turf problems that currently exist between the FBI, CIA and Defense Departments, and treat terrorism more holistically. “When something blows up in the U.S., the natural response is for Justice and the FBI to step in, and it’s a crime scene,” says an Intelligence Committee aide. “Well, what if it’s a war scene? Did Scotland Yard investigate every bombing in London during World War II and put tape around it and declare it a crime scene. No.”
‘DIRTY PEOPLE’ The spirit of unity on Capitol Hill has had a few cracks, among them lawmakers ridiculing the Clinton administration for a 1995 CIA guideline restricting the recruitment of informers who are known felons or who have committed human-rights violations. The 1995 rule was in response to the revelation of a Guatemalan colonel on the CIA payroll being implicated in the murder of an American, and the cover-up that ensued. But contrary to the way this “dirty assets” guidelines have been portrayed, the CIA didn’t forbid employing unsavory characters to spy in foreign countries. It did ask that field agents get an OK from the higher-ups at Langley, in part for their own bureaucratic protection should questions arise later. A CIA spokesman says no request has ever been turned down in the area of counterterrorism. “It’s an urban legend that we only deal with the Little Sisters of the Poor,” he says. “We deal with lots of dirty people.” Still, critics contend the guidelines have had a chilling effect, and they are likely to be overturned or modified.
