Prosecutors' wish list

[fishbob]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/28/politics/28LEGA.html?th=&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=2&adxnnlx=1064855239-ASHQ2IsFqeF36rIuZzUUiQ subscription (free) may be required.

Patriot Act anti-terrorism provisions are of course being used for things other than terrorism investigations. You all knew this was how things were going to work out.

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 putting the legislation into effect 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.

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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."

 

[Prospero]

Well, to play the devil's advocate, is it really so terrible that now the FED can use even more dispicable means of ferretting out "bad guys" (definition open to debate)?