|
Bush Anti-Terrorist Eavesdropping
Spurs Criminal Investigations
Robert Schmidt and James Rowley
Bloomberg
Thursday January 31, 2008
The Bush administration's use of clandestine eavesdropping
to fight terrorism is fueling an increase in criminal cases that
rely on cooperation between prosecutors and intelligence agents.
Eliminating the wall that discouraged intelligence officials
from sharing evidence with prosecutors has led to a quadrupling
in the number of criminal investigations drawing on evidence gathered
by spy agencies since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Justice Department
says. The actual number is classified.
To meet the growing demand for such information, the department
created a unit to regulate its use, said Deputy Assistant Attorney
General Matt Olsen, who oversees the new section. ``We want to
make sure that everyone knows what each other's doing,'' Olsen
said in an interview. The Justice Department wants ``to make sure
that we're taking full advantage of this information, this very
valuable information.''
(Article continues below)
Defense lawyers and civil libertarians say the practice threatens
privacy rights. Intelligence search warrants are approved by a
secret court behind closed doors, and a federal judge has never
allowed a criminal defendant to see the underlying surveillance
request. That isn't the case for a standard criminal search warrant.
``The judge may be shown materials and the defense will not be
given those materials,'' said James Brosnahan, a San Francisco
lawyer who defended John Walker Lindh, the American serving a
20-year sentence for helping the Taliban in Afghanistan. ``It's
like the old Star Chamber in England.''
Congressional Debate
Congress is currently debating legislation pushed by President
George W. Bush to broaden the government's ability to spy on suspected
terrorists while giving the secret court increased power to supervise
the surveillance. Congress this week extended the current law
for 15 days, until mid-February, while lawmakers consider long-term
legislation. The sharing of information between intelligence officials
and prosecutors would be left intact by the legislation.
There has been an explosion in U.S. intelligence-gathering since
the 2001 attacks: The court that approves the searches -- created
by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA --
authorized 2,176 warrants in 2006, up from 934 in 2001, the Justice
Department said.
The limits on evidence-sharing were lifted by the USA Patriot
Act and a 2002 opinion from the FISA appeals court. Among the
cases in which intelligence evidence has been crucial is the conviction
of Jose Padilla, sentenced Jan. 22 to 17 years and four months
in prison for conspiring to support terrorist groups.
Hamstrung
While the government says the new cooperation also has aided
prosecutions of terrorist financiers, Cuban spies and weapons
dealers illegally exporting goods to China, defense lawyers say
they are hamstrung in challenging the legitimacy of a search because
applications for intelligence warrants are classified.
The government ``can claim that national security interests trump
the right of the defendant,'' said New York lawyer David C. Holland.
His client, Abdelhaleem Asqar, was convicted by a Chicago jury
of obstructing an investigation of terrorist financing. The prosecution
relied in part on evidence collected through intelligence surveillance.
Federal courts have upheld the government's use of intelligence
evidence in trials, ruling it doesn't violate a defendant's rights.
``In every case that I'm aware of, the defense arguments to exclude
FISA surveillance has been rejected,'' said Steven Aftergood,
who studies the issue as director of the project on government
secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington.
Full
article here.
|
INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
|
|
