AG touts Patriot Act; opponents unconvinced

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General John D. Ashcroft yesterday outlined dozens of cases he said provide a "mountain of evidence" that the USA Patriot Act has prevented terrorist attacks in the United States, part of a Bush administration effort to stave off moves to repeal some of the controversial law enforcement powers granted by Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Accompanied by Representative James F. Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Ashcroft released a Department of Justice report the two men said shows how the Patriot Act's provisions -- including a greater ability for federal agencies to share intelligence and strengthened criminal laws against terrorism -- have led to charges against 310 individuals and 179 convictions since Sept. 11.

But some Democrats in Congress -- including those who helped write the legislation -- said there remains too little oversight to prevent abuses of civil liberties. Others expressed concern that many of the crimes that have been uncovered via the new powers were not associated with terrorism; instead, law enforcement has frequently used the act to bring charges such as child pornography and kidnapping.

"The attorney general's report is no substitute for thoroughgoing Congressional oversight," Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. "The real issue now is how the Patriot Act should be improved to satisfy civil liberty concerns while keeping our country safe."

The Patriot Act was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support following the 2001 attacks, but opposition to some of its provisions has grown since its passage. Republicans in Congress last week narrowly defeated a second attempt in the House of Representatives to overturn the provision that allows the federal government to review library records, a power that has alarmed privacy advocates.

The release of the report yesterday was seen as part of expanding GOP efforts to defend the Patriot Act in an election year in which the overall handling of the war on terrorism is a major point of contention between President Bush and the presumptive Democratic nominee, Senator John F. Kerry.

In a Capitol Hill news conference, Ashcroft said the 29-page report shows how effective the Patriot Act has been: helping uncover terrorist cells in upstate New York and Oregon; leading to the indictments of individuals involved with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group; uncovering a case in Florida involving money laundering for a leftist terror group in Colombia; and a money-laundering case in New Jersey involving attempts to sell shoulder-fired missiles.

"The Patriot Act has been our laser-guided weapon to prevent terrorist attacks," Ashcroft said. "This report is an unprecedented compilation of dozens of real life cases from across the country in which the FBI and other law enforcement officials have the tools of the Patriot Act to protect America's families and communities, and even to save lives."

Ashcroft, the nation's highest-ranking law enforcement official, was asked how many of the cases brought against the 310 individuals were dropped or resulted in acquittal. He said he did not have that information, and Justice Department officials did not respond to additional queries.

Democrats were quick to say that many of their outstanding concerns about the act remained unanswered by the report. The report, for example, did not address some of the more controversial aspects of the law, such as the FBI's ability to obtain library records or "sneak and peek" search warrants, in which agents are not required to immediately inform suspects that their home or business has been searched.

Representative John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, accused the Justice Department of selectively releasing information that portrays the act in a positive light. "Coupled with the department's consistent record of exaggerating their record about terrorism, this entire report is suspect," he said in a statement.

Yet Ashcroft insisted that while not all cases involving Patriot Act powers were included in the report -- some, he said, are still being investigated, while others must be kept secret for national security reasons -- he has seen no evidence of abuses of privacy or other unintended consequences.

"[T]here is yet to be a case of any abuse of the Patriot Act that's been brought to my attention or the attention of law enforcement authorities," Ashcroft said.

The report outlines how the act has given the FBI and other law enforcement agencies new tools to uncover terrorist activity, including the ability of CIA agents to share information with the FBI; the strengthening of criminal laws covering terror financing; the removal of investigative obstacles, such as providing more timely approval of wiretaps under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act; and the updating of the law to reflect new technologies by allowing authorities to use grand jury subpoenas to obtain information from websites and e-mails without having to first apply to the courts.

Among the cases that have been brought as a result, the report says:

Rajib Mitra was sentenced in May to eight years in prison for using a computer to jam the Madison, Wis., Police Department's radios 22 times in 2003. The Patriot Act made it a crime to create such public safety problems, even if there is no monetary damage.

An individual who in 2002 sent more than 200 threatening letters laced with white powder to government agencies, businesses, and individuals in Louisiana was identified and later convicted because law enforcement agents, using the Patriot Act, could quickly get Internet and telephone information from a cable company.

Using communications information provided on an emergency basis by an Internet provider under the Patriot Act, authorities were able to find an 88-year-old Wisconsin woman who had been kidnapped and held for ransom in an unheated shed in February 2003. A suspect was later convicted in state court.

Ashcroft defended the use of the Patriot Act powers to investigate and prosecute crimes not related to terrorism, pointing out that many of the provisions strengthening the ability to go after other serious crimes were not in the original White House proposal, but added by Congress.

Democrats said the report is only a start. "Many crucial questions are ignored in this report," Leahy said. "Why have we not seen a single successful prosecution concerning 9/11?"

Sensenbrenner said yesterday that next year "we will be looking at every provision of the Patriot Act and see whether it should be extended, whether it should be modified, or whether it should be allowed to sunset."

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.