THE HILL: PAT LEAHY RECALLS A STING

Ever since September 11th, Demodcats and Republicans on Capitol Hill have
been working together in an unusual spirit of unity. But there has been
one stubborn exception. Patrick Leahy, a liberal but not generally
militant Democratic Senator from Vermont, almost single-handedly held up
Attorney General John Ashcroft's urgent request for a new antiterrorism bill.

Last week, before a tentative agreement was announced, the wrangling became
noticeably bitter. Ashcroft, a former colleague of Leahy's in the Senate,
who was confirmed as Attorney General only over Leahy's strenuous
opposition, accused Leahy, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, of
dawdling. "Talk won't prevent terrorism", Ashcroft said pointedly, after
Leahy refused to approve the Administration's proposed expansion of police
powers, without further review and amendment. One of Leahy's Republican
colleagues suggested that his foot-dragging might prove dangerous to the
public welfare at a time when there is a real threat of terrorist
attacks. Originally, Ashcroft had wanted his package of law-enforcement
tools to be approved within a week. But, three weeks after the attack, the
two sides remained deadlocked.

In an interview last week, Leahy explained that his concerns about the
antiterrorism bill arose, in part, out of his own experience with the
consequences of unchecked police power. Most people think of Vermont,
where Leahy's professional life began, as a place where civil liberties are
revered sometimes to the point of absurdity. But in the early
nineteen-seventies, when Leahy was the state's attorney in Chittenden
County, he discovered how those liberties were being abused in his
jurisdiction. A former state trooper named Paul Lawrence, who was working
as an undercover narcotics agent, was gaining prominence and popularity
with prosecutors all over the state because of his high arrest rate. With
Lawrence's detective work, prosecutors were cracking drug rings and sending
dealers off to jail with admirable efficiency. In St. Albans, a depressed
town near the Canadian border, officials were delighted because the local
jail was filled with young drug offenders, while the streets and parks were
finally clear of rowdy teen-agers. But Leahy, whose district included the
state's largest city, Burlington, began to hear disturbing talk about
Lawrence's methods. So he set up a sting. He brought in an undercover cop
from Brooklyn, who was dubbed the Rabbi, and made sure that the Rabbi was
described to Lawrence as a major drug dealer who was new in
Burlington. One day, Leahy and his colleagues watched from across the
street and listened in on a wire as the Rabbi sat down on a park bench and
began reading a newspaper. The observed Lawrence as he walked past the
Rabbi, without speaking to him. Soon afterward, Lawrence returned to the
state office building with a bag of heroin, which he said he had bought
from the Rabbi. He then went back a second time and repeated the exercise,
returning with more narcotics. Lawrence said that he was ready to make an
arrest.

Instead, Leahy and his men arrested Lawrence, who was subsequently
convicted of perjury and jailed. Vermont's governor was forced to pardon
seventy-one people who had been put in prison as a result of Lawrence's
police work. "The tragedy was that many of these really were drug dealers,
but we had to let them out because of Lawrence's role", Leahy recalled last
week. "But the most awful thing was that there was one person who couldn't
be pardoned. He had committed suicide."

Having come under considerable fire for slowing Ashcroft's antiterrorism
legislation, Leahy was eager to explain his position. "I have great respect
for law enforcement", he said. "But we also need checks and balances. As
they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely."

By the middle of last week, Leahy was able to reach an accommodation with
the Justice Department and the White House on new laws that will expand the
powers of various law enforcement agencies to share privileged information
without getting a court order, to do roving wiretaps, to eavesdrop on
computer communications to a greater extent than is currently possible, and
to detain, for a limited number of days, immigrants who are suspected of
but not charged with terrorist activities. "I think we're pushing the
constitutional envelope", Leahy said, "but it's better than it was."