DRUG WAR REDUX

The Attorney General's Misguided Model For The War Against Terrorism

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and an army of Justice Department officials
have descended on Congress this week, lobbying hard for a utility
belt of new police powers that they say would allow them to fight the
critical war on terrorism. Disturbingly, Ashcroft's rhetoric reveals
an ignorance of the immediate past instead of a vision for the future.

In an attempt to show just how benign the War on Terror will be for
law-abiding citizens, Ashcroft has chosen an odd model: the War on
Drugs. At a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday,
Ashcroft repeatedly said that the tools in the fight against
terrorism should be at least as strong as the ones used to fight
gambling, organized crime, and illegal ("illicit" in government
parlance) substances. Law enforcement officials, he said, should be
able not only to freeze terrorists' assets, but seize them--"Just
like we have for those individuals involved in drug trafficking."

There isn't a single person in Washington, D.C. who would object to
seizing Osama bin Laden's fortune. On the other hand, Ashcroft seemed
unaware that more than a few people have objected to civil asset
forfeiture and the escalating power it has given police agencies. In
fact, widespread concerns over racial profiling, bans on computer
encryption, and the increasing U.S. military presence in South
America -- all concerns that have striking parallels in the new fight
against terrorism -- have forced many people to rethink their
position on the drug war.

This is not a knee-jerk libertarian response. The In Defense of
Freedom Coalition, an ad hoc group of more than 150 organizations
concerned about Ashcroft's new grab for power, is a prime example.
Cobbled together in the week following the terrible attacks on
September 11, groups signing on include everyone from the liberal
ACLU to Phyllis Schlafly's arch-conservative Eagle Forum. If the
startling display of left-right unity surprises Ashcroft, he wasn't
paying very close attention in the days before the attack.

Indeed, a strikingly similar coalition gathered on September 10 to
present a united front against invasive policing in the War on Drugs
- -- the very war Ashcroft now raises as a model in the fight against
bin Laden and associates. With 63 participants it was smaller, but
just as diverse: The Eagle Forum and ACLU also took part in that
effort, which called itself the Coalition for Constitutional
Liberties. A driving force behind both coalitions was the
super-conservative Free Congress Foundation.

If Ashcroft hadn't personally heard of the Coalition for
Constitutional Liberties, the Senate Judiciary Committee certainly
had. On September 10, the group delivered a letter to the committee
- -- the same leaders Ashcroft addressed this Tuesday -- begging
members to consider privacy issues before approving John Walters to
head the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The hearing was
scheduled to take place at 10 a.m. on Sept. 11. I was standing in
line to attend it when the Senate Hart Office Building was evacuated.

Ashcroft's comparison aside, there are important differences between
the War on Terrorism and the War on Drugs. Terrorists can deliver a
violent payload in ways that drug-addled teens never could. Many
people oppose invasive policing in the War on Drugs because they
think the war itself is fundamentally wrong; no one, not even
left-leaning commentators who think U.S. actions abroad brought on
the attack, thinks terrorism can continue unopposed.

Perhaps what is similar between the two wars is the reaction by civil
libertarians. People across the political spectrum fear that
increased police powers will lead us down the path of oppression. As
this battle unfolds, Ashcroft should keep in mind that people are
listening very closely to his words, and that the words he chooses
are critical.

By raising the specter of the War on Drugs--a costly, failed national
effort that has landed legions of American minorities behind bars and
forced millions more to sacrifice civil liberties bit by bit -- he is
doing little to inspire confidence in a national police force
bolstered with wide-ranging new powers. It certainly doesn't help
when the U.S. attorney general admits, as he did this Tuesday, that
even if the tools he is asking for were in place prior to Sept. 11,
security officials might not have been able to stop the deadly
attacks.

People deserve a national effort that will fight terror effectively,
not the same tired drug-war rhetoric they have seen fail for years.