OVERZEALOUS DRUG-LORD BILL ABUSES CIVIL RIGHTS

Foreign drug kingpins and their assets in the United States are the
targets of a bill that is speeding through Congress, but it is the
right to due process that will take the first hit if it becomes law.

Under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, officials could
freeze the assets of anyone the president identified as a drug
kingpin. The bill sets no criteria for the kingpin designation; it
requires no notice, hearing or proof and it actually prohibits review
by a judge. Once someone was on the list, only the president could
rescind the designation.

Any American citizen or company that did business with someone
identified as a drug kingpin could be hit with a penalty of 10 years
in prison and a $10-million fine. Neither citizen nor firm would be
allowed any opportunity to challenge the drug-dealer
designation.

Those are intolerable abuses of the Constitution's guarantee of due
process and ample reason for President Bill Clinton to veto the bill.

Intensifying financial pressure on multinational crime organizations
is not a bad strategy. But in its zeal to wage war on drugs, Congress
would give unchecked power to identify kingpins to fallible
bureaucrats; remember, U.S. officials mistakenly targeted for bombing
the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and an innocuous pharmaceutical plant
in Sudan. Even the antiterrorism act of 1996 allows a group identified
as a terrorist organization to challenge that designation in court.

It wasn't until the kingpin bill was taken up in conference committee
that lawmakers responded to criticism of its Kafkaesque nature. Their
inadequate response-adding a provision to create a judicial-review
commission that would have one year after the bill became law to
recommend changes to ensure its constitutionality-relegates civil
liberties to the status of afterthought.

That won't do.

There is no good reason for Congress to rush to pass into law a bill
that will never withstand constitutional scrutiny.