FEDS USE TERROR LAW IN UNRELATED CASES

Washington - The Bush administration, which calls the USA Patriot
Act perhaps its most essential tool in fighting terrorists, has begun
using the law with increasing frequency in many criminal
investigations that have little or no connection to terrorism.

The government is using its expanded authority under the far-reaching,
post-Sept. 11 law to investigate suspected drug traffickers,
white-collar criminals, blackmailers, child pornographers, money
launderers, spies and even corrupt foreign leaders, federal officials
said.

Justice Department officials say they are simply using all the tools
now available to them to pursue criminals --- terrorists or otherwise.
But critics of the administration's antiterrorism tactics assert that
such use of the law is evidence the administration has sold the
American public a false bill of goods, using terrorism as a guise to
pursue a broader law enforcement agenda.

A new Justice Department report, given to members of Congress this
month, cites more than a dozen cases that are not directly related to
terrorism. In them, federal authorities have used their expanded power
to investigate individuals, initiate wiretaps and other surveillance,
or seize millions in tainted assets.

For instance, the ability to secure nationwide warrants to obtain
e-mail and electronic evidence ''has proved invaluable in several
sensitive nonterrorism investigations,'' including the tracking of an
unidentified fugitive and an investigation into a computer hacker who
stole a company's trade secrets, the report said.

Officials said they had also used their expanded authority to track
private Internet communications in order to investigate a major drug
distributor, a four-time killer, an identity thief and a fugitive who
fled on the eve of trial by using a fake passport.

Customs officials say they have used their expanded authority to open
at least nine investigations into Latin American officials suspected
of laundering money in the United States and to seize millions of
dollars from overseas bank accounts in many cases unrelated to terrorism.

Publicly, Attorney General John Ashcroft and senior Justice Department
officials have portrayed their expanded power almost exclusively as a
means of fighting terrorists, with little or no mention of other
criminal uses. ''We have used these tools to prevent terrorists from
unleashing more death and destruction on our soil,'' Ashcroft said
last month in a speech in Washington.

Internally, however, Justice Department officials have emphasized a
much broader mandate. A guide to a Justice Department employee seminar
last year on financial crimes, for instance, said: ''We all know that
the USA Patriot Act provided weapons for the war on terrorism. But do
you know how it affects the war on crime as well?''

Elliot Mincberg, legal director for the liberal People for the
American Way, said the Justice Department's public assertions struck
him as misleading and perhaps dishonest.

''What the Justice Department has really done,'' he said, ''is to get
things put into the law that have been on prosecutors' wish lists for
years. They've used terrorism as a guise to expand law enforcement
powers in areas that are totally unrelated to terrorism.''

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the
Judiciary Committee, said members of Congress expected some of the new
powers granted to law enforcement to be used for nonterrorism
investigations.

But he said the Justice Department's secrecy and lack of cooperation
in putting the legislation into effect have made him question whether
''the government is taking shortcuts around the criminal laws'' by
invoking intelligence powers to conduct surveillance operations and
demand access to records.

Justice Department officials said such criticism has not deterred
them. Said Mark Corallo, a department spokesman: ''I think any
reasonable person would agree that we have an obligation to do
everything we can to protect the lives and liberties of Americans from
attack, whether it's from terrorists or garden-variety criminals.''