Patriot Act used broadly, U.S. says.
Powers applied to cases with no terror links.
By Eric Lichtblau, New york Times.
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 law to investigate alleged drug-traffikers, white-collar criminals, black-mailers 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 anti-terrorism tactics assert that such use of the law is evidence that the administration has sold the American public a false bill of goods, using terrorism as a guise to pursue a broader law enforcement agenda.
Justice Department Officials point out that they have employed their newfound powers in many instances against terrorism suspects. With the new law breaking down the wall between intelligence and criminal investigations, the Justice Department in February was able to bring terrorism-related charges against a Florida professor, for example, and it has used its expanded surveilance powers to move against several alleged terrorist cells.
But a new Justice Department report, given to members of Congress this month, also cites more than a dozen cases that are not directly related to terrorism. In them, federal authorities have used their expnded power to investigate individuals, initiate wiretapes and other surveilance, 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 non-terrorism investigations", including the traking of an unidentified fugitive and an investigation into a computer hacker who stole a company's trade secrets, the report said.
The authorities have also used toughened penalties under the law to press charges against a lovesick 20-year-old woman from Orange County who planted threatening notes abroad a Hawaii-bound cruise ship she was traveling on with her family in May.
The woman, who said she made the threats to try to return home to her boyfriend, was sentenced last week to two years in federal prison because of a provision in the Patriotic Act about the threat of terrorism against mass-transportation systems.
The law, passed by Congress just five weeks after the terror attacks of Sept.11,2001, has already drawn sharp opposition from those who believe it gives the government too much power to intrude on people's privacy in pursuit of terrorists.
Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said, "once the American public understands that many of the powers granted to the federal government apply to much more than just terrorism, I think the opposition will gain momentum."
Justice Department officials said such criticism has not deterred them. "There are many provisions in the Patriotic Act that can be used in the general criminal law", Mark Corallo, a department official, said.
"And 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, wether it's from terrorists or garden-variety criminals."