Hatch alarms political Right over ''anti-terror'' act
By Christopher Smith
The Salt Lake Tribune
WASHINGTON -- When Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch says he will do everything in his power to grant President Bush's latest request to expand federal police authority beyond the Patriot Act, it dismays one of the nation's leading conservative strategists.
"That's like somebody saying they'll raise taxes indefinitely," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and a board member of the National Rifle Association and American Conservative Union. "Why would he want to give the federal government indefinite power?"...
At a time when many GOP lawmakers from the Rocky Mountain states are saying the anti-terrorism law passed immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks went too far and needs greater checks and balances, Utah's senior senator has become Congress' leading proponent of giving federal authorities more law enforcement powers and fewer judicial authorization restrictions. Hatch's positions have rarely endeared him to liberals, but he is increasingly catching heat from disciples of the limited-government ideology that swept him into Congress in 1976.
Conservative commentators in Washington say the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee should stop handing the keys to constitutional protections to a Justice Department that wants as much power as possible to stop suspected terrorists yet won't divulge specifics on how that broad authority is being used to monitor law-abiding citizens.
"These federal prosecutors are like teenage boys on prom night who have one thing on their mind and they want more of it," said Norquist, who worked on the staff of the 1988, 1992 and 1996 Republican Party Platform committees. "It's Congress' job to sometimes tell them no. [House Judiciary Chairman Rep. James] Sensenbrenner has certainly been more aggressive in that than Hatch, unless Hatch is doing it quietly behind closed doors."
Quite the opposite, Hatch has championed the Patriot Act in several appearances, congressional speeches and national newspaper columns in the past year. He remains committed to repealing the 2005 sunset of many of the act's most controversial provisions, arguing that terrorism will not cease to be a threat when the laws expire.
"Not one of the civil liberties groups has cited one instance of abuse of our constitutional rights, one decision by any court that any part of the Patriot Act was unconstitutional or one shred of evidence to contradict the fact that these tools protect what is perhaps our most important civil liberty, the freedom from future terrorist attacks," Hatch wrote in a USA Today commentary in May.
Recently, Hatch has been developing a bill dubbed with one of his signature acronyms, the Vital Interdiction of Criminal Terrorist Organizations, or "Victory" Act. Privacy watchdogs say it's the closest thing they have seen to the never-introduced "Patriot II" Act that would have allowed secret arrests, collection of DNA samples from suspected terrorists and revocation of citizenship.
"Hatch has gone over the cliff defending [Attorney General] John Ashcroft, and now he's more than willing to be the point man on this," said Tim Edgar, legal counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington. "When you're in no political danger back home, your base of power becomes Washington and you start reacting to people in the administration much more than you would to people at home."
Although Patriot and its spawn have given rise to a handful of protest rallies in Salt Lake City and provide periodic grist for local radio talk shows, only one Utah municipality has passed a resolution denouncing the new enforcement powers, according to the ACLU's database. In February, the tiny Grand County hamlet of Castle Valley declared that the Patriot Act "may allow the federal government when pursuing matters of security to sacrifice fundamental liberties protected by due process and probable cause."
Hatch staffers discount any similarities between the Patriot and Victory acts, arguing the provisions in the draft Victory Act are narrowly focused on combating "narco-terrorism," the financing of terrorists through illegal drug dealing.
"This is an issue of interest to all members of the committee," said Hatch spokeswoman Margarita Tapia. "Of course he is going to consider all options in eliminating financing options to individuals who are committed to attacking our country."
But conservatives question why more drug laws and enforcement powers are needed.
"We're not supportive of illegal drugs, but we would say the federal government has plenty of resources already on hand for this," said Steve Lilienthal of the Free Congress Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank. "The government was seeking a lot of these powers before 9-11, but after the attacks, they seized upon terrorism as a way to get what they had always wanted."
One aspect of Hatch's embrace of broad government police powers that most worries conservatives is not how the Bush administration will use them, but how a White House occupied by a future president might.
"We are concerned not about Ashcroft, but about a possible subsequent attorney general, named by President Hillary Rodham Clinton, who might define as terrorists those of us who peacefully oppose government polices," Free Congress Foundation Chairman Paul Weyrich wrote last week after he and Lilienthal met with top officials of the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security about the act.
Those concerns are catching on with some majority Republicans in Congress. Rep. Butch Otter, R-Idaho, surprised the administration in July when his amendment to eliminate funding for the Patriot Act's so-called sneak-and-peek provision passed the House by 3-to-1, with 112 Republicans voting in favor. The provision allows federal law enforcement officers to secretly search a person's home or office without notifying him of the search until weeks afterward. Of Utah's House members, Democrat Jim Matheson and Republican Rob Bishop voted in favor of the Otter Amendment and Republican Chris Cannon voted against it. The amendment is still pending in a spending bill that has yet to receive full congressional approval. Before the August recess, Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced legislation to create a higher standard of judicial review before Patriot Act powers can be used.
"To date it appears portions of the Patriot Act may have moved the scales out of balance," Murkowski said in a statement.
Some Republicans are finding it acceptable not to toe the White House line by using the argument "What if Janet Reno had the Patriot Act?" to stake a safe political position without bashing Ashcroft.
"I don't know whether Hatch is slower to see this than other Republicans, but the Butch Otter vote was a statement to the administration that Congress is not going to stand there like potted plants and accept everything they send over," Norquist said. "It's been two years since 9-11, and for the administration to still answer the public's questions about how these powers are being used with 'Just trust us' is insulting."
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