More anti-terrorism power sought - JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SAYS PATRIOT ACT NOT ENOUGH (tags)
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department is seeking to expand its anti-terrorism powers again, adding, among other things, an FBI subpoena power so secret that even a lawsuit challenging it had to be kept under wraps.
The nation's attorney general is on the ropes and swinging wildly. (tags)
Once again, Mr. Ashcroft has utterly missed the point. As many commentators have patiently tried to explain to him--we must, after all, talk to him as one talks to a punch-drunk fighter--the point is not whether federal authorities have yet started checking what we read; the point is that the U.S. Patriot Act gives those authorities the right to monitor what we read. Giving anyone that right is exactly what’s wrong, Mr. Ashcroft. If we are hysterics, then you, sir, are a dangerous dimwit.