pdx39
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2001
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WASHINGTON - The Department of Justice has overstated its record of arresting and convicting terrorists for years, inflating the numbers it gives Congress with garden-variety crimes that have no connection to terrorism.
The practice has continued even after Sept. 11, when attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon underscored the horror of real terrorism. Current and former Justice Department officials say the reports showing inflated terrorism convictions are provided to Congress as supporting material to justify the department's $22 billion annual budget, which includes counterterrorism funding.
"It's awful," said Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.), a former Intelligence
Committee chairman, after The Inquirer showed him some of the cases classified as terrorism. "It's more than problem-some - it's awful."
Cases labeled as terrorism involve erratic behavior by people with mental illnesses, passengers getting drunk on airplanes, and convicts rioting to get better prison food. There were the Mexican who concocted a phony passport application, the former court employee who shoved and threatened a judge, the babbling man who walked into an FBI office and threatened to
kill former President Bill Clinton - though he didn't realize Clinton was no longer president.
Cases such as these, improperly labeled as terrorism, continue to wind through the court system.
In one vivid example, an assistant U.S. attorney in San Francisco asked U.S. District Judge Marilyn H. Patel on Monday to stiffen a sentence against an Arizona man who got drunk on a United Airlines flight from Shanghai, repeatedly rang the call button, demanded more liquor, and put his hands on a flight attendant. Justice Department records show the case as "domestic terrorism."
The judge told the prosecutor who argued the case that it wasn't terrorism - rather a man "being an annoyance beyond belief."
The most recent Justice Department annual report, issued in May, says that in the fiscal year ending in September 2000, FBI investigations led to 236 terrorism convictions. That number is generated from an FBI computer system that follows criminal cases from beginning to end.
"I promise you there weren't 200 convictions in the last year for what you and I think of as terrorism," said Thomas G. Connolly, who served as an assistant U.S. attorney in suburban Washington and received the CIA's Intelligence Medallion for his prosecution of CIA-agent- turned-Russian-spy James Nicholson in 1997.
On Friday, Patrick J. Leahy (D., Vt.) said he wants information from the Justice Department to explain what is being classified as "terrorism." "As the department seeks new power in terrorism cases, it is important that we know the types of cases that the department is trying to sweep within that definition," said Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In testimony before Congress this month, Attorney General John Ashcroft gave a succinct definition of a terrorist: "Since 1983, the U.S. government has defined terrorists as those who perpetrate premeditated, politically motivated violence against noncombatant targets."
The Justice Department did not respond to repeated written requests for comment about terrorism statistics.
One department official, who did not want to be named, said she would not "rule out" the possibility that benign cases find their way into the terrorism category.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Jacobs of the federal prosecutor's office in San Francisco said that "from our perspective, you shouldn't read too much into the categorization."
During the last three years, San Francisco listed more "domestic
terrorism" cases than any of the 93 other U.S. attorneys' offices. From September 1998 until September 2001, the San Francisco office was headed by Robert S. Mueller, now director of the FBI. Why are the numbers important?
Statistics on arrests and convictions, including those related to the hot-button issue of terrorism, are a measuring stick for the Justice Department. They are submitted to the department's outside auditors, used to assess the performance of the U.S. attorneys' offices, and made available to the public in an annual report.
"In some ways, the Justice Department continues to operate under the body count approach in Vietnam," said Jonathan Turley, who teaches constitutional criminal procedure at George Washington University Law School. "They feel a need to produce a body count to Congress to justify past appropriations and secure future increases."
The government would not release details of the 236 cases identified as terrorism in the Justice Department's latest annual report. But The Inquirer reviewed dozens of cases over a five-year period ending Sept. 30. The information was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Syracuse University's TRAC Resource Center, which collects data from various federal agencies.
Some of the cases listed as terrorism were clearly a stretch. Here is a sampling: A tenant fighting eviction called his landlord, impersonated an FBI agent, and said the bureau did not want the tenant evicted. The landlord recognized the man's voice and called the real FBI.
A man from Ecuador tried to hide 12 pistols in a television set he was sending home from Miami. He admitted he planned to resell the guns for a profit in Ecuador.
A commercial pilot in Seattle pleaded guilty to falsely implicating his copilot in a bogus plot to hijack a private airplane. The case boiled down to two men feuding.
Seven Chinese sailors were convicted of taking over a Taiwanese fishing boat and sailing to the U.S. territory of Guam, where they hoped to win political asylum.
A man under treatment in California told his doctor he needed
anti-psychotic medication because he was hearing voices telling him to kill President Bush.
Others clearly did involve terrorism, such as the bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, and the conviction of Algerian Ahmed Ressam in a plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport two years ago. The records also included the Sept. 27 arrest of three men in a Detroit apartment allegedly occupied by an associate of Osama bin Laden.
And the indictment of Zacarias Moussaoui, a suspected al-Qaeda conspirator in the Sept. 11 attacks, appears certain to fall into the terrorism category.
Some federal prosecutors expressed concern about the cases that clearly do not measure up.
Karon Johnson, an assistant U.S. attorney who won conviction of the seven Chinese sailors for commandeering the boat, said the goal of the men was to find jobs, not practice terror. "This isn't a political crime - this is economic," she said.
Prosecutors said there has been confusion about the definition of
terrorism, and there have been no recent instructions from the Justice Department to clarify it in coding cases.
In any case, prosecutors usually are not responsible for the terrorism classification. That is often left to the discretion of supervisors or others in the U.S. attorneys' offices across the country.
"There's a great desire to take any case, and incident, and place it under the terrorism category to show some return for all these appropriations," said Turley, of George Washington University Law School.
Sen. Judd Gregg (R., N.H.), the ranking member of the subcommittee that oversees the Justice Department's budget, said that he did not think terrorism convictions played a part in the budget process.
But former department officials and congressional aides see a link. "They can be used to justify overall budget increases for large swaths of the agency," said David Sirota, Democratic spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee.
The Justice Department's budget was passed into law last month.
Discussions are already beginning on the fiscal year 2003 budget. The $22 billion is used to fund prosecutions of criminal and civil cases, secure the nation's borders, and investigate a wide variety of federal crimes involving drugs, guns, civil rights - and terrorism.
Holder said: "It's just not the right thing to go up [to Capitol Hill]
with numbers that aren't meaningful. It hurts your credibility
The practice has continued even after Sept. 11, when attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon underscored the horror of real terrorism. Current and former Justice Department officials say the reports showing inflated terrorism convictions are provided to Congress as supporting material to justify the department's $22 billion annual budget, which includes counterterrorism funding.
"It's awful," said Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.), a former Intelligence
Committee chairman, after The Inquirer showed him some of the cases classified as terrorism. "It's more than problem-some - it's awful."
Cases labeled as terrorism involve erratic behavior by people with mental illnesses, passengers getting drunk on airplanes, and convicts rioting to get better prison food. There were the Mexican who concocted a phony passport application, the former court employee who shoved and threatened a judge, the babbling man who walked into an FBI office and threatened to
kill former President Bill Clinton - though he didn't realize Clinton was no longer president.
Cases such as these, improperly labeled as terrorism, continue to wind through the court system.
In one vivid example, an assistant U.S. attorney in San Francisco asked U.S. District Judge Marilyn H. Patel on Monday to stiffen a sentence against an Arizona man who got drunk on a United Airlines flight from Shanghai, repeatedly rang the call button, demanded more liquor, and put his hands on a flight attendant. Justice Department records show the case as "domestic terrorism."
The judge told the prosecutor who argued the case that it wasn't terrorism - rather a man "being an annoyance beyond belief."
The most recent Justice Department annual report, issued in May, says that in the fiscal year ending in September 2000, FBI investigations led to 236 terrorism convictions. That number is generated from an FBI computer system that follows criminal cases from beginning to end.
"I promise you there weren't 200 convictions in the last year for what you and I think of as terrorism," said Thomas G. Connolly, who served as an assistant U.S. attorney in suburban Washington and received the CIA's Intelligence Medallion for his prosecution of CIA-agent- turned-Russian-spy James Nicholson in 1997.
On Friday, Patrick J. Leahy (D., Vt.) said he wants information from the Justice Department to explain what is being classified as "terrorism." "As the department seeks new power in terrorism cases, it is important that we know the types of cases that the department is trying to sweep within that definition," said Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In testimony before Congress this month, Attorney General John Ashcroft gave a succinct definition of a terrorist: "Since 1983, the U.S. government has defined terrorists as those who perpetrate premeditated, politically motivated violence against noncombatant targets."
The Justice Department did not respond to repeated written requests for comment about terrorism statistics.
One department official, who did not want to be named, said she would not "rule out" the possibility that benign cases find their way into the terrorism category.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Jacobs of the federal prosecutor's office in San Francisco said that "from our perspective, you shouldn't read too much into the categorization."
During the last three years, San Francisco listed more "domestic
terrorism" cases than any of the 93 other U.S. attorneys' offices. From September 1998 until September 2001, the San Francisco office was headed by Robert S. Mueller, now director of the FBI. Why are the numbers important?
Statistics on arrests and convictions, including those related to the hot-button issue of terrorism, are a measuring stick for the Justice Department. They are submitted to the department's outside auditors, used to assess the performance of the U.S. attorneys' offices, and made available to the public in an annual report.
"In some ways, the Justice Department continues to operate under the body count approach in Vietnam," said Jonathan Turley, who teaches constitutional criminal procedure at George Washington University Law School. "They feel a need to produce a body count to Congress to justify past appropriations and secure future increases."
The government would not release details of the 236 cases identified as terrorism in the Justice Department's latest annual report. But The Inquirer reviewed dozens of cases over a five-year period ending Sept. 30. The information was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Syracuse University's TRAC Resource Center, which collects data from various federal agencies.
Some of the cases listed as terrorism were clearly a stretch. Here is a sampling: A tenant fighting eviction called his landlord, impersonated an FBI agent, and said the bureau did not want the tenant evicted. The landlord recognized the man's voice and called the real FBI.
A man from Ecuador tried to hide 12 pistols in a television set he was sending home from Miami. He admitted he planned to resell the guns for a profit in Ecuador.
A commercial pilot in Seattle pleaded guilty to falsely implicating his copilot in a bogus plot to hijack a private airplane. The case boiled down to two men feuding.
Seven Chinese sailors were convicted of taking over a Taiwanese fishing boat and sailing to the U.S. territory of Guam, where they hoped to win political asylum.
A man under treatment in California told his doctor he needed
anti-psychotic medication because he was hearing voices telling him to kill President Bush.
Others clearly did involve terrorism, such as the bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, and the conviction of Algerian Ahmed Ressam in a plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport two years ago. The records also included the Sept. 27 arrest of three men in a Detroit apartment allegedly occupied by an associate of Osama bin Laden.
And the indictment of Zacarias Moussaoui, a suspected al-Qaeda conspirator in the Sept. 11 attacks, appears certain to fall into the terrorism category.
Some federal prosecutors expressed concern about the cases that clearly do not measure up.
Karon Johnson, an assistant U.S. attorney who won conviction of the seven Chinese sailors for commandeering the boat, said the goal of the men was to find jobs, not practice terror. "This isn't a political crime - this is economic," she said.
Prosecutors said there has been confusion about the definition of
terrorism, and there have been no recent instructions from the Justice Department to clarify it in coding cases.
In any case, prosecutors usually are not responsible for the terrorism classification. That is often left to the discretion of supervisors or others in the U.S. attorneys' offices across the country.
"There's a great desire to take any case, and incident, and place it under the terrorism category to show some return for all these appropriations," said Turley, of George Washington University Law School.
Sen. Judd Gregg (R., N.H.), the ranking member of the subcommittee that oversees the Justice Department's budget, said that he did not think terrorism convictions played a part in the budget process.
But former department officials and congressional aides see a link. "They can be used to justify overall budget increases for large swaths of the agency," said David Sirota, Democratic spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee.
The Justice Department's budget was passed into law last month.
Discussions are already beginning on the fiscal year 2003 budget. The $22 billion is used to fund prosecutions of criminal and civil cases, secure the nation's borders, and investigate a wide variety of federal crimes involving drugs, guns, civil rights - and terrorism.
Holder said: "It's just not the right thing to go up [to Capitol Hill]
with numbers that aren't meaningful. It hurts your credibility
