Ashcroft: Portland case needs secrecy

[Whoa_Nelly]

Ashcroft: Portland case needs secrecy

09/12/03

MARK LARABEE

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, in a declaration to a federal judge in Portland, says national security should prevent the Portland Seven defendants from seeing classified information his agents used to get secret court approval for using telephone wiretaps, planting a microphone in a home and capturing e-mail messages.

Charged last year with plotting to fight U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, the defendants have filed a motion to suppress the evidence gathered with the secret court approvals. They say using such evidence without giving them the ability to review and challenge the justification for the intrusions violates the due-process clause of the U.S. Constitution, among other things.

<snip>
Ashcroft's insertion into the case isn't a surprise because it's required by statute.

But it illustrates the power the federal government has and is willing to use to investigate suspected terrorism by Americans. It comes when debate about the expanded domestic spying powers granted by the USA Patriot Act is raging across the country.


more...
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/1063368239209760.xml

[goobergunch]

1. The Constitution requires defendants...

to be confronted with the evidence against them. So Ashcroft is denying this? :puke:

[ixion]

3. Ashcroft hates the constitution, and the Bill of Rights as well

and Sex, and Music and Dancing and anything else that vaguely reflects the semblance of a human soul.

[Cronus Protagonist]

5. No kidding

http://www.artofresistance.org/

[ChompySnack]

2. It wouldn't be because...

They don't want anyone to find out that they were tailing Mohammad Atta in Portland on Sept 10th, would it?

Aparently they searched his hotel within hours of the 9/11 attacks. How would they know so quickly unless...

[section321]

7. That's a different Portland...

You're thinking of Portland, Maine.


This is Portland, OR.

[E_Zapata]

4. Big IF.....but IF it is okay to get a search warrant with no ct approval -

if something leads to charges, everything having to do with the search warrant should be released.

[plcdude]

6. later on in the article

"allowing the government to spy on its own citizens without traditional judicial oversight and public scrutiny erodes basic rights.

How do we expect our justice system to handle due process?" said David Fidanque of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon. "Is it due process when attorneys for people who've been charged with serious offenses can't get access to the evidence authorities had at the time they sought orders from the secret court?"