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Senators from both sides of the aisle pledged Wednesday to expedite legislation that would make it difficult for terrorists to launder money through financial institutions.

The Supreme Court said yesterday it will hear the appeal of a convicted murderer from Virginia, Daryl R. Atkins, whose lawyers contend the state's planned execution of him would be unconstitutional because he is mentally retarded.

New Jersey Attorney General John J. Farmer Jr. tried yesterday to reassure Muslims, Arabs and others that he would not sanction or condone racial profiling by the law enforcement agents who are searching for suspects in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Bush administration's hope that Congress would rush through antiterrorism legislation with little debate withered today as members of the House and Senate served notice that they wanted more time to consider the proposal, especially to ensure that they did not go too far in limiting civil liberties.

The Bush administration's urgent quest for new anti-terrorism laws bogged down in Congress yesterday, as lawmakers from both parties expressed concern that the hastily prepared package could greatly expand police powers at the expense of privacy and other civil liberties.

President Bush ordered an immediate freeze today of all assets in the United States of suspected Islamic terrorist groups and individuals and gave the treasury secretary broad new powers to impose sanctions on banks around the world that provide them access to the international financial system.

More than 350 people have been swept up in the massive dragnet for witnesses and suspects cast since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, and nearly 400 others are still being sought for questioning, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said yesterday. Most are being held on immigration charges and traffic violations, and virtually none has been publicly identified.

The Bush administration's proposals for increased law enforcement powers to fight terrorism are provoking a debate about whether American courts would repeat the kinds of rulings that restricted the civil rights of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

The FBI in the past decade has tripled its spending to stop terrorism, quintupled the number of intelligence gatherers and revamped its bureaucracy to share information about terrorists across the government. None of it was enough to stop the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history.

Officials in Europe, the United States and Pakistan say they have identified new elements of the bin Laden terrorist network, including a top lieutenant in Europe and a previously undisclosed cell in the Gaza Strip. Mr. bin Laden and his Afghan camps are only part of the problem, the officials say, and his network of loosely linked cells may already be so vast that eliminating those camps or even Mr. bin Laden himself would go only part way toward confronting the terrorist threat.

A jury today decided Andrea Pia Yates is mentally fit to stand trial on capital murder charges in the drowning deaths of her five children.

The Justice Department's anti-terrorism legislation, which once seemed likely to sweep through Congress on the storm of anger arising out of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, has been slowed as legislators and public interest groups begin to review its provisions.

Although racial profiling has been harshly criticized in states like New Jersey, courts in this country have never declared it legally dead. Now, with law enforcement officials focusing on Arabs in the hunt for terrorists, legal experts say profiling may be authorized by judges more definitively than ever before.

The criminal courts in Lower Manhattan, working for a 10th day without telephones, continued to adjourn most cases yesterday. But court officials refused a request by the Manhattan district attorney's office to delay all criminal court cases for two weeks.

Ending their silence after a week of mourning the victims of terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, a broad range of religious leaders, social activists, entertainers, student organizations and business figures are beginning to publicly urge President Bush to show restraint in his response and to carefully calibrate the use of U.S. military power. As part of the budding peace offensive, over 1,200 members of the National Council of Churches and a diverse coalition -- organized by Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover and Rosa Parks -- issued strong statements yesterday noting that, while the attacks' perpetrators should be brought to justice, wholesale military action would incite more terrorism, not end it.

The Bush administration today announced a major expansion of its power to detain immigrants suspected of crimes, including new rules prompted by last week's terrorist attacks that would allow legal immigrants to be detained indefinitely during a national emergency.

A coalition of public interest groups from across the political spectrum has formed to try to stop Congress and the Bush administration from rushing to enact counterterrorism measures before considering their effect on Americans' privacy and civil rights.

Bush administration officials said yesterday that they are considering lifting a 25-year-old ban on U.S. involvement in foreign assassinations and loosening restrictions on FBI surveillance, part of an escalating war on terrorism in the wake of Tuesday's attacks on Washington and New York.

Law enforcement and intelligence authorities scrambled yesterday to locate people who had assisted the suicide bombers and to assemble a sharper portrait of the 19 men the FBI says executed the terrorist strike.

Law enforcement officials now have extensive powers to detain people when investigating attacks on the country, legal experts said yesterday.

Attorney General John Ashcroft and Congressional leaders opened talks Sunday on an emergency package of antiterrorism legislation that would expand the Justice Department's ability to use wiretaps in cases of suspected terrorism or espionage.

The Congressional leaders who oversee the nation's intelligence system have concluded that America's spy agencies should be allowed to combat terrorism with more aggressive tactics, including the hiring of unsavory foreign agents.

Two of the men believed to have hijacked the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on Tuesday were known to the authorities as associates of Osama bin Laden and had been sought in the United States since August by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, law enforcement and intelligence officials said today.

The Bush administration, which until now has sent conflicting signals about the importance of money-laundering laws, yesterday announced the formation of a task force that it said would seek to disrupt terrorist financial networks.

The CIA has been authorized since 1998 to use covert means to disrupt and preempt terrorist operations planned abroad by Saudi extremist Osama bin Laden under a directive signed by President Bill Clinton and reaffirmed by President Bush this year, according to government sources.

Attorney General John Ashcroft said the federal authorities had identified 18 men who hijacked the commercial jets used in Tuesday's terror attacks, while investigators accelerated a nationwide manhunt for dozens of accomplices believed to have supported the assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

German authorities said today that three men suspected in the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington had plotted the operation while living in Hamburg.

Maine authorities confirmed on Wednesday they impounded a rental car used by two men suspected of flying from Portland, Maine, to Boston and hijacking one of the planes used to crash into the World Trade Center.

U.S. agents in hot pursuit of those who may have been responsible for Tuesday's deadly tragedies played out on several fronts across the country as the hunt for the culprits intensified.

A Mexican man whose Oklahoma death sentence has been criticized by the Mexican government won an indefinite stay of execution on Monday from the state's highest court, citing a ``serious matter'' of international law.

A California grand jury has rejected a request to investigate charges that Rep. Gary Condit obstructed justice by allegedly asking flight attendant Anne Marie Smith to lie about an affair, lawyers said on Monday.

As he enters his last months in office, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has dealt Legal Aid one final blow, ending the automatic renewal of its contract with the city and forcing it to compete with any other groups that want the job.

A federal appeals court declared this week that male prisoners have a constitutional right to procreate. Yesterday, that ruling drew criticism around the country, with some lawyers predicting it would be overturned by the United States Supreme Court.

The medical records — written observations from doctors, psychiatrists, nurses and social workers during and after her hospitalizations since 1999 — portray a shy woman bereft of self-esteem, overwhelmed by raising her five children with little help, yet unable to admit her frustrations or ask for help.

Executions are down sharply across the country for the second year in a row, with dramatic declines in the leading death penalty states of Virginia and Texas, and if the trend continues, the United States would execute the fewest inmates since 1996.

A federal judge rejected former Police Officer Charles Schwarz's bid to win a new trial in the Abner Louima case yesterday, saying that the testimony of a former police sergeant who came forward after four years on Mr. Schwarz's behalf was riddled with misperceptions and inaccuracies.

The Oklahoma County district attorney said today that he would go ahead with the prosecution of Terry L. Nichols on 160 state charges of murder. He said he would seek the death penalty.

Former chemist Fred Zain is now on trial, having been accused by special state prosecutors of systematically faking scores of test findings in a 16-year career of cases in which the innocent were said to have been victimized and the state defrauded of justice.

Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols on Wednesday offered to waive all appeals of his federal life sentence hours before new district attorney Wes Lane was to announce whether he would pursue state capital murder charges, which carry the death penalty, against Nichols.

Shortly before Congress adjourned for the summer, a House committee inserted a provision in the military authorization bill that would require at least 12 people (as opposed to the current 5) on a military jury in a case where the death sentence was a possibility.

Oklahoma County's new district attorney will announce on Wednesday whether he will drop or continue a state capital murder case against federally convicted Oklahoma bombing conspirator Terry Nichols, his office said on Monday.

Reversing a 20-year trend toward ever-tougher criminal laws, a number of states this year have quietly rolled back some of their most stringent anticrime measures, including those imposing mandatory minimum sentences and forbidding early parole.

The question of Malcolm Rent Johnson's guilt or innocence, and the possibility that he was wrongly executed, is one of the issues arising from a broad investigation of Joyce Gilchrist, the Oklahoma City police scientist whose work in roughly 1,200 cases is being scrutinized by state officials.

Congress Today

This week's schedule for the House and Senate, including Committee Meetings

Everything you need to effectively educate and lobby your elected officials about the Innocence Protection Act of 2001...from the Justice Project

Why is the Attorney General Asking Congress for the Power to Jail and Deport Immigrants Without a Trial or Any Other Way to Establish Their Innocence?

Wiretapping: Why Is Congress Being Asked To Jettison Even the Most Basic Protections?

Oppose This Amendment! Amending the Constitution is an extreme act that should be done only when there are no other alternatives available. The proposed victims' rights amendment would jeopardize the principle of innocent until proven guilty and the right to a fair trial.

Before one more execution is carried out, the federal government and each state that imposes capital punishment have an obligation to ensure that the sentence of death will be imposed with justice, fairness and due process. To address this concern, Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) has introduced the "National Death Penalty Moratorium Act of 2001" (S. 233). This legislation would impose a morotirum on federal executions while creating a National Commission on the Death Penalty to review fairness in the administration of capital punishment.

Read the proposed Grand Juror's Bill of Rights--then contact your elected officials and urge passage!

Excerpts from the United and Strengthening America Act of 2001, proposed counter-terrorism legislation introduced in the Senate by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT)

Congressional site with all legislation introduced following September 11, 2001 attacks

In the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Senate has approved amendments to H.R. 2500, calling for expanded wiretap and other electonic surveillance measures. Final vote for passage will likely occur shortly. Read the text here.

Continuously Updated Conventional Political Headlines

Latest news articles on the Drug front by the Media Awareness Project

Roll Call's weekly news update covering events on Capitol Hill

The latest headlines from the political front, updated twice daily by The Hotline and the National Journal

Everything you need to effectively educate and lobby your elected officials about the Innocence Protection Act of 2001...from the Justice Project

Full text of S. 486, Innocence Protection Act of 2001, introduced in the Senate by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy and others on March 7, 2001. An identical bill was introduced in the House.

Full text of S. 191, Bill to Abolish the Federal Death Penalty, Introduced in the Senate by Sen. Russ Feingold on January 31, 2001

Precisely because the terrorists violated all principles of decency and law, we must hold fast to ours. As the Supreme Court said in a 1967 decision that invalidated an anti-Communist law, "It ould indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties — the freedom of association — which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile."

The fact that the liberal left and the conservative right have found common concern ought to give Congress pause about rushing pell-mell to invade privacy and reduce civil liberties in pursuit of terrorists.

There are any number of practical steps the federal government can take to strengthen its ability to identify and prosecute terrorists. Unfortunately, many of the ideas being shopped by the Bush administration would reduce constitutional protections with no obvious benefit to national security.

When Congress takes up anti-terrorism legislation next week, it should not allow concern for the security of Americans to diminish their liberties. The chief contribution to the tragedy of Sept. 11 was not the absence of these laws; it was the failure to carry out effectively the security precautions that could be implemented with no change in law at all. Act, but not in haste, or America will repent at length.

In truth, forsaking American freedom is precisely the wrong answer to the fear terrorists sow. It gives them the victory they seek. It flouts an article of American faith: that just as some sacrifices must be made in safety's name, others must never be made.

A more reasoned reaction begs that we take our time, mourn our dead, try to some degree to understand the thinking of those who committed this vile act (and their sympathizers), and considerably shore up our defense against attacks. like this in the future (such as our shockingly lax airport-security system). All of this should come before more bombs, more bloodshed, more loss of innocent life in another part of the world. If that makes me a bleeding heart, so be it.

The pressure to relax restrictions is nearly overwhelming, but the nation will not be well served if there is a stampede in Washington to discard restraints that were carefully put in place to reflect and to protect the character and principles of American democracy.

It would behoove this great nation not to respond to yesterday's terrorist attack on America in ways that would restrict civil liberties, particularly if the terrorists are from an immigrant community. Already, analogies are being drawn to Pearl Harbor, which resulted in the internment of tens of thousands of loyal U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry.

All of us today share a feeling of grief and outrage over the events of September 11 and a desire that those responsible for mass murder be brought to justice. But at times of crisis the most patriotic act of all is the unyielding defense of civil liberties, the right to dissent and equality before the law for all Americans.

What is needed is better-coordinated intelligence and more targeted law enforcement, not broad-brush legislation that simply throws more power at government agencies that have already shown a proclivity to abuse the power they have.

As we respond to this national crisis - and respond we must - we must not take for granted our basic freedoms, including the steadfast commitment to civil liberties and tolerance of others. Nor should we be willing to sacrifice these fundamental values, nor look the other way as they are undermined. For if we do, the enemy will have won.

Written and published in September, 1996, this article opposing expanded wiretapping to fight terrorism argues, "Using the tragedies of TWA Flight 800 and the Olympic bombing in Atlanta to instill fear of terrorism in the heart of every American, our politicians are promising to make us safe and secure by giving the FBI the power to wiretap more of us with less judicial scrutiny, to access our personal and financial records with no judicial oversight, and to seize our assets by classifying us as "terrorists" based upon our personal and political beliefs...Is anybody listening?"

Center for Constitutional Rights Warns of Dangers of Providing the President with Vast War Powers...the use of unlimited military force that the resolutions allow is dangerous, irresponsible policy.

Law enforcement officials are taking advantage of the war on terrorism to get everything they ever wanted.

In the din of voices last week there was a small, ignored one coming out of somewhere in Pakistan. The voice came from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, a group breaking every law the ruling Taliban has imposed on the country. Rawa, as it is known to its supporters and enemies, uses the Internet ( RAWA )as a vehicle for its cause.

The only member of Congress to vote against a resolution giving President Bush a free hand in retaliating against terrorism represents a constituency that has become a byword for liberalism. The House of Representatives passed the resolution 420-1, with Barbara Lee the lone voice of opposition. Within her Ninth District of California lie the cities of Oakland and Berkeley, homes to probably the largest hippie communities of the 1960s and still hotbeds of radicalism 30 to 40 years later.

TalkLeft Magazine Picks

TalkLeft Also Recommends:

Terrorism & The Constitution-Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security
by James X. Dempsey, David Cole

Buy the Book Today!

Traces the history leading up to the Anti-terrorism Act of 1996 "one of the worst assults on civil liberties in decades." The authors review of the abuses occuring today-denials od due process, detentions of aliens based on secret evidence, investigations of support for lawful humanitarian activity - culminates with recommendations for a counterterrorism strategy that would conform to the Constitution - one focused on individual culpability for acts of violence rather than on political ideology.

Actual Innocence: Five Days to Execution and Other Dispatches from the Wrongly Convicted by Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld, Jim Dwyer. Reads like a novel but much scarier because it's all true. A page-turner!

Order Your Copy Today!

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