Victory Act: Redefining Drug Crimes As Terrorism
While Attorney General John Ashcroft distracts us by parading around the country touting the Patriot Act, the equally dangerous, overly broad Victory Act bill is making the rounds through Congressional offices. The full name of the bill is the Vital Interdiction of Criminal Terrorist Organizations Act of 2003.
In a nutshell, the bill reinvents drug offenses as terrorism crimes. The ho-hum label of "controlled substance offense" will get a glossy makeover as many routine drug crimes become elevated into crimes of "Narcoterrorism."
Whose brilliant idea was this? The bill was drafted by worker bees in the office of Sen. Orrin Hatch (R.-UT.) Justice Department employees are disassociating the department from the bill, but we take that with a heavy grain of salt. Do you have any doubt Ashcroft will come to praise it?
ABC News has obtained a copy of the draft of the bill and provides this preliminary analysis of the 89 page bill:
Provisions in the draft would:
* Raise the threshold for rejecting illegal wiretaps. The draft reads: "A court may not grant a motion to suppress the contents of a wire or oral communication, or evidence derived therefrom, unless the court finds that the violation of this chapter involved bad faith by law enforcement."
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