A rchive Date
[ 16-02-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WarOnTerrorism/2003/02/13/25759-ap.html
Moving of goalposts increases U.S. terror prosecutions tenfold
Thu, February 13, 2003
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. prosecutions of terrorism cases have increased tenfold since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks as authorities expanded the types of crimes included, Justice Department records show.
During the year that began 19 days after the attacks on New York City and Washington, U.S. prosecutors charged 1,208 individuals with crimes they classified as related to terrorism or international security, compared with just 115 the previous year, records obtained by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) showed.
Nearly one-half of the terrorism prosecutions last year were initiated by investigators from the Social Security Administration and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The two agencies had just two such cases the previous year. Many of the new cases arose from the terrorism-prevention efforts aimed at illegal aliens and airport workers with fake Social Security numbers.
Justice Department officials refused to comment directly on the TRAC data but U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said in an interview Wednesday prevention of new terrorist attacks has been the government's top priority since Sept. 11. He cited "monumental progress" in achieving that goal.
Prevention "is more important than prosecution," he said. "But very frequently these priorities do not compete, they complement. In many instances prosecution has been a real aid to our prevention effort by helping generate valuable intelligence."
U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, the senior Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee, said the report "raises questions about whether too many resources are being tied up on minor cases that have nothing to do with terrorism.
"Casting a wide net can also be counter-productive if it becomes a substitute for strong emphasis on smart, tough investigative and intelligence work," said Leahy.
The FBI, which initiated almost three-quarters of all terrorism-related prosecutions in 2001, accounted for less than one-third of the cases last year. But the number of terrorism charges based on FBI investigations still increased from 84 in 2001 to 377 last year.
The expansion of crimes considered terrorism-related also resulted in lower prison sentences, on the average, for the 394 individuals convicted in terrorism cases last year. The median jail term for those 394 was just two months, down from 21 months for the 41 individuals convicted in terrorism-related cases in 2001.
The median sentence for terrorism convictions initiated by the INS was just one month, while one-half the sentences for such convictions in cases started by Social Security investigators was just two months. For convictions stemming from FBI investigations, in contrast, the median sentence was 12 months.
Since Sept. 11, prosecutors declined to pursue just one-third of the terrorism-related cases brought to them, compared with two-thirds the previous year. Prosecutors also decided whether to prosecute such cases five times faster last year than in 2001, when they took, on average, nearly a year to decide.
The focus on terrorism prevention and prosecution doesn't appear to have drained resources away from other federal law-enforcement activities, as many experts, including Ashcroft, predicted shortly after Sept. 11.
The TRAC data shows terrorism-related prosecutions accounted for just 1.3 per cent of all federal criminal cases last year. Prosecutions for all types of crimes increased by 3.6 per cent last year, with terrorism cases accounting for one-third of the growth.
TRAC obtained the records after a two-year court battle with the Justice Department over the Freedom of Information Act. The records come from internal administrative data the department maintains on all criminal and civil cases.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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