Maloney, Johnson Go Head-to-Head
By Mindy Finn
WASHINGTON – Two members of the Connecticut delegation have divided sharply over legislation to give law enforcement agencies new powers to deal with the threat of terrorism.
Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-6th) strongly criticized a draft bill that leaders of the House Judiciary Committee are offering as an alternative to the proposals that Attorney General John Ashcroft presented to Congress after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“Ashcroft is right that we need unprecedented powers,” Johnson said. “My colleagues are cutting back on his powers so much that he won’t be able to prevent terrorist activities.”
Rep. James Maloney (D-5th), however, said that Ashcroft’s proposals “in important respects went too far.” He supports the alternative legislation that Judiciary Committee chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), and the panel’s ranking Democrat, John Conyers Jr. of Michigan agreed on at the beginning of the week and have circulated among other committee members.
Ashcroft, for example, is seeking the right to detain legal immigrants considered a threat to national security for an indefinite period. The Sensenbrenner-Conyers bill would set a seven-day limit on detention, after which detainees would have to be charged or released.
Johnson took strong issue with the proposed change. “I mean, seven days is nothing” to [terrorists], she said. “They’ll just wait it out and then go right back. I’m worried about our unwillingness to recognize how pernicious these groups are, how hard they are to find, how hard they are to capture and stop.”
She added, “It takes a longer time [than seven days] to assemble the evidence that you need to prove that someone is part of a terrorist operation, so unfortunately there is a need for a longer detention period. áWe are kidding ourselves if we think we can deal with terrorism that way.”
Maloney, by contrast, said, “Indefinite detention is just not a concept that’s acceptable under the American approach of individual rights. That’s saying the state can make a decision about someone’s life without any recourse to due process. That’s fundamentally inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States. I think had Congress adopted the Attorney General’s proposal it would have been struck down by the Supreme Court anyway.”
He said he wouldn’t have opposed a longer detention period- “14 days or even 30 days”-but he added that he applauds the job that Sensenbrenner and Conyers did.
“What’s extraordinary about [the committee draft] is it gives police seven days to charge someone with a crime,” Maloney said. “Under current American law, basically there’s 24 hours. So, it’s quite a departure from existing American law.”
The Sensenbrenner-Conyers draft also omits the Attorney General’s request for the right to use evidence obtained in foreign courts that would not be legally usable in American courts.
“What if you had coerced confessions?” Maloney asked, “You can’t coerce a confession in the United States. The reason you can’t is twofold: one, it’s a violation of the individual’s freedoms, but more importantly [coerced confessions] are not reliable. Under the threat or exercise of torture you can make someone admit anything.”
Johnson, though she did not comment specifically on that provision, said America must “look to other nations, learn what has worked for them. áIf you look at the countries, including Britain, that have had to deal with this, you will see that in all of those societies they had to strengthen their police powers to investigate and to detain in order to protect the public, and I think that is what we have to do.”
Maloney disagreed. “The British model goes way too far and has been challenged as a real violation of the freedom of British citizens,” he said. “The legislation that looks like it is coming forward here in Congress is a much better balance that I tend to support.”
The draft bill also would include a “sunset” provision that would repeal the newly granted powers on Dec. 31, 2003. Johnson agrees with that provision though she still favors Ashcroft’s proposals. “I would rather he get the broader grant and sunset the bill in three years or five years, sunset it fairly early, but give him the broader grant so we see what the use of it is,” Johnson said, “and then through oversight and experience we’ll be able to tell was that too broad.”
Maloney also supports the sunset provision. “It gives us an opportunity to evaluate whether we have drawn the line too far or too close. Otherwise, it’s very difficult to change it.”
Johnson said the nation needs a new balance between freedom and security. “This is a new world for us; we have to take it seriously,” she said. “I think we have to recognize that not all the old rules will work in this area of crime. On the other hand, I certainly have deep and profound respect for the principles on which our Constitution is based and which have made our nation strong.”
Maloney said he believes the House draft bill would preserve about 90 percent of Ashcroft’s proposals. The difference between the two, he said, is that the House bill “strikes some different balances on some of the issues and provides institutional protection for civil liberties.”
