Chasing Terrorists or Fears?
WASHINGTON — Almost immediately after Sept. 11, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft committed his department to a preemptive anti-terrorism strategy modeled after Robert F. Kennedy's zealous harassment of organized crime bosses in the 1960s. And, like the mob-busting prosecutors of the 1930s who put Al Capone away for tax evasion, Ashcroft pledged to use the entirety of the criminal code to disrupt terrorist plots before they matured.
In speech after speech, Ashcroft recalled that Kennedy's Justice Department "would arrest mobsters for spitting on the sidewalk."
"Let the terrorists among us be warned," Ashcroft declared six weeks after the attacks.
"If you overstay your visa, even by one day, we will arrest you. If you violate a local law, you will be put in jail and kept in custody as long as possible. We will use every available statute. We will seek every available prosecutorial advantage."
Such determined talk may have provided a measure of reassurance to an anxious nation in the fall of 2001.
But three years later, it is difficult to gauge how successful the approach has been, and whether its victories have outweighed its costs in botched prosecutions, the detention of innocent people, the alienation of Arab Americans, the fomenting of anti-American sentiment and, in the eyes of some, the compromise of civil liberties.
There have been no subsequent terrorist attacks on American soil, a fact that Ashcroft cites as primary evidence of his strategy's success.
But many legal analysts say the absence of terrorism does not alone prove that preemptive law enforcement is working. There is, they say, a significant difference between fighting the flamboyant crime bosses of the past and pursuing the shadowy terrorists of today.
"Everybody knew Al Capone was a big-time mobster, and you didn't have to demonstrate that when you went after him for tax evasion," said Daniel C. Richman, a Fordham University law professor and former federal prosecutor.
"But when you go after an immigrant for document fraud or immigration fraud or making false statements, you do need to show at some point that you're picking the right people."
Ashcroft and his aides have cited the ever-growing number of terrorism-related arrests as justification for the department's approach and for the Patriot Act, which has come under scrutiny in the courts and in Congress. This month, the attorney general said terrorism investigations since Sept. 11 had resulted in charges against 364 suspects and convictions of 193.
