" We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office."
-- Aesop

Go to 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44544-2003Oct18.html
for complete article.

In the Name of the Patriot Act: That's Ours

By Mark C. Medish
Sunday, October 19, 2003; Page B05

On March 20, 2003, as the United States launched its preemptive war against
Iraq, the Bush administration also mounted a raid here in the United States
-- it confiscated approximately $1.7 billion in Iraqi assets that had been
blocked, or frozen, since the Persian Gulf War. It closed Iraq's accounts
at 18 commercial banks and moved the money to the Federal Reserve Bank of
New York.

Two months later, U.N. Security Council Resolution 1483 called on all
countries to transfer frozen Iraqi assets to a development fund for Iraq.
But the United States had already pulled a fast one on its allies and the
rest of the international community. There were no longer any such Iraqi
assets in the United States; they now belonged to the U.S. Treasury, which
later bypassed the fund and turned the money over to the U.S.-run
occupation authorities. The administration used its own discretion alone --
without authority from or consultation with a U.S. court, an international
court, the United Nations or an Iraqi government.

It was only the second time since World War II that the United States had
expropriated the assets of a sovereign country, and the power to do so came
largely from the USA Patriot Act, the Bush administration's primary
legislative response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The bill
passed by overwhelming margins with virtually no debate in a Congress that
was itself under attack by anthrax-laced letters. After all, who could be
against an act called patriotic? But as the far-reaching consequences of
this law have become more apparent, one can only wish our legislators had
taken more time to weigh its merits.

The Patriot Act is the civil equivalent of the administration's military
doctrine of preemption. The U.S. government can act first and investigate
later. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once observed that due
process depends on how much process is due. In the Bush administration's
view, the clear answer is: When it comes to homeland security, not much.
Post-9/11, the state is king.

While civil rights groups have challenged aspects of the new law, from
warrantless searches to seemingly unlimited detentions, other elements
could have equally worrisome implications.

The Patriot Act significantly augmented the president's already broad
emergency powers in the international economic sphere. For example, the act
allows the president to "vest," or expropriate, the sovereign assets of
other countries if he makes a finding that their governments supported
terrorism. This amounts to a new doctrine of sovereign property forfeiture.

The point may seem academic, but it is not. The international legal system,
of which the United States has been a prime architect for most of the past
century, is built on sovereignty as a meaningful concept. But the Bush
administration has taken an a la carte approach to international legal
norms. The implicit message is that U.S. sovereignty is absolute; other
countries' sovereignty is subject to Washington's review.

It would be one thing to expropriate the property of a country that had
attacked us or our allies, as we did with the Axis powers' property during
World War II. (President Roosevelt ordered the seizure of Japanese assets
in July 1941 in response to Japan's invasion of French Indochina.) A theory
of restitution or reparations could serve as the legal basis for such
action. It is another matter to confiscate the property of a country
against which we waged a war of choice for the purpose of regime change.
One might not care about the demise of Saddam Hussein, but if one cares
about the rule of law, sovereignty matters.
. . .

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