New Directions?

Happy Election Day; go vote in your local elections, they’re the only ones that mean anything. For some reason the Patriot has been content lately to sit on the sidelines and watch the country convulse on its own. One bright spot in the firmament has been the lawyers rioting in Pakistan over the suspension of constitutional freedoms. If only the lawyers in this country went out into the streets over Lynn Stewart and the Patriot Act. Unfortunately they were too busy either over billing their corporate clients or chasing ambulances (depending on their ideological bend) to be bothered.

I’m thinking of taking this blog in an entirely new direction. I just don’t know what it is. There is exactly one year to go before the Presidential election and I can’t stand the idea of writing about politics for another 365 days. I mean, the very thought of it makes me sick, especially when one considers the candidates. The only one I’d consider voting for right now is Kucinich, and that’s because he’s married to a hot 29 year old and admits seeing flying saucers. The other Democratic contenders are just different shades of fascism-lite. Even Edwards, who’s star is setting fast, can’t seem to distinguish himself from Margaret Thatcher, um, I mean Hillary Clinton and Obama-been-forgotten.

There is so much else going on in the world, isn’t there? Does anyone want to hear about anything other than the evisceration of our civil liberties? Please? Maybe I can go back to reviewing restaurants, music and books, or start talking about comparative philosophical systems. I’m going to mull it over for a bit and then get back to you all.

But before I go, here’s a bit of depressing news from the boggie-down-Bronx. As the Patriot predicted over a year ago, law enforcement has been quietly attempting to expand the definition of terrorism to encompass ordinary crime involving Americans. (Disclosure: Most of the following is a paraphrase of the NY Times story.)

As you may or may not know in the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, 36 states enacted laws that would guarantee harsher sentences to people convicted under state law in terrorism cases. Gov. George E. Pataki signed New York’s law within six days of the attack. These laws were political PR pandering, pure and simple, since how often do you think the feds would give up jurisdiction and allow a state government to prosecute a terrorism case? Nevertheless the application of New York’s law had an unfortunate effect on Edgar Morales, a 25-year-old recreational soccer player and gang member who fatally shot a 10-year-old girl and wounded a second man outside a christening party in 2002.

Mr. Morales was a construction worker and a member of the St. James Boys, a gang formed by Mexican immigrants to protect themselves from being assaulted and robbed by other gangs in the west Bronx.

The Bronx District attorney, Robert Johnson, decided to try Morales under New York’s terrorism statute in order to get a tougher jail sentence. Johnson explained that just as racketeering laws aimed at mobsters have since been used in other crimes the terrorism charge fit because Mr. Morales and his gang had terrorized Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the west Bronx for years through violence and intimidation. The jury deliberated for four days after testimony ended last Thursday, but despite their disagreements on other elements of the case, jurors said yesterday they had concluded very early that Mr. Morales was guilty of terrorism.

“When you fire a gun into a crowd, whether you hit your intended victim or not, you scare people, you make them fearful for their lives, and that’s why, in my opinion, the terrorism charges applied,” said an apparently marginally educated juror who identified herself only by her first name, Linnea.

Another juror said she had been hesitant about using the terrorism statute against Mr. Morales when prosecutors presented evidence, but once Justice Michael A. Gross told them on the trial’s final day that terrorism was defined as an act meant to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population,” her reluctance dissolved.

The prosecution of Morales under the terrorism statute understandably freaked out the libertarians and the lefties.

Timothy Lynch, of the Cato Institute said the New York law and others like it had no place being used to prosecute gang members. “Lawmakers were told after Sept. 11th that we needed new laws, and it’s become kind of a bait-and-switch, because lo and behold, they are not being used against Al Qaeda, they’re being used against ordinary street crime,” Mr. Lynch said.

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union,, also criticized the terror application in the trial. “Without commenting on the manslaughter and attempted murder convictions, the pile-on of a terrorism charge is indeed a matter of concern,” she said. “The law was pitched as New York’s way to protect itself against Al Qaeda and the like. No matter what horrific crimes were committed against the Mexican-American community, that’s not terrorism.”

Robert Johnson might be the first DA in New York to use the anti-terrorism law in an ordinary criminal prosecution, but I’ll bet you my plane ticket to Gitmo that he won’t be the last.