Atty. Gen. Ashcroft is pulling out all the stops to prosecute protesters.
It has lain dormant in the darkest recesses of American law for 125 years, but this month Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft introduced critics of the administration to his latest weapon in law enforcement.
In a Miami federal court, the attorney general charged the environmental group Greenpeace under an obscure 1872 law originally intended to end the practice of "sailor-mongering," or the luring of sailors with liquor and prostitutes from their ships. Ashcroft plucked the law from obscurity to punish Greenpeace for boarding a vessel near port in Miami.
Not only is the law being used to prosecute one of the administration's most vocal critics in an unprecedented attack on the 1st Amendment, but it appears to be part of a broader campaign by Ashcroft to protect the nation against free speech, a campaign that has converted environmentalists into "sailor-mongers" and nuns into terrorists.
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The case against Greenpeace started with a protest in April 2002. The activist group was leading an international effort to stop the illegal importing of mahogany. It believed that a ship, the APL Jade, was engaging in this illegal trade and decided to conduct one of its signature demonstrations to protest the Bush administration's failure to stop the imports.
In clearly marked boats, Greenpeace followed the ship. Two of its members boarded the vessel about eight miles outside the Miami port, carrying a banner that read "President Bush, Stop Illegal Logging."
Such protests are common, and the two activists wore Greenpeace jackets, identified themselves as Greenpeace members and allowed themselves to be arrested. They ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and were released. The wood was unloaded and everyone seemed satisfied.
Everyone, that is, except Ashcroft.
Fifteen months after the incident, the Justice Department filed an indictment in Miami against the entire Greenpeace organization under the 1872 law, a law that appears to have been used only twice.
A New York court in 1872 described the law as both "inartistic and obscure." An Oregon court in 1890 described the purpose of the law as preventing "the evil" of "sailor-mongers [who] get on board vessels and by the help of intoxicants, and the use of other means, often savoring of violence, get the crews ashore and leave the vessel without help to manage or care for her."
Of course, there did not appear to be many sailors on the APL Jade being lured out to join Greenpeace. But proceeding against two protesters on trivial misdemeanor charges wasn't enough for the Justice Department. So it decided to treat Greenpeace activists not as protesters but as sailor-mongers.
Greenpeace now could lose its tax-exempt status — a potential death knell for a large public interest organization. A conviction could also force Greenpeace to regularly report its actions to the government. Such a prospect must secretly delight many in the administration who see the group as an ever-present irritant. After all, it was Greenpeace that held the first demonstration at the president's ranch after his inauguration, causing a stir when activists unfurled a banner reading "Bush: the Toxic Texan. Don't Mess With the Earth."
Since that time, Greenpeace has waged a continual campaign against Bush's environmental record. Ashcroft's jihad against free speech, however, is not limited to environmentalists. Consider the case of three Dominican nuns. Last year, Sister Ardeth Platte, 66, Sister Jackie Hudson, 68, and Sister Carol Gilbert, 55, participated in a peaceful demonstration for nuclear disarmament.
As part of the protest, the three nuns cut through a chain-link fence around a Minuteman III missile silo. There is only a light fence because the missile is protected by a 110-ton concrete cap that is designed to withstand a nuclear explosion. The nuns proceeded to paint crosses on the cap and symbolically hit it with hammers. They then knelt, prayed, sang religious songs and waited for arrest. The most the government could allege in terms of damage was $3,000.
However, the Ashcroft Justice Department wanted more than compensation and a common misdemeanor. It charged the nuns with obstructing national defense, which subjected each to a potential 30-year prison term. When the government pushed the court to impose sentences of as much as eight years, the judge refused. However, the judge found, as alleged by the government, that the three nuns had put military personnel "in harm's way." Accordingly, he imposed on them sentences ranging from 2 1/2 years to 3 1/2 years.
The administration has pursued a similar zero-tolerance policy in other cases. It has been accused of using unconstitutional "trap-and-arrest" tactics to suppress protests in Washington, D.C., where hundreds of journalists, bystanders and student protesters were arrested en masse without a warning or an opportunity to disperse. They were then left hog-tied in holding areas for as long as 20 hours, with their hands bound to their ankles.
The Greenpeace case is particularly chilling because of the extraordinary effort to find a law that could be used to pursue the organization. The 1872 law is a legal relic that must have required much archeological digging through law books to find.
It is also notable that other organizations have not faced such attacks. For example, in this same judicial district in Florida, the Cuban American group Democracy Movement organized a protest in which members sailed into a government-designated security zone. Although the members were charged, the organization was not. Similarly, other groups viewed favorably by the administration — such as anti-abortion groups — have not been subject to criminal indictments of their organizations for such protests.
The extraordinary effort made to find and use this obscure law strongly suggests a campaign of selective prosecution — the greatest scourge of the 1st Amendment.
Greenpeace was engaged in a classic protest used by countless organizations, from those of the civil rights movement to anti-abortion groups. It is a way for citizens to express their opposition by literally standing in the path of the government.
None of these organizations contest the right of the government to punish them for trespass or even criminal misdemeanors. Indeed, they view such punishment as a badge of honor.
However, Ashcroft is now seeking symbols of his own: The image of a major environmentalist organization placed on probation or nuns being sent to jail is clearly meant to send a chilling message from the man who once accused his critics of aiding and abetting terrorists.
Unless deterred by Congress or the courts, Ashcroft will continue his campaign to protect Americans from the ravages of free speech. If he succeeds, it will not be sailors but free speech that will be shanghaied in Miami.
Letter to the Editor
The CIA confirmed the voice in the latest Bin Laden tape actually is Bin Laden - so - why aren't we going after him? Bin Laden is in Pakistan - not Iraq. It seems to me that the Bush administration is confused about who and where the enemy is.
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Bin Laden at Large Day 769 since 9-11
Bin Laden is Free - Are you?
IP Justice Media Release
October 20, 2003
Media contact: Robin Gross, IP Justice Executive Director
+1 415-553-6261 robin@ipjustice.org
FTAA Treaty Chapter on IP '"Threatens Freedom and Free Trade"
IP Justice White Paper Reveals Treaty Would Send P2P File-Sharers to Prison
Sponsors Petition to Delete Intellectual Property Chapter
- International civil liberties group IP Justice published a report today entitled "FTAA: A Threat to Freedom and Free Trade," that analyzes key sections of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) Treaty. The FTAA Treaty will govern the lives of 800 million Americans in the Western Hemisphere in 2005.
Similar to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the FTAA Treaty seeks to bind the 34 democracies in the Western Hemisphere (including the US) to a single trade agreement. It will require all countries to change their domestic laws on a wide range of topics, including intellectual property rights.
The draft intellectual property rights chapter in the FTAA Agreement vastly expands criminal procedures and penalties against intellectual property infringements throughout the Americas. One clause would require countries to send non-commercial infringers such as Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-sharers to prison. It is estimated that 60 million Americans use file-sharing software in the US alone.
According to the IP Justice report, "unless the second proposed clause to Article 4.1 is deleted from the FTAA Treaty, Internet music swapping will be a felony throughout the Western Hemisphere in 2005."
The proposed agreement forbids consumers from bypassing technical restrictions on their own CDs, DVDs and other property, similar to the controversial US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Even though bills are pending in the US Congress to repeal the DMCA, FTAA proposes to outlaw even more speech and legitimate conduct.
Mislabeled as a "free trade" agreement, the FTAA Agreement would actually make it illegal to bypass trade barriers such as DVD region code restrictions and it would enable price discrimination against consumers in the Americas.
The draft treaty also imposes new definitions for "fair use" and "personal use," curtailing traditional fair use and personal use rights to a single copy and only under limited circumstances. This prevents consumers from backing-up their media collections, using their media in new and innovative ways, and accessing media for educational and non-commercial purposes.
Another clause would require all countries to amend their copyright laws to extend copyright's term to at least 70 years after the life of the author, essentially forcing the new US standard on all other 33 countries in the hemisphere. Although forbidden by the US Constitution, FTAA's copyright section would allow companies to copyright facts and scientific data.
Another provision requires all domain name trademark disputes to be decided by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a private and unaccountable organization that is ill equipped to determine the limits of freedom of expression rights or the scope of intellectual property rights. Americans would no longer have access to their local public courts to adjudicate rights over their Internet domain names.
"The FTAA Treaty's IP chapter reads like a 'wish list' for RIAA, MPAA, and Microsoft lobbyists," said IP Justice Executive Director Robin Gross. "Rather than promote competition and creativity, it is bloated with provisions that create monopolies over information and media devices," stated the intellectual property attorney.
In conjunction with the White Paper, IP Justice published an online petition calling upon the FTAA Trade Ministers to delete the entire chapter on intellectual property rights from the trade agreement. Earlier this year Brazil called for scrapping the chapter on intellectual property rights also.
FTAA Treaty negotiators, including the Office of the US Trade Representative who negotiates on behalf of US government, will meet in Miami from November 16-21, 2003. Debate over the text of the FTAA Treaty will conclude by January 2005 and the treaty is due to take effect by December 2005.
IP Justice White Paper on FTAA IP Chapter:
http://www.ipjustice.org/ftaa/whitepaper.shtml
IP Justice FTAA Educational Campaign:
http://www.ipjustice.org/ftaa
IP Justice's Top 10 Reasons to Delete FTAA's IP Chapter:
http://www.ipjustice.org/ftaa/topten.shtml
IP Justice Petition to Delete FTAA's IP Chapter:
http://www.ipjustice.org/ftaa/petition.shtml
Official FTAA Website:
http://www.ftaa-alca.org
Draft chapter on intellectual property rights in FTAA Agreement:
http://www.ftaa-alca.org/ftaadraft02/eng/draft_e.asp
IP Justice is an international civil liberties organization that promotes balanced intellectual property law. IP Justice defends individual rights to use digital media worldwide and is a registered California non-profit organization. IP Justice was founded in 2002 by Robin D. Gross, who serves as its Executive Director. To learn more about IP Justice, visit the website at http://www.ipjustice.org.