STATEMENT OF
ERIC E. STERLING, PRESIDENT,
THE CRIMINAL
JUSTICE POLICY FOUNDATION
A MAJOR RISK OF HASTY
ANTI-TERRORISM LEGISLATION
IS
INEFFECTIVENESS
AT THE PRESS CONFERENCE ON THE
RELEASE OF THE
"IN DEFENSE OF FREEDOM" STATEMENT
NATIONAL PRESS CLUB,
WASHINGTON, DC
September 20,
2001
I can't
adequately characterize the enormity of the despicable acts
that
have been
directed against us. My family and friends in New York City are
safe,
but I have many friends who are not so lucky, and I hold them in
the
Light. There is no reason to believe that the architects of such
wanton
killing have been satiated by the blood of thousands of innocents, or
the grief
of hundreds of millions. We must act to protect ourselves,
and we must respond
to the attacks against
us.
Most members of the
coalition signing the statement, "In Defense of
Freedom," <
http://www.indefenseoffreedom.org>
warn of the danger to our
liberties, and to our Constitutional heritage from
hasty ratification by
Congress of the Attorney General's proposed
legislation. I share those fears,
but my perspective is
different. I warn against the danger of ineffectiveness
because I have
participated in previous Congressional races to
action.
Before we can plan and
adopt an appropriate national response, we first
must understand. We
must understand what allowed these acts to happen, and
why. We must
understand the ways in which our security forces, our
intelligence agencies,
and our laws were inadequate to protect us -- before we
respond. We
must fully understand what we are trying to accomplish -- before
we decide
that our present means and laws are inadequate. Taking the
necessary
time to understand what we need to do does not dishonor our
dead. Indeed, to
act in haste, with the resulting legislative
sloppiness, and to resort to
rhetorical cliches, dishonors
them.
I am here today because
I played a major role in the legislative
stampede in 1986 after Len Bias, the
basketball star, died from a cocaine
overdose. I was counsel to the
House Judiciary Committee and had been writing
anti-drug laws since 1979. In
August 1986, I saw the principles of careful
legislating I had been
taught cast aside. I saw the House of Representatives,
in a declaration
of war on drugs, undertake major revisions of numerous laws in
the course of
a few weeks. In September, the Senate followed suit, dispensing
with
hearings and the opportunity for analysis and
reflection.
In 1986, after only a few hours
of committee consideration, mandatory
minimum drug sentences were approved,
which led to the wreckage of a 15-year
effort to reform Federal criminal
sentencing laws. One consequence was that
experienced Federal judges
left the bench. Scores of senior judges refused to
try drug cases any
longer.
As a consequence of
other provisions, our relations with Latin America
were hurt by adoption of
the hastily-conceived drug certification law. A
hastily created money
laundering law was adopted. It is so broad that it is
used frequently
for criminal conduct that is not money
laundering.
The crucial step
that Congress omitted in 1986 was first gaining an
understanding of the
problem, and how to address it. The consequence of
failing to
understand the problems -- drug addiction, the nature of the drug
trade, the
economics of the drug trade, drug-related crime, organized crime,
corruption,
drug-related death and disease - is that the problems haven't
gotten better,
and, in many instances, much worse. The death rate from drugs
has
increased by 50 percent since 1986. Drugs are cheaper, more potent,
and
more plentiful.
This
failure is not from lack of effort. Our Federal
anti-drug
spending
has increased seven-fold from less than $3 billion in
1986 to almost $20
billion this year. The number of Federal drug
prisoners has increased from
12,000 to over
80,000.
After fifteen years,
none of the legislative blunders of 1986 have been
fixed, notwithstanding a
near-universal agreement on their ineffectiveness,
their great cost, and the
evidence they have been counter-productive. The
mistakes of
congressional haste are not easily
corrected.
A very real danger
is that in the next few days Congress will pass laws
and create programs that
won't reduce the threat of terrorism. The risk is
that only agencies
that have ineffectually fought terrorism so far will get
added powers and
more money.
Like
the millions of volunteers who have given blood and money and
labor
to the
rescue effort, Congress will have satisfied its need to do something.
The
desire to act is a natural desire of those in public service, especially at
a
time of crisis. But in 1986, I saw the congressional need to do
something
lead to the hasty development and passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse
Act.
At this time, we
think of the courage of others - of police officers,
fire fighters, and of
passengers on hijacked aircraft. Members of Congress are
eager to honor
such courage, and to associate themselves with it. In 1986,
they
remembered the courage of a murdered DEA agent, Enrique Camarena. In
the
1988 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, Congress named a funding program after Edward
Byrne,
a murdered New York police officer. A flood of words about
courage will pour
out of word processors, onto the floor of the House and
Senate, and into
the
TelePrompTers.
But the
President and congressional leaders are not interested in
congressional
courage. They want displays of unity. The
congressional
leadership bundles numerous provisions - some meritorious, and
others worthless
or worse - into a single package, hundreds of pages long,
daring a skeptical
Member to vote no. In such times, Members of
Congress rarely demonstrate
courage - they cast their votes in near
unanimity. The recent death threats
made against Rep. Barbara Lee
(D-CA) illuminate the potential price of such
courage if the anti-terrorism
response is packaged in a single
bill.
America must demand a
higher standard than merely letting Members of
Congress and the public feel
good because Congress passes a tough-sounding
bill. Members of Congress
must insist on the opportunity to process
legislation in discrete sections so
that separate provisions can be debated
separately. Members of Congress
must not be forced to vote for odious or
worthless provisions because they
are part of the package labeled as the fight
against
terrorism.
Should we expect
that all Members, most Members, any Members of
Congress
will read, word by
word, the package of new laws they are considering? How
many
Senators and Representatives will base their remarks and their votes
on
anything other than bullet-point summaries prepared by young staffers,
relying
upon briefing points prepared by party leaders, or by the Justice
Department?
When it comes time to vote, how many Members of Congress will
have thought
about the history of such efforts, about the implications of
such measures, or
about the price in lost liberty to be paid by innocent
Americans? Will
Congress attempt to actually quantify the gains in
security?
Restraint, analysis,
and reflection are the necessary steps toward
understanding what must be
done. These steps are not luxuries.
# # #