Op-Ed Argues for Preventive Detention of Terrorism Suspects
The laws have been stretched to cover the case of Jose Padilla, paving the way for precedents that could allow government overreaching in garden-variety criminal cases, a former New Jersey attorney general argues in a New York Times op-ed.
Padilla, at one time accused of plotting to detonate a dirty bomb, will be sentenced this week for conspiracy and providing material support to al-Qaida. He and his co-defendants are accused of plotting an attack that never happened, writes John Farmer, now a law professor at Rutgers.
Both charges “are extremely vague, because ideas behind both strain to reach conduct that may be, in other contexts, entirely innocent,” Farmer says.
A better option in such cases, Farmer says, is for Congress to pass legislation allowing preventive detention in future terrorism cases. Such a step “is the best way to ensure both the integrity of our criminal law and the safety of our nation,” he says.
The material support statute previously was limited to those who provided money or weapons to federally designated terrorist groups. But with the prosecutions of Padilla and John Walker Lindh, known as the American Taliban, the law now covers those who merely offer themselves as material support.
Similarly, the conspiracy statute is being interpreted to allow prosecution of conduct that is similar to a thought crime, Farmer says. Over time, the terrorism cases may set precedents that would make an agreement alone a crime. “This would render thoughts punishable, reward government overreaching and erode our civil liberties,” he says.
