As we noted earlier, Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff has suggested that giving federal law enforcers the power to arrest people without charges and hold them for up to a month is a good idea.
Of course, his department doesn’t have primary responsibilty for such investigations. That belongs to the FBI. And it turns out they’re a bit shy of the topic.
“I think that on something like this, when it deals with what the law is, it’s really more appropriate for the Department of Justice to talk about that,” FBI spokesman Paul Bresson told me. “We’re not going to opine on what laws would be better, what should be strengthened.”
Really? If that’s the FBI’s policy, it’s a new one. In the past, the bureau has loudly told Congress and the world what kind of legislation it thought it needed to do its job.
“We need renewal of the Patriot Act,” FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III told an audience at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in April 2005. “The Patriot Act is essential for us to do our job in preventing terrorist attacks in the United States in a variety of ways, and I’m hopeful that the Senate and the House will very shortly be able to pass the renewal of that act.”
“It is my pleasure to appear before you this morning to discuss legislation that would reauthorize many important provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act and provide important new tools to national security investigators,” FBI general counsel Valerie Caproni told the Senate intelligence committee in open session in May 2005.
So why aren’t they talking? Dodging a loser issue? Perhaps. In any case, if the FBI believed this was a “valuable tool,” it’s not clear why the FBI Director and others aren’t out pushing for it.
Of course, there’s still time. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has called for a review of British and U.S. terror laws, including the Brits’ long-term detention policy. But even he cast some doubt on Chertoff’s idea. âIs it consistent with our Constitution?” Gonzales said Monday of the proposal. “We have to look at that.â
