Ashcroft as an angry God.

• Author: Koster, Patricia M.
• Position: Letters to the Editor

Nat Hentoff's article in your October issue ("Judges on the Blacklist") covers only a portion of Ashcroft's incursions on our civil liberties. According to a recent Associated Press item, the laws intended to fight terrorism are being used more and more against citizens involved in common crimes. Within six months of its passage, the Justice Department was training its people in how to stretch the new powers of the Patriot Act to cover ordinary citizens. One case is that of a North Carolina man accused of running a metham-phetamine lab who is being prosecuted for "manufacturing a chemical weapon." The ACLU, the NAACP, numerous other organizations, and ordinary citizens should be up in arms and protesting loud and long. If convicted, this man could get twelve years to life in prison for a crime that usually...