Views > April 22, 2008

Political Vice Squad

By Joel Bleifuss

In October 2001, when Congress passed the Patriot Act — and again when it reauthorized it in 2006 — the Bush administration assured nervous but compliant members of Congress that these expanded domestic surveillance tools were needed to protect the homeland.

Bush partisans scoffed at critics who worried these new spy powers might be used for nefarious political purposes. After all, that hasn’t happened since the ’70s — during the last ill-fated war (Vietnam) waged by a criminally inclined Republican president (Nixon) — and the ’80s — during the last illegal war (Central America) waged by a morally challenged Republican president (Reagan).

So forgive us if we raise an eyebrow after learning that among the 1 million-plus Suspicious Activity Reports that banks secretly forwarded last year to the Justice Department (as required by the Patriot Act), those allegedly connected to former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) were the ones that rose to the top.

Even more suspiciously, the New York Times reported in March that Justice Department officials, who asked to remain anonymous, admitted, “For years … the department has rarely, if ever, prosecuted or even identified the clients of a prostitution ring.” And yet after the department discovered that Spitzer had hired a prostitute, an unknown number of FBI agents were tasked to keep the governor under surveillance.

The examination of Spitzer’s bank records, which led to the discovery that he had hired a prostitute, began last summer when the department was run by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — who resigned in September under allegations that he had committed perjury and politicized the U.S. Attorney’s offices.

Finally, why did the Justice Department go after Spitzer when it had previously worked to protect whoring politicians? Recall the story of Pamela Martin Associates, a prostitution ring that Deborah Jeane Palfrey operated (office, home or hotel visits) in Washington, D.C., from 1993 to 2005.

Palfrey’s attorney described the thousands of men who bought the firm’s services as “high-quality clientele” whose assignations “were always in upscale hotels or in upscale parts of D.C., Maryland and Virginia.” The 10 years of phone records weighed 46 pounds.

In March 2007, the Gonzales Justice Department sought a judicial gag order to prevent Palfrey from revealing the name of her clients. In July, a federal judge denied the request, and Palfrey released some, but not all, of her records. Among the johns was Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who unlike Spitzer, is still in office. It is not known what other members of Congress or administration officials were Palfrey clients.

Scott Horton, who covers Justice Department shenanigans for Harper’s, points out that the department’s Public Integrity Section was in charge of the Spitzer investigation. During the Bush administration, Public Integrity has opened 5.6 cases against Democrats for every one case against a Republican. On the magazine’s website, Horton also suggests, “The Justice Department needs to submit to some questions about how this probe got launched, who launched it and to what extent political appointees were involved in its direction.”

Circumstantial evidence indicates that a corrupt Justice Department has used powers granted under the Patriot Act to investigate and then target Spitzer, who was, until his fall from grace, one of the nation’s most powerful and popular Democratic governors.

A congressional inquiry is warranted.

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• Reader Comments

  One thing I’d like to do is to push Hillary and Barack and John into a corner and get straight from their mouths what exactly they plan to do about that horrorshow law, that truncator of constitutional protections, that ocean of fascistic possibilities, known far and wide as the USA PATRIOT Act. A newspeak-named assault on the whole idea of rights, I say. I’ve been in hate with the mf’n thing from the second I heard of it.

  I doubt if any one of them would give me anything but a canned, suck-up answer. I’d love to be proven wrong.

  First it was 9/11 and then that monstrosity, all within about a month. Talk about your 1-2 punch! It about made me cry. I remember REAL clear.

  Damn that f’d-up law for the piece of misdirection that it is, as if the world is any safer from violent extremists by us dropping protections against overweaning government power. As if half-erasing the Bill of Rights is necessary to get FBI and CIA to communicate effectively. It’s a goddamn shame.

  Focus on the police work, drop the primate territoriality among police and intelligence agencies, and leave the constitutional rights in place, unmolested.

  You didn’t buy that bullshit line that “we’re too free” did you?  Like WTC 1, 2 and 7 collapsed because we’re too free?? Tsk tsk. Snap out of it.

  John? Hillary? Barack? Whoever of you takes the Oval Office. Burn that law. Order the agencies to get their acts together, fire the directors who fail to make sure it happens, and burn that stinking law! Your place in history will be golden.

  Posted by Kuya on Apr 24, 2008 at 10:05 PM

  Wow Joel, your article was only on the front e-page for a day or so, got archived almost immediately while older articles stayed up front. Almost as if my perfectly correct and entirely legal expression of political opinion DQ’d it.

  Sorry about that.

  Well, sorry the editorial decision went the way it did, especially since your article helps point up the questionability of the law and how it gets used.

  Not sorry at all about my take on the USA PATRIOT Act.

  Here are 3 links to the parts of a documentary you all may find interesting, entitled “Unconstitutional: The War On Civil Liberties.”

  Part 1
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu6ZBY08M38

  Part 2
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqfE0dg7z_s

  Part 3
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bcg1W48v0qo

  Every square inch of the United States of America is a free-speech zone! Dont forget that.

  Posted by Kuya on Apr 29, 2008 at 8:24 PM

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• Political Vice Squad