[iwar] [fc:Ashcroft.Discusses.New.Powers]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-26 07:39:46
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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 07:39:46 -0700 (PDT)
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Subject: [iwar] [fc:Ashcroft.Discusses.New.Powers]
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Ashcroft Discusses New Powers

By Karen Gullo Associated Press Writer Thursday, Oct. 25, 2001; 7:54 p.m.
EDT

WASHINGTON нн Attorney General John Ashcroft pledged Thursday to use new
powers granted by Congress to pursue terrorist suspects relentlessly,
intercept their phone calls, read their unopened e-mail and phone messages
and throw them in jail for the smallest of crimes.

Echoing a threat then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy made four decades ago
to pursue mobsters for spitting on the sidewalk, Ashcroft said: "Let the
terrorists among us be warned."

"If you overstay your visas even by one day, we will arrest you; if you
violate a local law, we will hope that you will, and work to make sure that
you are put in jail and be kept in custody as long as possible," he said in
a speech to the nation's mayors.

Justice officials said they intend to use the new surveillance and wiretap
powers granted by Congress on Thursday to build cases against many suspected
terrorists already in custody on immigration issues or technicalities.
President Bush has promised to sign the bill quickly into law.

Authorities have arrested or detained 952 people in connection with the
Sept. 11 attacks, including 168 detained on immigration charges. Many have
been arrested for relatively low-level crimes н bank fraud, false
identification or overstaying on visas. Most remain in custody, officials
said. 

A small number of these people, who are not cooperating, are believed to
have terrorist connections or links to the 19 hijackers who crashed
airliners into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a
Pennsylvania field. One, detained in Minnesota, had sought suspicious flight
instruction. Two others, detained in Texas, were found with a large amount
of cash and box-cutters similar to those used by the hijackers.

Mohammed Jaweed Azmath and Ayub Ali Khan are jailed in New York as material
witnesses. The two, detained on an Amtrak train in Fort Worth, Texas, seemed
nervous when approached and told conflicting stories about their travel
plans, police said.

When officers said the travel plans sounded suspicious, according to a
police report, Azmath said: "I did not have anything to do with New York."

Officials plan to run anthrax tests on items from the men's Jersey City,
N.J., apartment, which contained magazine articles about bioterrorism.

The legislation allows intelligence officials to share information with
prosecutors for the first time. The immediate affect will be that a bundle
of intelligence files from the CIA and other agencies on terrorism suspects
will be shipped to a Justice Department terrorism task force headed by
Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff.

Files on prior attacks and radical groups gathered before the Sept. 11
attacks are of particular interest for what they may reveal about possible
new attacks, Justice Department officials said.

While new intelligence information will be available, investigators are
still waiting for tests that will show whether the anthrax sent to Sen. Tom
Daschle, D-S.D., was treated with chemical additives.

That would indicate the anthrax probably was produced in a sophisticated
state-sponsored lab. Officials have cited early indications that the anthrax
attacks might be the work of a domestic terrorist.

Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said the anthrax sent to Daschle was
altered to make it more easily inhaled.

The FBI said anthrax that contaminated postal facilities in New Jersey
appeared to be home grown.

"Tests are showing that it could be locally produced given the right
circumstances," said Special Agent Sandra Carroll, a spokeswoman for the
FBI's Newark office.

Carroll said the route of a New Jersey letter carrier who was infected with
anthrax has shown no sign of the bacteria. The route was under suspicion
because of the carrier's infection.

Forty-six post offices feed into the Trenton, N.J., facility where three
anthrax-laced letters were postmarked. Video surveillance tapes of those
post offices are under review, Carroll said.

In another development, an illegal alien from El Salvador charged with
helping one of the 18 hijackers fraudulently obtain a Virginia
identification card was ordered held without bail pending a preliminary
hearing set for Monday.

Victor Lopez-Flores, accused of helping hijacker Ahmed Alghamdi, is the
fourth person charged with abetting the hijackers in obtaining false
Virginia identification.

Mail delivery at the Justice Department was suspended, and environmental
tests were being performed at in-house mail-handling facilities and a mail
center in Maryland that processes the department's mail.

There is no evidence of anthrax, but the tests are precautionary, officials
said. Justice Department mail is first processed through a mail facility in
Washington where anthrax has been found. 

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