THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 23, 1996 TAG: 9606230072
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 60 lines
An all-star panel of lawyers met in Virginia Beach on Saturday to discuss domestic terrorism and debate the merits of a new federal law designed to counter the violence.
The new measure gives law enforcement officials unprecedented powers to investigate and prosecute suspected terrorists and their supporters.
Saturday's program brought together five of the nation's foremost experts on domestic terrorism, including lead prosecutors from the World Trade Center bombing case and the bomb-conspiracy case against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the FBI's deputy general counsel and a Georgetown University Law Center professor who says the new anti-terrorism laws are trampling on personal freedoms.
The two-hour seminar was sponsored by the Young Lawyers Conference of the Virginia State Bar at the bar's annual meeting at Virginia Beach's Cavalier Hotel.
``We are clearly on an up-cycle of violent acts directed randomly at civilians,'' said George J. Terwilliger III, former deputy attorney general in the Bush administration. ``I think you do see these things go up and down . .
The recently passed counter-terrorism legislation was Congress' response to rising fear of terrorism - prompted by such incidents as the bombings of the World Trade Center by Islamic fundamentalists and of the federal building in Oklahoma City, allegedly by people affiliated with the right-wing militia movement.
``To put in context how prevalent terrorism is, and I'm not trying to scare anybody, but there is a lot of good preventative work done by law enforcement,'' said the FBI's Lisa Kate Osofsky. ``We can't tell you about the acts of terrorism that we have prevented.''
The new law sets aside a long-established legal precedent that people cannot be punished for supporting the lawful activities of a group that performs both legal and illegal acts, said David Cole, the constitutional law professor from Georgetown.
``We're moving away from counter-terrorism and starting to engage in guilt by association,'' Cole said.
Under the new law, for example, someone who provides a blanket to a hospital run by the Palestinian group Hamas could be subject to prosecution resulting in up to 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine, he said.
According to Israeli security forces, 95 percent of what Hamas does is legal, he said.
Osofsky said, however, ``That's an unrealistic view of how the law would be used.''
Patrick J. Fitzgerald, chief of the organized crime and terrorism unit of the New York U.S. Attorney's Office, said, ``There's a reluctance among law enforcement agencies to be seen as trampling on anyone's civil rights.''
``There's a difference between investigating and prosecuting,'' said Fitzgerald, who prosecuted Sheik Rahman and other Islamic extremists convicted of plotting to bomb the Lincoln Tunnel, the United Nations and other New York City sites. ``If we investigate and find out someone's just exercising their First Amendment rights, we're going to step back and say, `OK.' ''
However, he said, returning to Cole's example, even if Hamas uses 95 percent of its money for legal activities, maybe 5 percent funds a bus bomb.
``If 5 percent is going to bombs,'' he said. ``then we should be able to say you're not going to use our country to raise money to kill people.'' by CNB