When suspected child molester Terry Adkins and his wife got bagged for child porn and other sexual assaults, and a Pennsylvania girl was rescued from the abductor she met on the Internet, prosecutors had two sections of the Patriot Act to thank in large part for it.
So said Attorney General John Ashcroft, in a July 13 statement "from the field" on the controversial package's usefulness, a report he presented to the House Judiciary Committee, in what he admitted was all but a move to help quell criticism of the Act.
"There are those who have criticized us for using the Patriot Act aggressively both in our war with al Qaeda and to protect the innocent from criminal predators," Ashcroft said. "This report will help reinforce what the majority of Americans already know: When it comes to saving lives and protecting freedom, we must use the Patriot Act and every legal means available to us."
And at least one criminal justice analyst says he would not be surprised to learn some Patriot Act supporters might try to intimidate Patriot Act opponents by accusing them of therefore supporting child porn and/or child sex abuse if they oppose the Act.
"The debate over the [Patriot Act] has been highly charged since the very beginning," Timothy Lynch, who directs the libertarian Cato Institute's Project on Criminal Justice, told AVNOnline.com. "Take its very name – it was an effort to intimidate any people raising questions about it. Ashcroft famously said people decrying [the Act's] civil liberties [effects] are aiding terrorists. The idea about [accusing] somebody raising questions [about the Act] as being sympathetic or not tough enough on child pornographers is certainly a distinct possibility."
Ashcroft said law enforcement used section 210 of the Patriot Act to investigate Adkins over sexual assaults of children at public libraries and local parks, using the section to get "key information from an Internet service provider," information that helped investigators get a search warrant for the Adkins' home, where evidence turned up enough to charge and prosecute them for 100 counts of receiving and possessing child porn.
The couple was also tied through that prosecution to multiple sexual assaults in Kentucky and Virginia, and the couple was sentenced to 30- and 90-year prison terms, Ashcroft said.
Ashcroft also said section 212 of the Patriot Act was a key in recovering a 13-year-old girl from Western Pennsylvania who was lured and held captive by a 38-year-old man she met on the Internet. "An anonymous caller contacted the FBI and stated that he had chatted online recently with an individual claiming to have taken a girl from Pittsburgh," he said. "Based on information provided by that caller, FBI agents in Pittsburgh quickly requested information from an Internet service provider pursuant to section 212."
Patriot Act opponents have criticized the package for compromising too many privacy rights in the name of enhancing security actual or alleged, and Patriot Act supporters have often enough used the package as a club to intimidate critics and questioners and even to tar them as supporting terrorism if they reject the Act.
Lynch said that if people might be surprised that two sections of the Act were used in child porn and sex abuse cases, it was a consequence of the rush job done to get the original Patriot Act passed and enacted.
"It's not as if they are sneaking or abusing the powers of the Patriot Act," Lynch said of the child porn and child sex abuse cases. "It's just that… it didn't go through the normal vetting process, where there are hearings and a real opportunity to study the law and what its implications would be."
