The toxic Texan's revenge

Today the U.S. government will begin prosecution for one of the most grievous crimes committed in recent memory -- sailor-mongering.\nWhat? You've never heard of sailor-mongering? That's because the last time someone was prosecuted for it was in 1890, according to Reuters. Today, however, the Bush administration will take the organization Greenpeace to trial in federal district court in Miami for sailor-mongering.\nThis all began in April 2002. Greenpeace was leading an international effort to stop the illegal logging of mahogany in the Amazon rainforest. Greenpeace activists boarded a ship carrying the illegally felled wood and hung a sign saying "President Bush: Stop Illegal Logging." They allowed themselves to be arrested and were prosecuted for a trivial misdemeanor and sentenced to time served -- a weekend in jail. Apparently this was not enough for U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.\nGreenpeace has been one of the most vocal critics of the president ever since his inauguration. They lovingly refer to him as "The Toxic Texan," and have continually criticized his environmental record. Now, it was time for revenge. \nSailor-mongering was a somewhat common practice in the 19th century. Whorehouses would send prostitutes carrying alcohol aboard ships, where they would get the sailors drunk and seduce them to come to shore. This would leave the ships empty and unable to dock properly. Only twice in U.S. history had someone been prosecuted for this vague crime -- until now. \nThe Ashcroft Justice Department has never been a fan of dissent. Be it the supposed "free-speech zones" that protesters are caroled in or the arrest of nuns for committing symbolic acts of damage to missile silos designed to withstand a nuclear blast, the attorney general has always done his best to encourage Americans to keep their mouths shut. \nThe Greenpeace prosecution takes all of this to an entirely new level with its potential threats to organizations that frequently engage in protests. If Greenpeace is convicted of this crime, they could be charged $10,000 and could lose their tax-exempt status, which, as a large public interest organization, could mean their demise.\nEven greater than the danger to Greenpeace is the danger to free speech. If Ashcroft succeeds in prosecuting a group for their political expression, it could discourage all manner of activist groups from speaking out. Civil disobedience, whether practiced by the Founding Fathers, female suffragettes in the early 20th century or civil rights leaders in the 1960s, has always been a way for groups to promote political change. \nOne of the most frightening aspects of this case is the effort to which the Justice Department had to resort to find a crime with which to prosecute Greenpeace. Sailor-mongering is an arcane crime and even a well-trained legal scholar would have to spend months of research to find an obscure law like this. This seems indicative of a concerted attempt to attack the organization. \nThe Justice Department under Ashcroft has always been a scary thing. He was so unpopular he lost an election to a dead man, and then Bush makes him the attorney general. The mass arrests after 9-11 and the Patriot Act were all quite bad enough, but now Ashcroft is pushing the limits even further. \nIt worries me what he would try to do during a second Bush term. Maybe I'm just confused. I always thought the attorney general was supposed to protect the cornerstones of American justice, such as free speech, and not attack them.