Students, Nuns and Sailor-Mongers, Beware
Students, Nuns and Sailor-Mongers, Beware
Los Angeles Times
October 17, 2003
Commentary
Students, Nuns and Sailor-Mongers, Beware
Atty. Gen.Ashcroft is pulling out all the stops to
prosecute protesters.
By Jonathan Turley
(Jonathan Turley is a professor of law at George
Washington University)
It has lain dormant in the darkest recesses of American
law for 125 years, but this month Atty. Gen. John
Ashcroft introduced critics of the administration to his
latest weapon in law enforcement.
In a Miami federal court, the attorney general charged
the environmental group Greenpeace under an obscure 1872
law originally intended to end the practice of "sailor-
mongering," or the luring of sailors with liquor and
prostitutes from their ships. Ashcroft plucked the law
from obscurity to punish Greenpeace for boarding a
vessel near port in Miami.
Not only is the law being used to prosecute one of the
administration's most vocal critics in an unprecedented
attack on the 1st Amendment, but it appears to be part
of a broader campaign by Ashcroft to protect the nation
against free speech, a campaign that has converted
environmentalists into "sailor-mongers" and nuns into
terrorists.
The case against Greenpeace started with a protest in
April 2002. The activist group was leading an
international effort to stop the illegal importing of
mahogany. It believed that a ship, the APL Jade, was
engaging in this illegal trade and decided to conduct
one of its signature demonstrations to protest the Bush
administration's failure to stop the imports.
In clearly marked boats, Greenpeace followed the ship.
Two of its members boarded the vessel about eight miles
outside the Miami port, carrying a banner that read
"President Bush, Stop Illegal Logging."
Such protests are common, and the two activists wore
Greenpeace jackets, identified themselves as Greenpeace
members and allowed themselves to be arrested. They
ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and were
released. The wood was unloaded and everyone seemed
satisfied.
Everyone, that is, except Ashcroft.
Fifteen months after the incident, the Justice
Department filed an indictment in Miami against the
entire Greenpeace organization under the 1872 law, a law
that appears to have been used only twice.
A New York court in 1872 described the law as both
"inartistic and obscure." An Oregon court in 1890
described the purpose of the law as preventing "the
evil" of "sailor-mongers [who] get on board vessels and
by the help of intoxicants, and the use of other means,
often savoring of violence, get the crews ashore and
leave the vessel without help to manage or care for
her."
Of course, there did not appear to be many sailors on
the APL Jade being lured out to join Greenpeace. But
proceeding against two protesters on trivial misdemeanor
charges wasn't enough for the Justice Department. So it
decided to treat Greenpeace activists not as protesters
but as sailor-mongers.
Greenpeace now could lose its tax-exempt status - a
potential death knell for a large public interest
organization. A conviction could also force Greenpeace
to regularly report its actions to the government. Such
a prospect must secretly delight many in the
administration who see the group as an ever-present
irritant. After all, it was Greenpeace that held the
first demonstration at the president's ranch after his
inauguration, causing a stir when activists unfurled a
banner reading "Bush: the Toxic Texan. Don't Mess With
the Earth."
Since that time, Greenpeace has waged a continual
campaign against Bush's environmental record. Ashcroft's
jihad against free speech, however, is not limited to
environmentalists. Consider the case of three Dominican
nuns. Last year, Sister Ardeth Platte, 66, Sister Jackie
Hudson, 68, and Sister Carol Gilbert, 55, participated
in a peaceful demonstration for nuclear disarmament.
As part of the protest, the three nuns cut through a
chain-link fence around a Minuteman III missile silo.
There is only a light fence because the missile is
protected by a 110-ton concrete cap that is designed to
withstand a nuclear explosion. The nuns proceeded to
paint crosses on the cap and symbolically hit it with
hammers. They then knelt, prayed, sang religious songs
and waited for arrest. The most the government could
allege in terms of damage was ,000.
However, the Ashcroft Justice Department wanted more
than compensation and a common misdemeanor. It charged
the nuns with obstructing national defense, which
subjected each to a potential 30-year prison term. When
the government pushed the court to impose sentences of
as much as eight years, the judge refused. However, the
judge found, as alleged by the government, that the
three nuns had put military personnel "in harm's way."
Accordingly, he imposed on them sentences ranging from 2
1/2 years to 3 1/2 years.
The administration has pursued a similar zero-tolerance
policy in other cases. It has been accused of using
unconstitutional "trap-and-arrest" tactics to suppress
protests in Washington, D.C., where hundreds of
journalists, bystanders and student protesters were
arrested en masse without a warning or an opportunity to
disperse. They were then left hog-tied in holding areas
for as long as 20 hours, with their hands bound to their
ankles.
The Greenpeace case is particularly chilling because of
the extraordinary effort to find a law that could be
used to pursue the organization. The 1872 law is a legal
relic that must have required much archeological digging
through law books to find.
It is also notable that other organizations have not
faced such attacks. For example, in this same judicial
district in Florida, the Cuban American group Democracy
Movement organized a protest in which members sailed
into a government-designated security zone. Although the
members were charged, the organization was not.
Similarly, other groups viewed favorably by the
administration - such as anti-abortion groups - have not
been subject to criminal indictments of their
organizations for such protests.
The extraordinary effort made to find and use this
obscure law strongly suggests a campaign of selective
prosecution - the greatest scourge of the 1st Amendment.
Greenpeace was engaged in a classic protest used by
countless organizations, from those of the civil rights
movement to anti-abortion groups. It is a way for
citizens to express their opposition by literally
standing in the path of the government.
None of these organizations contest the right of the
government to punish them for trespass or even criminal
misdemeanors. Indeed, they view such punishment as a
badge of honor.
However, Ashcroft is now seeking symbols of his own: The
image of a major environmentalist organization placed on
probation or nuns being sent to jail is clearly meant to
send a chilling message from the man who once accused
his critics of aiding and abetting terrorists.
Unless deterred by Congress or the courts, Ashcroft will
continue his campaign to protect Americans from the
ravages of free speech. If he succeeds, it will not be
sailors but free speech that will be shanghaied in
Miami.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-
turley17oct17,1,7018434.story
Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times
Original: Ashcroft's selective prosecution of Greenpeace, etc.