The Patriot Act Is Your Friend 

Viet Dinh has been called a "political pit bull" and "a foot soldier" for Attorney General John Ashcroft. But the 36-year-old author of the Patriot Act prefers to be called an "attendant of freedom."

In May 2001, the professor of law at Georgetown University was tapped by the Justice Department to work for two years as an assistant attorney general, working primarily on judicial nominations for the department. But three months later the World Trade Center towers collapsed, and Dinh was drafted to work on the USA Patriot Act, a bill that would give the government some of its most controversial surveillance powers. The bill, coupled with the government's subsequent treatment of immigrants and native-born citizens, prompted critics to charge the administration with overthrowing "800 years of democratic tradition."

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Ironically, Dinh is an immigrant himself. The youngest of seven children born in Vietnam, he was 7 years old when communists took over the country and imprisoned his father, a city councilman, for "reeducation." Three years later, Dinh's mother escaped with him and five of his siblings to the United States. His father arrived eight years later.

Dinh graduated from Harvard Law School and clerked for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. He has had a hand in many high-profile issues, including the Whitewater investigation and the impeachment trial of former President Clinton. In 2000, he also wrote a friend-of-the-court brief for the Supreme Court on behalf of Florida voters who favored George W. Bush's win in the contested presidential election.

He once said that he was drawn to study the government because he "had seen government that did not work," and he was drawn to the Republican Party because of his hatred for communism.

Wired News spoke to Dinh about the Patriot Act and its effect on the liberties of American citizens.

Wired News: The Patriot Act was drafted and passed quite hastily in response to the crisis of 9/11. Do we still need it?

Viet Dinh: There is no question that the last 28 months of peace in America, where not another life has been lost on American soil to terrorism, would have been much more difficult without the USA Patriot Act. I do think we still need it. The terrorists are out there trying to reinvent themselves. It behooves us all to think about how we (could) better do our job to close the barn door for the next horse, not just for the last one, and to be proactive about ways to combat terrorism.

WN: An estimated 5,000 people have been subjected to detention since 9/11. Of those, only five -- three noncitizens and two citizens -- were charged with terrorism-related crimes and one was convicted. How do we justify such broad-sweeping legislation that has resulted in very few terrorist-related convictions?

Dinh: I've heard the 5,000 number. The official numbers released from the Department of Justice indicate approximately 500 persons have been charged with immigration violations and have been deported who have been of interest to the 9/11 investigation. Also, approximately 300 individuals have been criminally charged who are of interest to the 9/11 investigation. Of the persons criminally charged, approximately half have either pled guilty or been convicted after trial.

It may well be that a number of citizens were not charged with terrorism-related crimes, but they need not be. Where the department has suspected people of terrorism it will prosecute those persons for other violations of law, rather than wait for a terrorist conspiracy to fully develop and risk the potential that that conspiracy will be missed and thereby sacrificing innocent American lives in the process.

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