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Back to East Berlin
Wired informants, interrogation without benefit of an attorney, threats, coercion. Sound familiar? It was rampant in East Germany and the rest of the Soviet Bloc during the Cold War, and it seems to be becoming popular in 1998 in the USA. After viewing Monday night's Discovery program on espionage and the Cold War, I find I am having flashbacks reading Robert Scheer's column in today's Los Angeles Times, "Scrutinize the Hunters Along With the Hunted." Scheer's basic question: "Is the Starr inquiry whittling basic legal rights in its zeal to get the president?" The tactics utilized in the interrogation of Monica Lewinsky would seem to suggest that "whittling" might more aptly be called "bulldozing." In a civil matter, not high treason, espionage, or murder, Ms. Lewinsky was apparently detained for nine hours in a hotel room with five FBI agents and five prosecutors, without being allowed to have an attorney present. She was alternately cajoled and allegedly threatened with a 20-year prison term if she did not say what the boys with the badges wanted to hear. Scheer further notes, "Starr's attempt to bargain an immunity deal with Monica Lewinsky without a lawyer present violates the ethics code of the American Bar association, according to its president, Jerome Shestack...." Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, apparently accountable to no one and with taxpayers' money to burn, has lined up a team of highly zealous prosecutors, including Michael W. Emmick, the same individual who was turned loose on Susan McDougal in a vain attempt to "get something, get anything" on the Clintons. Mr. Emmick and his staff had previously been reportedly chastised by Judge Robert Takasugi for "threats, deceit and harassment techniques" in a case involving a Los Angeles County Sherrif's deputy. At this point, I, like many Americans, am no longer interested in whether some possible impropriety occurred, because the fallout from this alleged affair is in my mind far more serious. I fear we are seeing a flagrant case of "the ends justify the means" at the expense of basic legal ethics and personal civil liberties. Along with Mr. Scheer, I hope that the media will focus more of its attention on the questionable tactics of our prosecutors and less attention on what should be best left in private. |
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