Pubdate: Thu, 18 Nov 1999 Source: Newsday (NY) Copyright: 1999, Newsday Inc. Contact: (516)843-2986 Website: http://www.newsday.com/ OVERZEALOUS DRUG-LORD BILL ABUSES CIVIL RIGHTS Foreign drug kingpins and their assets in the United States are the targets of a bill that is speeding through Congress, but it is the right to due process that will take the first hit if it becomes law. Under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, officials could freeze the assets of anyone the president identified as a drug kingpin. The bill sets no criteria for the kingpin designation; it requires no notice, hearing or proof and it actually prohibits review by a judge. Once someone was on the list, only the president could rescind the designation. Any American citizen or company that did business with someone identified as a drug kingpin could be hit with a penalty of 10 years in prison and a $10-million fine. Neither citizen nor firm would be allowed any opportunity to challenge the drug-dealer designation. Those are intolerable abuses of the Constitution's guarantee of due process and ample reason for President Bill Clinton to veto the bill. Intensifying financial pressure on multinational crime organizations is not a bad strategy. But in its zeal to wage war on drugs, Congress would give unchecked power to identify kingpins to fallible bureaucrats; remember, U.S. officials mistakenly targeted for bombing the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and an innocuous pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. Even the antiterrorism act of 1996 allows a group identified as a terrorist organization to challenge that designation in court. It wasn't until the kingpin bill was taken up in conference committee that lawmakers responded to criticism of its Kafkaesque nature. Their inadequate response-adding a provision to create a judicial-review commission that would have one year after the bill became law to recommend changes to ensure its constitutionality-relegates civil liberties to the status of afterthought. That won't do. There is no good reason for Congress to rush to pass into law a bill that will never withstand constitutional scrutiny. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea