When he was a congressman, Bob Barr was a little schizophrenic when it came to protecting liberty. He was a steadfast defender of property rights and privacy, for example, but was dreadful when it came to the drug war. He once suggested, for example, that the federal government use RICO statutes to prosecute advocates of decriminalization. That would include entities such as NORML, the Drug Policy Alliance, and, well, me.

When a medicinal marijuana referendum came up for a vote in D.C., Barr attempted to use Congress’ oversight of the District to prevent the votes from even being counted.

In fact, the Libertarian Party took partial credit for the 2002 Republican primary defeat that ended Barr’s career in Congress. The LP had targeted Barr for defeat and run ads against him specificaly because of his drug war vigilance (it’s more likely that his loss to Rep. John Linder was the result of redistricting).

What a difference three years makes.

Today, Barr is probably liberty’s greatest champion among conservatives who still hold some sway at gatherings like CPAC. He has allied himself with the ACLU, and spends much of his time fighting the USA PATRIOT Act. Last year, Barr not only spoke to the same Libertarian Party that worked to have him defeated in 2002, he announced he would vote for its candidate for president. Now Barr links to the Libertarian Party on his website (but not, interestingly enough, the GOP). He also includes Gene Healy’s book among his Amazon recomendations.

I spoke with Barr briefly at CPAC on Friday, though I’m not sure I covered any more ground than Jesse Walker did in his interview with Barr a little more than a year ago.

I’d originally wanted to ask Barr to distinguish his concerns for liberty lost in pursuit of the war on terror with liberty lost in pursuit of the drug war (answer: there’s not much distincition, and to the extent that there is, liberty lost in the war on terror is probably a little more tolerable).

But I was told by the nice woman who got me the interview that drug war questions would probably be a good way to cut the interview short.

Eh, what the hell. I figured I could live with that. Here’s one of few conservatives with movement bona-fides who’s doing his part to reclaim a little liberty. It’s good to have him on the side of the angels. Why push it?

My short interview after the jump.

Me: Can you give me a progress report on what’s going on with PATRIOT?

Barr: This year, 2005, will in many respects determine whether or not we have any privacy left in America, and it will also determine whether the Bill of Rights will continue to have meaning. What I’m talking about is what you just asked about, and that’s the PATRIOT Act and legislation related to government powers.

This administration is working very hard to make sure that all provisions of the PATRIOT Act that were to be sunsetted in 2005 are made permanent. Not only that, but they are trying to expand and enhance the PATRIOT Act. So our first job is to make sure it doesn’t get worse, that the PATRIOT Act isn’t expanded. Second, we want to make sure that some of these provisions remain sunsetted. And third, to continue what we tried to do in the last Congress, the 108th, and what some like Senator Feingold and others have tried to do in this Congress, and that is to place some reasonable limits on the more problematic provisions of the act.

All of these things are going to be very, very difficult. But in order of priority, I’d say we need to stop the PATRIOT Act from being expanded, then make sure that the more problematic provisions are limited, for example, to national security and subject to judicial oversight, and then try and retain some of the sunset provisions.

Me: You mention ensuring that we limit the use of PATRIOT to issues of national security. That hasn’t been happening. We’ve heard, for example, of a strip club owner in Nevada who faced charges brought by PATRIOT provisions, and the most famous case might that of the Paypal online service, which was charged under PATRIOT because its customers were using it for online gaming. PATRIOT was passed in the wake of 9/11, and most in Congress told us it was needed to fight terrorism. But did Congress really think the law would only be used in crimes related to national security?

Barr: When the administration first sent up the PATRIOT Act, it wasn’t called that. That was an acroynym they came up with later. But the Bush administration has always wanted the law to apply very broadly. Now when it came to the Congress, we looked at it and said that these provisions should only apply to cases involving terorism. The administration assured us in the Congress that those would be the only cases in which the more troubling provisions would be used. We did try to put some limitations in place, but we didn’t have the votes to secure them.

So what we’ve seen happen, as you’ve indicated, is the USA PATRIOT Act’s use in cases that have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.

Me: How much time did Congress have to read the PATRIOT Act between its introduction in its final form and the vote on whether or not to pass it? My impression is that most members weren’t given much time to look it over.

Barr: That’s exactly correct. We had various renditions of the act come to us over several weeks. The administration wanted to have the act considered and passed without ever even going through committee. No hearings or anything. Just bypass the committee and go directly to the floor. Thankfully, the Republican leadership, and in particular [Rep.] Jim Sensenbrenner, the chairman of the judiciary committee, wouldn’t let that happen. So at least we had some hearings. But the weren’t nearly of the depth that a piece of legislation of that complexity and importance should have required.

That said, we did work out a version of the USA PATRIOT Act in the judiciary committee that secured the votes of every member. It was unanimous, Republicans and Democrats. That was the version we thought would be coming to the floor. Then at the very last minute — literally the night before, maybe early in the morning of the day the bill was to come up for a floor vote — a new version appeared. Some members had no idea what was in it. They had no chance to read it before voting. I read it — I got a version at the last minute on the floor. But the whole process was truncated in a way that never should have happened for a piece of legislation that important.

Me: Are you disappointed in the lack of skepticism conservatives have shown for a bill that does so much to expand the power of the federal government?

Barr: It’s been very disappointing over the last few years. Some conservatives understand very clearly. I do some work with the ACU [American Conservative Union]. The folks at Cato understand. Others don’t understand so clearly what’s at stake. A lot of conservatives take the positon that if it makes us safer, they don’t mind giving up some of our freedoms. These people ought to know better. They really ought to know better. They ought to remember what Ben Franklin said, that those who trade freedom for security will get neither.

They’re going to get neither.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 20th, 2005 at 10:30 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.