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Talking liberties with Nat Hentoff. (Interview).

Article Excerpt
A self-described "Jewish atheist," syndicated columnist, jazz aficionado, civil libertarian, and the Village Voice's resident iconoclast, Nat Hentoff has never followed a party line. A man of the left, he's infuriated his own by being pro-life. Now, he's making the right mad by attacking John Ashcroft.

Hentoff, 76, has been a provocateur ever since, as a boy in Boston, he stood up for the neighborhood butcher who sold non-kosher meat. If there is nothing that raises your hackles in Hentoff's candid conversation with TWQ editor Charlotte Hays, then you just aren't reading very carefully.

TWQ: You've been concerned about the erosion of civil liberties because of the war on terrorism. But I would argue that it's not as bad as in England during World War II when national elections were suspended.

HENTOFF: First of all, we have a written Constitution. And it's worse, and I'll tell you why. There is much more advanced technology now than there was in World War II. We didn't have the Internet. The government was not able to read e-mails or look at what websites people go to. We also didn't have roving wiretaps. But now there's a one-stop warrant that a judge in any jurisdiction can give, and it applies throughout the country. Let's say somebody is using a pay phone. Anybody else who uses that phone becomes part of the record. If he goes to the office of a friend, that becomes part of the record. Even during World War I, when Woodrow Wilson practically abolished the First Amendment, nobody was able to do what [Attorney General John] Ashcroft has done in the USA Patriot Act.

The act even allows the FBI to get a warrant in a secret court. An FBI agent can go to a library or a bookstore and demand the names of the books that have been bought or borrowed by people suspected of involvement in terrorism. But the definition of terrorism is so broad that it could include a good many citizens, as well as non-citizens. This is unprecedented. There is also a gag order so that a librarian or the...

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