Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Needed: Action by DOJ

Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2001 | 8:14 a.m.

Some Americans were rather confused when Ashcroft appeared before Congress to push the use of military tribunals for trials of foreigners suspected of terrorism against the United States. I thought he had some pretty good reasons for the use of the tribunals, but then he got carried away when saying criticism of the administration's methods is designed to "scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty." We, as Americans, must ask the hard questions about any and all public policy. If we don't, we are failing to prepare ourselves to vote intelligently.

While some of the attorney general's answers were confusing, others were rather amusing. His department now refuses to allow the FBI to use recent gun purchase records for the purpose of backtracking possible buys by suspected terrorists. The New York Times commented, "In light of the attorney general's dismissal of any sensitivity to civil liberties issues when it comes to the war on terrorism, it was dismaying this week to see how quickly his own department became hypersensitive when the issue turned to the privacy rights of gun owners. Reversing the department's previous reading of the law, Mr. Ashcroft has refused to let the FBI use the Justice Department database of gun purchases to find out whether any of the people being held as terrorism suspects had bought guns illegally ..."

Today large numbers of Americans have reason to believe that next year the DOJ should spend more than a little time and effort looking into the Enron debacle. The collapse, because of creative mismanagement and ducking of professional practices, has resulted in billions of dollars in losses for unsuspecting investors. President George W. Bush's close friend and heavy political contributor, Ken Lay, evidently played a dangerous game when growing Enron into a financial and political disaster.

No, I don't own any Enron stock and its collapse doesn't affect me directly, but it has been devastating in the lives of others. That large energy trading company, with some of our nation's most politically connected directors, hurt millions of people.

Steven Pearlstein and Peter Behr of the Washington Post, writing about Enron, tell readers, "The company's 21,000 employees have lost much of their retirement savings because their pension accounts were stuffed with now-worthless Enron stock, and many have lost their jobs as well. Some of the nation's biggest mutual fund companies, including Alliance Capital, Janus, Putnam and Fidelity, have lost billions of dollars in value."

The smell of possible criminal activity permeates the actions of Enron's board of directors, its auditing board and auditors. There are good reasons to also investigate the lack of action by Wall Street analysts and credit rating agencies that allowed the collapse to be a surprise.

I'd say that some of the sharpest prosecutors should be put on the trail of Enron, a company that has spread financial terror over our country. If the attorney general doesn't act, then it will be up to the U.S. Senate because the House of Representatives, both Republicans and Democrats, either doesn't understand the depth of the problem or doesn't want to act. This is true if a recent joint hearing of the House Capital Markets and Oversight Subcommittees is any indication.

Business executive James Freeman, writing in the Wall Street Journal, recommends congressional hearings be canceled and the Enron mess turned over to prosecutors.

When all is said and done, the reparations for losses should start with the Enron working stiffs and then to, if possible, make other investors well. It will take more courage for the attorney general to do what is right in handling the Enron mess than it does stamping on the rights of former hostages and POWs, but it would give his department a glow it has been missing.