Sigh. Ascroft is at it again. But this time it's truly bizarre. He's attempting to charge Greenpeace under an 1872 law against "sailor-mongering."
Um... ok.
I've put some of the details in the extended section,
but I suggest reading the whole
commentary by Jonathan Turley (LA Times - free registration required).
In a Miami federal court, the attorney general charged the environmental group Greenpeace under an obscure 1872 law originally intended to end the practice of "sailor-mongering," or the luring of sailors with liquor and prostitutes from their ships. Ashcroft plucked the law from obscurity to punish Greenpeace for boarding a vessel near port in Miami.
The case against Greenpeace started with a protest in April 2002. The activist group was leading an international effort to stop the illegal importing of mahogany. It believed that a ship, the APL Jade, was engaging in this illegal trade and decided to conduct one of its signature demonstrations to protest the Bush administration's failure to stop the imports.
In clearly marked boats, Greenpeace followed the ship. Two of its members boarded the vessel about eight miles outside the Miami port, carrying a banner that read "President Bush, Stop Illegal Logging."
Fifteen months after the incident, the Justice Department filed an indictment in Miami against the entire Greenpeace organization under the 1872 law, a law that appears to have been used only twice.
A New York court in 1872 described the law as both "inartistic and obscure." An Oregon court in 1890 described the purpose of the law as preventing "the evil" of "sailor-mongers [who] get on board vessels and by the help of intoxicants, and the use of other means, often savoring of violence, get the crews ashore and leave the vessel without help to manage or care for her."