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A Times Editorial
Tom Warner, a candidate for state attorney general, advocates intrusive changes that would trample Floridians' constitutional protections.
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 29, 2001
Hearing some of the suggestions tossed out by candidate Tom Warner at a recent meeting of the Suncoast Tiger Bay Club made us wonder whether he wants to be attorney general or Big Brother. His comments came as a jarring reminder of why the race for state attorney general matters.
In the wake of the terrorist attack on New York City and Washington, Warner told the group he supports the creation of a statewide database of activity that is considered suspicious but does not rise to the level of a crime. He also suggested giving police the power to monitor, without a court order, the books people check out of libraries, loosening restrictions on wiretaps and searches, and giving the attorney general new exemptions from public records law.
Taken individually, Warner's ideas are chilling. Taken together, they're a constitutional horror show. Maybe Warner, who is one of the top attorneys in the Florida attorney general's office, should brush up on his constitutional law. In his remarks at Tiger Bay, he exhibited a disturbing ignorance of our founding document's spirit and principles.
Initially, Warner was a welcome addition to the field of candidates in the race to take over the post of attorney general when Bob Butterworth leaves office at the end of his term due to term limits. As the race stands, Warner will be competing for the Republican nomination against Education Commissioner Charlie Crist and state Sen. Locke Burt of Ormond Beach, neither of whom can match his legal experience in the AG's office.
Warner's suggestion that law enforcement be allowed to keep a database of suspicious activity would fundamentally alter the relationship between the citizen and the police. Floridians, even those who are Muslim or of Middle Eastern descent, should not be the subject of a government dossier absent evidence of criminality. If the collection of data by police is no longer connected to a specific criminal investigation, our police will begin to resemble the old Soviet secret police who tracked citizen actions and movements, just in case.
The books we choose to check out from the public library should not be subject to law enforcement's snooping without a warrant based on probable cause. For those who say people with nothing to hide have nothing to worry about, it is worth remembering dark times in Florida's history when our government attacked people for their out-of-the-mainstream interests. The Legislature's Johns Committee, which operated in the early 1960s, sought to purge alleged homosexuals, Communists and other "subversives" from our state colleges and universities. A list of who checked out what library books would certainly have helped their witch hunt.
While the threat of terrorism should be taken seriously, a knee-jerk expansion of police powers is an irresponsible reaction that would diminish freedom without any guarantee of enhanced security. Warner should reconsider his proposals, because they are too authoritarian for a man who wants to be the state's top lawyer.