The Omnipotent State's Enforcer

The Omnipotent State's Enforcer
by Michael R. Allen

The Attorney General of the United States is supposed to carry out the administration of the laws of the land. With an administration dedicated to lawlessness, tyranny, and punishing free citizens, Janet Reno has filled this office quite ably. More than any other attorney general, Reno has been dedicated not to the rule of law but the rule of force. That is exactly why she is worthy of scorn.

Last year saw Reno acting in the interests of the government she serves with a fury that she had not previously approached. As each major issue came forth - terrorist suspects, gun violence - she used her office to expand the power of the state. When new allegations against federal agents regarding their role at the 1993 Waco raid surfaced, she deflected public attention by handing the facts to a special investigator. Most heinous of all, though, is that her Justice Department increased its own power by successfully prosecuting Microsoft for giving away a free product.

In 1998, the Justice Department initiated its criminal suit against the Microsoft corporation. The charge was that the software company was violating federal antitrust laws by including its browser pre-installed with its Windows operating systems. Disregarding the fact that this practice does not hurt anyone or keep them from using other non-Microsoft browsers, Janet Reno led the charge. It was one thing for Microsoft's bitter rival, Netscape, to accuse it of unfair business practices. Business rivals tend to do that. When Reno involved the Justice Department’s power to back up a specious allegation, she clearly began to abuse Bill Gates and his company without just cause.

The antitrust case proceeded through the courts and, on November 5, 1999, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issued one of the most biased findings of fact in the court's history. Though unlikely, Microsoft could yet be forcefully shattered by the very visible hand of Reno's Justice Department. Let's play that again: Microsoft could be destroyed for distributing a useful product for free.

In the summer of 1999, allegations concerning the Waco raid resurfaced. Reno had presided over the raid to begin with and never conducted a full investigation, so there was not great hope that she would act on the new charges. The charges, with video footage as evidence, were that the FBI used CS gas on the Branch Davidian church members at Waco, and that the Army’s Delta Force was involved in the planning of the raid. These were charges of the people against their government; serious charges that, if true, would also prove that the Justice Department had been lying to the American public for six years. Worse, if these charges were true: the Justice Department had allowed the Army to murder American citizens.

In short, the American people again were asking their government to come clean with the details of the force it used against citizens it was supposed to protect. What did Janet Reno do? She did not demand an immediate investigation of the video footage. She did not call for reparations to the surviving Branch Davidians. She did not treat the allegations as any more than an unpleasant diversion, turning them over to former Senator Jack Danforth to dispose of.

Of course, the charges were an unpleasant diversion from her perspective. Her job is not to safeguard the American citizen from tyranny, but to uphold the legal system of the government she serves. That legal system created Waco and the subsequent cover-up, with Reno's cooperation. She was not going to admit that she was a tyrant and the government a filthy bastardization of what the Founders gave America. The Attorney General would not serve her office by disclosing inconvenient truths.

As attorney general, Reno has enforced the state’s laws against its people's liberty. Through her actions related to the Microsoft and Waco cases, she has particularly demonstrated that she does not serve the interests of the public when it conflicts with the interests of the federal government. Her legacy will buttress the power of the government over the individual citizen. That is not a legacy of which one should be proud. Reno might be performing a great service to the omnipotent state as its enforcer, but to the rest of us, she is the pugnacious personification of the unhinged brute force of the federal Leviathan.

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