It seems there is yet another way to label someone a ‘terrorist.’ As Shane Harris explained in a recent National Journal article, a pre-9/11 law is being used to effect terrorist-grade jail sentences for criminals who are, by and by, of the more common ilk.

Harris cites several examples of alleged criminals turned bona fide terrorists—or at least those whom prosecutors attempt to label as such. While the law purports to punish terrorism, it serves equally well as a "bargaining chip," holding stiffer sentences over defendants' heads as a way to pump them for what the government believes may be precious information.

The so-called terrorism enhancement measure was enacted in 1995 as the country was just coming to terms with terror on the home front—the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Harris says the Justice Department has been reluctant to remark on how federal prosecutors determine when to seek the terrorism enhancement's application. It has been resurrected, he says, in cases in which the familiar connotation of terrorism is entirely absent: Even criminals "who didn’t commit a religiously motivated act of terrorism, or who consciously avoided human casualties," Harris writes, can fall victim to petty wordplay and the whims of individual judges. Without the aid of a jury, the judges are entitled to apply what critics say is a "government shortcut to label criminals as terrorists and to punish them in extraordinary ways." In some cases, Harris says, the only "proof" required is government reassurance of the so-called terrorist's intent, even if that intent never played out in an actual attack. The powerful enhancement measure is a scant 11 words long, making the space between a criminal and a terrorist, quite possibly, smaller than this sentence.

When President Bush suddenly second-guessed himself regarding Justice Sam Alito's replacement on the 3rd Circuit, the rumors abounded.

Bush originally nominated Noel Hillman (currently a federal district judge in Camden, New Jersey) for the spot, but then ditched him, with no official statement concerning the hasty change of heart. Hillman apparently had his Justice Department background to blame. His previous position as Chief of the Public Integrity Section, pundits charged, ran him the high risk of too-close-for-comfort questioning by prying Dems on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

And so it seems Bush has chosen another tack, dipping instead into the private practice sector of Jersey lawyers to find Shalom D. Stone, whose lack of any government employment makes his nomination as strategic as it is surprising, as he is relatively unknown. Indeed, he remains somewhat of a political enigma: Since he registered to vote in Union County, New Jersey in 1993, he has never declared a political affiliation. And unlike his heavily Democratic colleagues at the law firm Walder, Hayden, & Brogan, Stone has, at least since 1990, never made federal campaign contributions.

Don’t fret—he just may have some opinions: proof of possible conservative leanings lies in his reported membership in the New Jersey Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society, which could make Stone persona non grata to the Democratic majority. Such an affiliation with the conservative group may add to the ire of Senate Democrats as Bush nominated Stone on the sly; W. eschewed the political courtesy of consulting with Stone’s Democratic home-state senators before announcing his decision.