Largely lost amid the massive media coverage earlier this week of the long-anticipated but little-revealing "strategic game plan" for the 4 1/2-year-old occupation of Iraq delivered to the Congress by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, was the latest chapter in the legal saga of Idaho's U.S. Sen. Larry Craig.

Craig's problems continue to reveal aspects of our criminal justice system that ought to trouble us deeply. There also is a common philosophical thread between the administration's Iraq policy and the crime-fighting policies of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Police — both reflect the "pre-emptive strike" syndrome prevalent in modern-day America.

It is clear that nothing Craig did was criminal behavior. Those of us who have need on occasion to use a public restroom stall should certainly hope that what the good Senator apparently did does not constitute criminal behavior. If it does, tapping one's toes to piped-in airport music in a men's room, or reaching too low underneath a restroom stall divider will land you in jail — and possibly on the front page of the newspaper.

The transcript of the June 11 interview between Craig and police Sgt. Dave Karsnia, reveals three things — the utter shallowness of the "case" against Craig; the blatant (but at least temporarily successful) effort by the police officer to pressure the Idahoan into copping a plea based on what turned out to be false promises of privacy; and the unwise decision by the senator to explain himself to the officer.

Craig's legal team, which earlier this week formally launched an effort to overturn his Aug. 8 guilty plea, echoed this view. Unlike other recent and historic cases of public figures arrested and charged with offenses in public restrooms — such as the arrest earlier this year of MARTA board chairman Ed Wall at Hartsfield-Jackson airport, or the 1964 arrest of President Lyndon B. Johnson's trusted aide, Walter Jenkins, in a Washington, D.C., YMCA — the case against Craig involves no illicit sex acts, or illicit acts of any kind. The case against Craig rests entirely on the officer's interpretation of otherwise innocent acts as constituting behavior that in the officer's opinion was used by people "desiring to engage in sexual conduct."

Conduct "often used by persons communicating a desire to engage in sexual conduct?" That's enough to get you arrested in today's world, at least in Minneapolis-St. Paul — and by police officers with nothing better to do than sit around in men's restroom stalls waiting for someone to tap their toes in an adjoining stall.

One really has to wonder how many police officers in how many cities are sitting on ceramic thrones in restroom stalls waiting to pounce on some guy who exhibits such conduct.

Keep in mind these types of arrests are not predicated on any public displays of sexual activity, but merely on otherwise inoffensive behavior that the police officer concludes in his mind indicates a "predisposition" or a "desire" to engage in criminal acts such as lewd behavior in a public place.

Call it an "anticipatory arrest" or a "pre-emptive strike"; such tactics should have no place in our criminal justice system, and Craig is right to oppose them, even though his after-the-fact defense is late and fraught with difficulty.

And while Craig will get neither support nor understanding from either the Democrats on Capitol Hill, or from his Republican colleagues who are ever afraid not to criticize one of their own, those of us who believe in fair play and fair policing, should support his efforts.

I suppose also that Craig should be relieved the prosecuting authority in his case is the city of Minneapolis-St. Paul rather than the Bush administration, whose "pre-emptive strikes" are far more deadly.

• Former congressman and U.S. Attorney Bob Barr practices law in Atlanta. Web site: www.bobbarr.org.

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