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On Terror and Spying, Ashcroft Expands Reach
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2003 07:35:31 -0500
On Terror and Spying, Ashcroft Expands Reach March 15, 2003 By ERIC LICHTBLAU with ADAM LIPTAK WASHINGTON, March 14 - In the bureaucratic reshuffling over domestic security, Attorney General John Ashcroft came out a winner. Mr. Ashcroft grabbed control of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and with it an issue dear to his conservative agenda, guns. And he shucked responsibility for two areas of law enforcement that had brought ridicule to the Justice Department, the color-coded threat alert system and immigration. In recent months, Mr. Ashcroft, once regarded as a peripheral, even clumsy, player in the Bush administration, has not only honed his skills as a bureaucratic infighter, he has also patched his tenuous relations with President Bush, who told Mr. Ashcroft last month that he was doing "a fabulous job." With the addition of nearly 5,000 law enforcement officials from the firearms bureau, Mr. Ashcroft has again expanded the policing authority of the Justice Department, a hallmark of his tenure as attorney general. And with the fight against terrorism as his soapbox, he has pushed the powers of federal law enforcement in directions few thought possible before the Sept. 11 attacks. His reach extends not only to counterterrorism, but also to issues like the death penalty and gun policy, which he attacks with equal aggressiveness. Despite a years-long effort as a senator from Missouri to shrink government, Mr. Ashcroft has significantly broadened the reach of the attorney general, legal scholars and law enforcement officials agree. All of which has left his many critics increasingly worried. Even some of his conservative peers complain that Mr. Ashcroft may have grown too powerful. To his critics, Mr. Ashcroft is a Big Brother figure: an attorney general whose expanding scope has allowed the Justice Department to use wiretaps, backroom decisions, and an expanded street presence to spy on ordinary Americans, read their e-mail messages, or monitor their library checkouts, all in the name of fighting terrorism. And the department's consideration of proposals that could give it still greater, secret counterterrorism authority has provoked a fresh round of concerns. The former Republican congressman Dick Armey, on his way out the door last year as House majority leader, said he thought Mr. Ashcroft and the Justice Department were "out of control." And Representative Jose E. Serrano, Democrat of New York, told Mr. Ashcroft at a hearing last week: "I fear some officials are so intent on fighting against terror that they forget what we are fighting for. People across the spectrum fear for our civil liberties." <snip> There have been exceptions, however. One federal judge, ruling last year that the Justice Department should have to make public the names of detainees in its terrorism investigations, said that secret arrests "are a concept odious to a democratic society." This week saw another round of mixed results for the department in its court fights. In Washington, a federal appellate court ruled that prisoners from the Afghanistan war held in Guantánamo Bay may not challenge their detentions in the courts, but in a separate case heard in New York, a federal judge ruled that Jose Padilla, the suspect in the "dirty bomber" case, has the right to meet with a lawyer to challenge his status as an enemy combatant. With the Supreme Court ultimately likely to rule on the use of secret hearings and other counterterrorism tactics, Mr. Ashcroft may be walking a fine line between protecting the public and compromising its rights, legal and political observers said. "You don't want the United States to turn into some sort of police state," said John C. Danforth, the former Missouri senator who has known Mr. Ashcroft for years, "but the first duty of government is to protect its citizens. It's an extremely difficult job that he has." http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/15/politics/15ASHC.html?ex=1048731093&ei=1&en =fd87cbc2a41c1c4d ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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