FC: Ashcroft opposes expiration date for anti-terror bill

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Attorney General Ashcroft and FBI Director Mueller Transcript
Media Availability with State and Local Law Enforcement Officials
DOJ Conference Room
October 4, 2001

[...]


ASHCROFT:
     With me today are representatives of the Hispanic_American Police 
Command Officers Association; the National Sheriffs' Association; the 
International Brotherhood of Police Officers; the Fraternal Order of 
Police; the National Association of Police Organizations; the International 
Association of Police Officers; the International Association of Chiefs of 
Police; the National
Association of Black Law Enforcement Officers __ Executives, pardon me; the 
Police Executives' Research Forum; and the International Union of Police 
Associations.

     I want to thank all of these groups for helping our officials in 
Washington __ the lawmakers, the members of the Congress __ understand the 
needs of law enforcement in order to respond effectively to the terrorist 
threat. These groups here today have worked hard to communicate their 
concerns to Congress, which are in substantial measure included in the 
legislative package recommended by the administration.

     As attorney general, I want to thank all of you, both for what you've 
done in the past in those times of national emergency, and what you are 
doing in terms of helping understand the nature of our opportunities and 
the need for tools.

     And I want to thank you for what you will do in the months ahead to 
ensure our safety and safeguard our freedom.

     I'm pleased and heartened to hear that progress is being made in the 
House and Senate toward finalization of legislation that responds to the 
needs of law enforcement for the right tools to fight terrorism. The 
process took a very important step forward last night when both the House 
and Senate agreed upon legislation that will now move the process in both 
houses of Congress.

     I want to thank my former colleagues in the Senate and the members of 
the House who have worked so hard and have exhibited such extraordinary 
commitment to the cause of our nation's security. I'm gratified for the 
progress that has been made, and I believe that there are a number of areas 
in which we can continue to work cooperatively together to strengthen this 
legislation and bring it to final passage.

     First, the legislation passed by the House Judiciary Committee 
sunsets important law enforcement intelligence_gathering tools on December 
the 31st, 2003. No one can guarantee that terrorism will sunset in two 
years. Our president has wisely counseled us as Americans that this is a 
long struggle. He has cautioned us to understand that we must be 
perseverant and that we must, in fact, be expecting to stay after this 
objective until we complete our responsibility and task. Our laws need to 
reflect the new war, a kind of responsibility and effort that we must wage. 
It must provide us with tools on a continuing basis to do so.

     Second, the House bill also would exclude relevant evidence from 
being offered in terrorist trials. I look forward to working with both the 
House and Senate to ensure that our law enforcement tools are as effective 
as they can be. It would be a tragedy indeed to retreat from a capacity of 
law enforcement to use evidence in the process of seeking to strengthen the 
arm of law enforcement in the effort against terrorism.

     From the beginning, our talks with Congress have been guided by two 
principles. First, our laws governing terrorism should reflect the priority 
that the American people give to the fight against terrorism.

     And the American people expect us to give this fight the highest 
priority.

     Second, we will propose no change in the law that damages 
constitutional rights and protections that Americans hold dear.  Just as we 
have provided law enforcement with the tools they need to fight drug 
trafficking and organized crime without violating the rights and the 
freedoms of Americans, we are committed to meeting the challenge of 
terrorism with the same careful respect for the Constitution of the United 
States and the protections that that Constitution accords to America's 
citizens.
     We are gratified with the progress in the House and Senate, the 
progress that they are making toward providing law enforcement with 
necessary additional tools to fight __ to fight terrorism. And we will 
continue to work with them as they
consider this legislation finally.

     I'm pleased now to respond to questions.

     Q About 150 people have been arrested as terrorists, we're told. Can 
you tell us whether any of those people have been arrested and are directly 
related to the September 11 attacks? And have they been charged?

     ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: There are about three categories of the ways in 
which people have been detained. People have been detained who have 
violated state or local law enforcement provisions, the laws. Many of those 
groups represented here today have been a part of that.

     People have been arrested because they are in possession of 
information which we feel is valuable in this inquiry, and the courts have 
provided for their arrest and detention on what are known as material 
witness warrants.

     And then other individuals basically have been arrested either in 
conjunction with activities here or as a result of their association with 
individuals involved here and their having violated their immigration status.

     And I believe those define the categories of individuals that have 
been arrested. And at this time, that's the nature of the comment that we 
would make on them.

     Yes, sir.

     Q With respect to one of those categories, actually it was President 
Bush today who said 150 terrorists associated with the al Qaeda 
organization specifically are in custody, and it sounded like many of those 
may well be overseas.

     Do either of you have any accounting, either domestically or 
overseas, in terms of people who may have this particular connection?

     ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: I'm not prepared at the moment to say a specific 
number for domestic detentions versus detentions overseas.

     Yes, sir?

     Q Attorney General, the British government says at least three of the 
19 hijackers have been positively identified as associates of al Qaeda, and 
that one has been identified as playing key roles in the East African 
Embassy attacks and the U.S. Cole attack. Are both of those facts true, sir?
     ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: I'm not in a position to verify or deny attacks 
__ I mean allegations like that.

     Yes?

     Q General, with respect to the anti_terrorism proposals, one of the 
sticking points with the Senate had to do with the sharing of intelligence 
of grand jury information. And everything nearly came unglued because the 
administration decided it could not live with the idea of post_judicial 
scrutiny. Why is it that the FBI and the CIA object so much to having a 
judge just be notified in the aftermath of turning over grand jury 
information in an emergency situation?

     ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: We believe that those issues have been resolved, 
and that the climate for exchanging information that will be created by the 
bill, which will take down some of the walls, will provide a basis for 
facilitating that exchange of information. That's what we were pursuing.

     We need to have a circumstance where if there aren't questions __ if 
someone in a grand jury describes a situation that could threaten the 
safety and security of our citizens, there aren't questions about whether 
or not that can quickly be shifted from the grand jury setting either to 
the Department of Defense, or to other law enforcement agencies, or to the 
intelligence arena, so that we can coordinate that information with other 
information. That's our objective. We believe that the bill now will provide a
basis for that kind of facilitation of information sharing.

     Q Why not judicial notification afterwards, though?

     ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: I believe that we've arrived at a place that will 
provide the basis for getting this done well, and without recrimination. I 
don't really understand the threat here.

     The threat is that law enforcement officials and others involved with 
the security of Americans would have information that helped them do their 
job. To provide a base __ layer of bureaucracy on that unnecessarily simply 
doesn't provide a benefit, and it provides an encumbrance.

     Yes.

     Q General Ashcroft, could you tell us what is known at this point 
about the Russian plane explosion? There were earlier reports it was 
accidental. Do you have any concerns or fears that it might have been 
terrorist_related?

     ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: Well, obviously, I don't have __ maybe it's not 
obvious. But I don't have information that would provide a basis for making 
any comment about that. Obviously, any time a plane __ a flight is 
destroyed in flight or otherwise, the victim of that kind of situation, 
it's a matter of great concern to us. But I don't have any facts which 
would lead me to draw conclusions about it.

     Yes, sir.
     Q Just to go back to that question about numbers who have been 
arrested overseas, do you share the White House's characterization that 
those 150 are, indeed, terrorists?

     ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: I am grateful for the cooperation of our partners 
and individual __ other nations. And a number of them have obviously been 
involved with us here at the Justice Department for the extent to which 
they have been willing to receive from us information and cooperate with us 
in detaining individuals who could be relevant not only to these particular 
events of September the 11th, but to our overall objective of the 
disruption of the network of terrorism. I'm not in a position to
inventory either specific cases or numeric totals, but I am grateful for 
the cooperation which has been substantial and improving.


     Sir.

     Q For you or Director Mueller, have you found in this investigation 
any evidence that points to Iraq as a part or a full sponsor of this 
September 11th attack?

     ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: I'm not going to be discussing evidence and 
trying to describe it as related to situations like that.

     STAFF: One more question, please.

     Q Director Mueller, could you comment on a request that FBI received 
at headquarters here for a national security search warrant of a computer 
of an individual who was detained in connection with this investigation?

     MR. MUELLER: Subsequent to an arrest and detention in Minnesota on 
charges, there was a request made for the possibility of doing some form of 
warrant. The request came back, was looked at by lawyers at the FBI, and 
the determination was made that there was insufficient probable cause at 
that time.

     Discussions were then held about how one could improve the basis __ 
the probable cause, so that we had sufficient probably cause to go for __ 
to a court and to obtain the particular court order we needed to conduct 
that search.

     Q In hindsight, do you think that request should have been granted, 
knowing what we do now?

     MR. MUELLER: As I said, when it was looked at, there was insufficient 
probable cause __ clear insufficient probable cause, and our efforts at 
that time were to go and find enough facts that would support the initial 
request so that we could go back to the court.

     Thank you.

     ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: Thanks very much.

END.




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