After hearing about the assembly which met in opposition to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s “VICTORY” tour in downtown Salt Lake City last Monday, I decided to do a little probing-you know, to find some dirt. When talking about Johnny from Missouri, the ground is littered with it. The broad-based opposition to our current attorney general is incredible.
The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence filed an ethics complaint against John Ashcroft in July 2001, asserting Ashcroft violated ethical obligations to his client, the United States, during a case contingent on an interpretation of the Second Amendment. Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark has called for impeachment hearings. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force believes Ashcroft is homophobic. At least eight former high-ranking intelligence officials have expressed concern over Ashcroft’s new tactics, including racial profiling.
The fact is that prominent journalists, government officials and scholars have criticized John Ashcroft’s record on a variety of issues.
During his tenure as Attorney General of Missouri, Ashcroft persistently attempted to block school desegregation-a federal court threatened to hold the state in contempt for his failure to comply with a court order. During a lengthy interview to the neo confederate magazine Southern Partisan, he praised Confederate leaders who fought to preserve slavery. He received an honorary degree from traditionally segregationist Bob Jones University (the Christian university only recently allowed interracial dating and marriage). And despite this very alarming background, George Bush named him attorney general.
While having such a controversial individual as attorney general is troubling, the new investigative powers given to Ashcroft are even more alarming.
Forty-five days after Sept. 11, 2001, Congress passed the USA Patriot Act in almost the exact form Ashcroft requested. There was virtually no debate, nor discussion. The 342-page legislation was passed without most members of Congress even reading it. And immediately, Ashcroft vowed to begin using his new, and very controversial, powers.
“If you overstay your visas even by one day,” he told a conference of mayors, “we will arrest you.” He pledged that suspects who commit even the most minor of infractions will be “put in jail and be kept in custody as long as possible.” But these threats-which he carries out-are just the beginning.
With his new powers, John Ashcroft has overseen the “detention” of thousands of “suspected terrorists” who turned out to be regular citizens.The American Civil Liberties Union reports that “without a warrant and without probable cause, the FBI now has the power to access your most private medical records, your library records, and your student records…and can prevent anyone from telling you it was done.” This legislation also allows the government to “monitor communications between federal detainees and their lawyers, destroying the attorney client privilege and threatening the right to counsel.”
It authorizes the FBI to spy on “religious and political organizations and individuals without having evidence of wrongdoing.” And among the most disturbing of its clauses, it legitimizes “American citizens suspected of terrorism” to be “held indefinitely in military custody without being charged and without access to lawyers.” I wonder if ol’ Johnny ever read George Orwell’s 1984 when he was back in Missouri.
Throughout all of the 342 pages of the USA Patriot Act, judicial oversight of these new powers is essentially non-existent. John Ashcroft’s new generation of law enforcement officials, according to the ACLU, “must only certify to a judge-with no need for evidence or proof-that such a search meets the statute’s broad criteria, and the judge does not even have the authority to reject the application.” What’s more, “surveillance orders can be based in part on a person’s First Amendment activities, such as the books they read, the Web sites they visit, or a letter to the editor they have written.” The ACLU contends this legislation violates the First and Fourth Amendments in several ways, and unconstitutionally amends the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.
It’s self-evident that law enforcement tactics which are viewed as capricious and arbitrary create mistrust in communities that would otherwise cooperate with officials.Today, when we see civil liberties groups, scholars, librarians and booksellers, human rights and environmental organizations and citizens of every nationality, religion, sex and age outraged, we know that there is something very wrong. At this point, more than 150 cities have passed resolutions condemning and overriding the USA Patriot Act.
At the core of the American experiment is liberty. It’s the freedom secured through constitutional rights of individuals and limitations on government power. With our Constitution, government powers are subject to limits by the courts, the Congress and the people.
Our system’s checks and balances not only ensure that the government does not violate the rights of law abiding citizens, they also help maintain the legitimacy of law. The truth of the situation we find ourselves in is that these fundamental protections are being eroded.It is time for Americans to wake up and keep Mr. Ashcroft and the Patriot Act in check.