38. Some months ago, a little birdie faxed to me what appeared to be confidential pages from a contract between John Ashcroft's Justice Department and a company called ChoicePoint, Inc., of Atlanta. The deal is part of the War on Terror.
(ChoicePoint has connections to the 2000 Election Incident in Florida.)
571. John Ashcroft was a cosponsor of the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits spouses in same-sex marriages from receiving federal benefits.
666. In April 2003, John Ashcroft's Justice Department disrupted what appears to have been a horrifying terrorist plot. In the small town of Noonday, Tex., F.B.I. agents discovered a weapons cache containing fully automatic machine guns, remote-controlled explosive devices disguised as briefcases, 60 pipe bombs and a chemical weapon -- a cyanide bomb -- big enough to kill everyone in a 30,000-square-foot building.
Strangely, though, the attorney general didn't call a press conference to announce the discovery of the weapons cache, or the arrest of William Krar, its owner. He didn't even issue a press release. This was, to say the least, out of character. Jose Padilla, the accused "dirty bomber," didn't have any bomb-making material or even a plausible way to acquire such material, yet Mr. Ashcroft put him on front pages around the world. Mr. Krar was caught with an actual chemical bomb, yet Mr. Ashcroft acted as if nothing had happened. (The 666 is just the number, the emphasis is a joke.)
668. No question: John Ashcroft is the worst attorney general in history. For this column, let's just focus on Mr. Ashcroft's role in the fight against terror. Before 9/11 he was aggressively uninterested in the terrorist threat. He didn't even mention counterterrorism in a May 2001 memo outlining strategic priorities for the Justice Department. When the 9/11 commission asked him why, he responded by blaming the Clinton administration, with a personal attack on one of the commission members thrown in for good measure.
682. Evangelical lobbyists used to talk about access to previous Republican administrations. Today, they can say with confidence: "Who needs access when we are already on the inside?" The influence of the Christian right on the Bush White House is self-evident. As well as George Bush, cabinet members Condoleezza Rice, John Ashcroft and Don Evans all consider themselves to be born again. This administration has embarked on a bold agenda to roll back liberalism in the US, and won't let up if it gets a second term.
756. In October 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft released a guidance memo to agencies on implementing the Freedom of Information Act. The memo instructed agencies, in essence, to withhold information whenever possible. This is a fundamental reversal of past policy, which stressed disclosure where possible.
765. Determined to scuttle a federal lawsuit against Big Tobacco without publicly acknowledging as much, Attorney General John Ashcroft has signaled that the Justice Department would like to settle, out of fear that it might lose at trial.
784. Opposes abortion, hates gays, supports the death penalty, opposes a moratorium on executions, wants tougher sentences for drug crimes, opposes any and all gun control laws. Scuttled the appointment of Ronnie White (the first African-American on the Missouri Supreme Court) to a federal district court bench. In a 1998 interiew he lauded the cause of pro-slavery Confederate secessionists; in 1999, Ashcroft got an honorary degree from Bob Jones University. Lobbyists reportedly consider him an advocate for drug companies and the automotive industry, and for preventing consumers from suing HMOs.
1014. Mr. Joseph is a refugee from Haiti who is seeking asylum in the United States. He is not a terrorist, and no one has even suggested that he is a threat to anyone. And yet he's been in federal custody for nearly two years.
An immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals have ruled that he should be freed on bond, pending a final ruling on his asylum request. But the attorney general of the United States, John Ashcroft, won't let him go.
1043. Ashcroft Fishes Out 1872 Law in a Bid to Scuttle Protester Rights.
1054. If Ashcroft does not understand why it is wrong to engage the FBI in spying on Americans who demonstrate peaceably for peace, President Bush ought to call the attorney general into the Oval Office for a civics lesson. If the core value of genuine conservatism is to protect the citizen from the overweening power of the state, then Ashcroft and the FBI have been subverting the conservatives' credo.
1087. Attempts to find out how the new surveillance powers created by the Patriot Act were implemented during their first year were in vain. in June 2002 the House Judiciary Committee demanded that the Department of Justice answer questions about how it was using its new authority. The Bush/Ashcroft Justice Department essentially refused to describe how it was implementing the law; it left numerous substantial questions unanswered, and classified others without justification. In short, not only has the Bush Administration undermined judicial oversight of government spying on citizens by pushing the Patriot Act into law, but it is also undermining another crucial check and balance on surveillance powers: accountability to Congress and the public.
1110. The Patriot Act II diminishes corporate accountability under the pretext of fighting terrorism specifically, by: Granting immunity to businesses that provide information to the government in terrorism investigations, even if their actions are taken with disregard for their customers' privacy or other rights and show reckless disregard for the truth.Such immunity could provide an incentive for neighbor to spy on neighbor and pose problems similar to those inherent in Attorney General Ashcroft's "Operation TIPS."
1260. More than a month ago, the FBI announced it would launch a wave of interviews across the country as part of an urgent effort to root out a suspected terrorist attack planned for the U.S. this summer.
Preparations for the attack were 90% complete, U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said at the time. Preparations for the interviews are another story. It's already July, and the FBI is still weeks away from launching the initiative, law enforcement officials confirm.
1346. Mr. Ashcroft's Smear IN HIS TESTIMONY last week before the Sept. 11 commission, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft loosed a remarkable attack on Jamie S. Gorelick, a commission member who served as deputy attorney general during part of the Clinton administration. The "single greatest structural cause for the September 11th problem," Ashcroft said, "was the wall that segregated or separated criminal investigators and intelligence agents," and the "basic architecture for the wall . . . was contained in a classified memorandum" from 1995 -- which Mr. Ashcroft had conveniently declassified for the hearing. "Full disclosure," he said, "compels me to inform you that the author of this memorandum is a member of the commission" -- that is, Ms. Gorelick. Mr. Ashcroft's allegations, which triggered criticism and demands for her resignation from prominent Republicans, are grossly unfair.
1422. Bush declares anyone captured near battles as "enemy combatants"
depriving them of rights Anyone captured on or near battles in Afghanistan or Iraq have been arbitrarily designated enemy combatants which means they lose their Constitutional rights, even if they're American citizens. Thank you, John Ashcroft, for the cynically named USA PATRIOT Act.
1463. Americans have accepted with relative good humor post- Sept. 11 government encroachments on their civil liberties that have been presented as necessary to improve security. The latest offense, however, has nothing to do with security, but is being pursued by Attorney General John Ashcroft's Justice Department as part of the Bush administration's religious right-oriented anti-abortion policy.
From the
http://www.thousandreasons.org/listB.html">One Thousand Reasons
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