Ashcroft
- A Controversial Attorney-General
By Syed Arif Hussaini
John Ashcroft, a controversial and divisive US Attorney
General, was the first to quit (eased out?) of the
Bush cabinet reportedly on a clear hint from the
White House. In his resignation letter to the President,
he has claimed, “The objective of securing
the safety of Americans from crime and terror has
been achieved.” This credit claim sounds somewhat
narcissistic and it may or may not turn out to be
true.
While at the helm of the Justice Department, Ashcroft
had provoked much criticism among human rights groups,
by the prestigious American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) in particular. His approval ratings, according
to the Gallup polls, varied between 34 to 58 per
cent during his tenure.
His admirers point out that there was no terrorist
attack since 9/11 on his watch, violent crime rate
dropped noticeably, and corporate scammers were
dealt with aggressively. His critics underline his
persistent actions veering the nation away from
its fundamental values, the very foundation on which
the nation stood.
He saw a terrorist in every nook and corner of the
country and went after him tooth and nail. More
often than not, the pursuit turned out to be illusory.
The laws of the land and the judicial system, which
distracted his single-minded pursuit of real or
imaginary terrorists, were regarded by him as irritants
to be set aside to enable his team to pursue unhindered
their prey.
The rights and liberties enshrined in the constitution,
the hallmark of what America is all about, were
to be circumvented if the terrorists were to be
hamstrung. The outcome was the controversial Patriot
Act. It was rushed through an overwhelmingly supine
Congress with such urgency and in such a drummed
up atmosphere of fear that most of the public representatives
didn’t have the time to go through the voluminous
draft bill.
According to Prof. Jonathan Turley of George Washington
Law School, John Ashcraft has subverted more elements
of the Bill of Rights than any Attorney General
in American history.
Ashcroft, on the other hand, contended that his
fight against terrorism was a fight for human rights
- a pronouncement that would make George Orwell
blush.
Fact of the matter is that he let loose a reign
of terror against Arabs, Muslims and other brown-skinned
residents of the country. Soon after 9/11 hundreds
of them were swept up and locked up in jails incommunicado.
The treatment meted out to the inmates of Guantanamo
Bay prison has been widely disparaged.
Not a single person of the hundreds of Arabs and
others taken into custody was found to have been
involved in any terrorist act. Almost all the cases
in which the accused were convicted related to violations
of immigration laws as though the war on terror
was being waged through anti-immigration measures.
In speech after speech, Ashcroft had warned: “If
you overstay your visa even by one day, we will
arrest you. If you violate a local law, you will
be put in jail and kept in custody as long as possible.
We will use every available prosecutorial advantage.”
Ashcroft was having people of a certain ethnicity
arrested not because they had committed a crime
but because they were likely to commit some. It
was a risky preventive law enforcement. Criminal
law punishes people for what they have done and
not for what they might do.
In the first couple of months after 9/11, some 1200
Arabs and Muslims were arrested by way of preventive
detention. Over 1100 more were added to this category
by May 2003. A special registration program applicable
to Muslims led to the detention of 2,747 more. Of
these thousands, only five were charged with any
terrorism-related crime. Even of these five only
one person was convicted of conspiracy to support
terrorism. Charges against the others couldn’t
be proved.
Law professor, David Cole, in his book ‘Enemy
Aliens’ mentions that in May 2003 the Inspector
General of the Justice Department issued a scathing
report on the post 9/11 immigration detainees. The
report revealed that in a year since 9/11 the government
had detained 738 foreign nationals (mostly Muslim)
but not a single person of these was charged with
any terrorist crime despite the fact that all of
them were linked to 9/11 investigation. The report
charged the Justice Department of arresting persons
first and asking them questions later. Arrests were
evidently based on ethnic profiling. Ashcroft’s
policy emanated from a deep prejudice that was causing
a rift even in his own Department.
America has a military justice system for those
in uniform and for times of war, and a civil and
criminal legal system used for the civilian population.
Ashcroft invented a third system - a legal limbo
without precedent where people could be declared
enemies of the state and held indefinitely and incommunicado
without being charged.
Some mention here of the background of Mr.Ashcroft
would be appropriate. A radical evangelist, a neo-conservative,
Ashcroft is a rare combination of piety, prejudice
and ambition. He disapproves drinking, dancing and
pre-marital sex and is a foe of abortion. Usually
he would start his office day with a prayer meeting
in his room of a dozen or so of his employees -
a rare sight in a department known for its secular
tradition and trait.
Senator Charles Schummer (D- NY) said that Mr. Ashcroft
certainly “functioned out of conviction, but
he was one of the most polarizing Attorney Generals
of history”.
Anthony Romero, executive director of the American
Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said he believed that
Mr. Ashcroft would be remembered “for one
of the worst civil liberties records of any modern
Attorney General.”
In recent months his divisiveness had started worrying
the White House. He had therefore to pack off to
his Virginia farm.
President Bush has evidently started taking steps
to create an atmosphere of reconciliation in the
country. His selection of Alberto Gonzales to replace
John Ashcroft makes much sense. Gonzales, a modest,
soft-speaking moderate is likely to rectify the
blunders of his zealous predecessor particularly
in the realm of civil liberties. Fortunately, the
US judiciary has always stepped in to set things
right whenever some wing of the executive has indulged
in unwanted excesses.
It is worth reproducing here the words of Supreme
Court Judge, William Brennan, who said in 1986:
“There is considerably less to be proud about,
and a good deal to be embarrassed about, when one
reflects on the shabby treatment civil liberties
have received in the United States during times
of war and perceived threats to national security….
After each perceived security crisis ended, the
United States has remorsefully realized that the
abrogation of civil liberties was unnecessary. But
it has proven unable to prevent itself from repeating
the error when the next crisis came along.”
One hopes that President Bush would before long
modify the Patriot Act in a way that the glaring
abridgement of civil liberties is done away with.
His new Attorney General may likewise remove those
guidelines that have caused ethnic profiling and
consequent harms to the Muslim community of the
United States.
(arifhussaini@hotmail.com
November 11, 2004)
