Posted on: Monday, December 10, 2001

Editorial
Ashcroft's dismaying terrorism testimony

Attorney General John Ashcroft's defiant appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week set exactly the wrong tone for the essential debate over the Justice Department's aggressive tactics in prosecuting terrorism.

His blunt assertion that those who question these tactics are aiding the terrorists was painfully out of place in a nation that prides itself on the rule of law and the preservation of liberties. Ashcroft's job is to protect dissent — especially in times of national stress.

Ashcroft could not have been invited to a friendlier forum, comprised of colleagues from his days as a senator. Yet he stiffly refused to acknowledge any role at all for Congress or the judiciary in dealing with those detained in the Sept. 11 investigation.

There is no question that the committee members appreciated the gravity of Ashcroft's mission. Their purpose was to give Ashcroft a platform from which to assure that his measures would inspire public confidence, not fear of arbitrary detention and punishment, and to quiet doubts that history might once again frown on these actions, as it did with the internment of 120,000 Japanese residents in the early days of World War II.

Instead, Ashcroft's words suggested the premise that terrorists don't deserve trials, that their detention and punishment need not be hindered by consideration of constitutional rights, since their status is already evident. It is the same premise that gave early England its Star Chamber.

Yet in a bizarre burst of ideological tone deafness, Ashcroft leaped to the defense of gun owners — even alien terrorist gun owners. Reversing his department's previous reading of the law, Ashcroft has refused to let the FBI use the Justice Department database of gun purchases to find out whether any of the people being held as terrorism suspects had bought guns illegally.

Ashcroft refused even to discuss the need for military tribunals to try Sept. 11 suspects. The prospect of secret hearings at which defendants could receive the death penalty with a two-thirds vote and no right to appeal is not business as usual.

The procedures and application of such tribunals are still being drafted. But as proposed, they surely will degrade the American image of the "home of the free," and make hypocrites of the American diplomats who have raised holy hell in foreign countries when American citizens have been adjudicated in secret military courts.

Americans who so far have been unconcerned that the Justice Department has detained without charge or public notice hundreds of aliens have failed to consider the potential magnitude of this development. Ashcroft's rules threaten 20 million foreigners residing in the United States.

It is fervently to be hoped that President Bush will reverse the arrogant and short-sighted course set by Ashcroft and enlist the freely offered cooperation of Congress in charting a path more amenable to America's core values.