On Terror and Spying, Ashcroft Expands Reach (NYT login: FRITOPIE, password: FRITOPIE)
This has all happened very quietly, but it is something that all of us should legitimately be very concerned about. John Ashcroft has used 9.11 as a springboard to becoming arguably the most powerful man in America. Not bad for a political appointee who is Attorney General only because he lost his last election- to a dead man.
In the bureaucratic reshuffling over domestic security, Attorney General John Ashcroft came out a winner. Mr. Ashcroft grabbed control of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and with it an issue dear to his conservative agenda, guns. And he shucked responsibility for two areas of law enforcement that had brought ridicule to the Justice Department, the color-coded threat alert system and immigration.
In recent months, Mr. Ashcroft, once regarded as a peripheral, even clumsy, player in the Bush administration, has not only honed his skills as a bureaucratic infighter, he has also patched his tenuous relations with President Bush, who told Mr. Ashcroft last month that he was doing "a fabulous job."
With the addition of nearly 5,000 law enforcement officials from the firearms bureau, Mr. Ashcroft has again expanded the policing authority of the Justice Department, a hallmark of his tenure as attorney general. And with the fight against terrorism as his soapbox, he has pushed the powers of federal law enforcement in directions few thought possible before the Sept. 11 attacks. His reach extends not only to counterterrorism, but also to issues like the death penalty and gun policy, which he attacks with equal aggressiveness.
Chairman Ashcroft has quietly, and with surprising dexterity, created an empire for himself. Answering only to the President, he has created an internal security apparatus that should scare the hell out of any one who values their civil liberties. "Homeland Security" has become the excuse that has been used to justify jamming the margins of our Constitutionally-guaranteed rights, and Ashcroft has been the driving force behind this effort.
I used to laugh when I would hear people ranting about "jack-booted Government thugs". Now I realize that when I think of Chairman Ashcroft, that is the first image that comes to mind. Is that justified? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Either way, it should scare the hell out of all of us, though.
