Watching the AG

John Ashcroft vs. civil liberties.

Brian Doherty from the June 2002 issue

Maybe Attorney General John Ashcroft isn?t the greatest threat to individual liberty since the Inquisition. But that doesn?t mean he hasn?t been alarming so far. Ashcroft initiatives to be nervous about include the following:

• Those detainees. It?s the apotheosis of frightening government power -- the ability to take people away and lock them up without anyone knowing exactly who or precisely why. The facts, as the press has been permitted to ascertain them: Some 1,200 anonymous people have been taken into custody. Most, we are told, are non-citizen immigrants who have committed at least one infraction of a law. (There is barely a citizen who hasn?t, of course.) Hundreds have been deported, 327 are reportedly still in custody for immigration violations, and more than 100 have been charged with other criminal violations. The Justice Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, both under Ashcroft?s supervision, have not responded to Freedom of Information Act requests for information on these mystery prisoners -- who they are, what charges they face, and what courts they have appeared before. The ACLU and 18 other organizations sued the DOJ over this in December. In a separate case, Superior Court Judge Arthur D?Italia decided in March that the detainees? identities had to be revealed. The DOJ has appealed.
• Secret tribunals. He didn?t invent the idea, but Ashcroft has been an enthusiastic supporter of using secret military tribunals for captives related to the war on terrorism. Defenders of those tribunals can come up with no more cogent and reasonable defense for them other than that, hell, under normal American standards of jurisprudence it?s just barely possible that the accused might not be found guilty.
• No suicide solution. Fair-weather federalist John Ashcroft sent his Justice Department after doctors in Oregon who might, in accordance with state laws, prescribe lethal medicines to terminally ill patients who request them. Ashcroft declared in November his intention to make sure that doctors who did so would lose their license to prescribe any federally controlled drug, effectively putting them out of the doctoring business. In conducting such investigations, he instructed the Drug Enforcement Administration to examine state records about drugs prescribed, information that doctors complying with Oregon?s Death with Dignity Act are required to file. Oregon?s attorney general sued to stop Ashcroft. The case is now before a U.S. district judge who has stayed Ashcroft?s order pending his decision. The question is expected to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
• Drop that joint, granny. In 1996, California overwhelmingly passed Proposition 215, making marijuana use legal for medical purposes. John Ashcroft is not amused. He has overseen at least eight federal drug busts (not all leading to prosecutions) where a prima facie legitimate Prop. 215 defense could have been made. Among the targets were two high-profile raids of clubs in West Hollywood and San Francisco that helped the seriously ill obtain marijuana. These are arrests that would not have been made under California law.
• The neighborhood is watching. In March, Ashcroft announced his intention to spend several million dollars to double to 15,000 the number of civilian "neighborhood watch" participants. Peppering the country with squads of local snoopers looking for suspicious activities almost guarantees a chilly environment for the right to be free of officious, deputized busybodies -- a freedom arguably at the center of civil liberties.