Ashcroft to address officers here; public barred
By DAN HERBECK
(Buffalo) News Staff Reporter, 9/6/2003
When U.S. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft brings his national speaking tour to Buffalo on Monday, he will address only law enforcement officials and reporters. He plans to grant interviews only to television reporters and will not answer questions from newspapers or other print media, officials said. Ashcroft will be here as part of his national tour to defend the USA Patriot Act, a tough anti-terrorism program enacted after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He is scheduled to speak at 10:45 a.m. Monday in the Hyatt Regency Buffalo. The public is not invited, and that drew criticism Friday from officials of two groups that plan to protest during Ashcroft's visit - the Western New York Peace Center and the Buffalo office of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Ashcroft's Tour Rallies Supporters and Detractors (NY Times, September 6, 2003, registration required): A frequent criticism is that Mr. Ashcroft's speeches A frequent criticism is that Mr. Ashcroft's speeches — rich in allusions to Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and the firefighters killed in the World Trade Center — have been delivered almost exclusively to law enforcement personnel who are already strongly behind him. "He's preaching to the converted," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union and a frequent critic of Mr. Ashcroft. "He's not interested in engaging in a real public dialogue, and I think the whole tour is backfiring as a result."
When Mr. Ashcroft appeared in North Carolina on Saturday, Barbara Nettesheim, 69, of Chapel Hill wanted to let him know that she thought the government's antiterrorism campaign was chilling free speech. There were more than 75 empty seats at Mr. Ashcroft's speech, so many that hotel workers cleared away a few rows beforehand. But because the speech was not open to the public, Ms. Nettesheim had to settle for waving a placard in a raucous protest that spanned two blocks outside the event. It was the first political protest she had ever attended, Ms. Nettesheim said. "But what the government is doing really scares me, and I think Ashcroft should have the guts to talk to regular people and listen to them," she said.
Mr. Ashcroft and senior aides say critics are missing the point. "He's not going on the road to debate the Patriot Act," said David Israelite, deputy chief of staff to Mr. Ashcroft, "as much as to inform the American public about what it is and what it isn't, because there are a lot of misconceptions out there." The Justice Department has chosen local television as its main medium, parceling out one-on-one interviews with Mr. Ashcroft to stations and angering some local print reporters by limiting their access.
On the Road With Ashcroft
by David Cole
article | Posted September 4, 2003
..... Ashcroft's national tour will not address the public. His speaking engagements are all before closed audiences, primarily law-enforcement officers. The choice to speak to police and exclude the people captures much of the flavor of the Administration's war on terrorism: It has repeatedly sought to maximize police power while minimizing public oversight. But that tactic may be backfiring, as the American people are starting to fight back [see David Sarasohn, page 23].
So let me get this straight-ish.
Ashcroft is embarking on this tour in order to tell the public how successful the Constitutional Evisceration Act ... er, pardon me, the PATRIOT Act has been. He's doing this by excluding the print media, which can report on his presentations in more detail than local television, and which can provide details on the specific cases he cites as successes, and by excluding the public from the presentations.
He wants to reassure the public, so he excludes them. Well. Yes. Quite.
And somehow, he doesn't see that the fact of the exclusion itself is going to be far bigger news with the media than the tour itself. I suppose he's counting on the fact that people don't read newspapers any more.
Let's hear it for the Rainbow Tour
It's been an incredible success.....
Interestingly, while the Justice Department insists that the PATRIOT act is necessary for pursuing terrorists, they are using it to pursue ordinary criminals:
Patriot Act available against many types of criminals
BY MICHELLE MITTELSTADT
The Dallas Morning News (Sunday, September 7)
..... Although the government has not revealed most of the details of how it has applied the Patriot Act, the Justice Department told Congress in May that it is using the law in criminal cases, not just terrorism investigations. Federal agents have used the new tools to seize a con man's assets; track down computer hackers and a fugitive; identify the hoaxster who made a school bomb threat, and monitor kidnappers' communications, the department advised the House Judiciary Committee. In-house documents show that prosecutors are exploring other ways to use Patriot Act authorities in criminal investigations. "We all know that the USA Patriot Act provided weapons for the war on terrorism. But do you know how it affects the war on crime as well?" the Justice Television Network, the department's in-house channel, said in a 2002 circular offering a course on the Patriot Act's effect on "everyday prosecutions" of money laundering and asset forfeitures.
One would wonder just how much Congress realized that the act, which was sold as a better way to go after terrorists, would be used to go after ordinary crime. One would, if one hadn't watched the craven cowards in Congress stampeding to pass this act, or any other, that would make people feel that they were doing something, anything to make life safer.
Posted by iain at September 09, 2003 03:00 PMComments
