Word: ashcroft
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...light of its recent widely unpopular initiatives affecting immigrants, the administration should be careful in its rhetoric regarding the initiative. While promoting the program last week, Ashcroft accentuated the link between providing essential information and becoming a United States citizen. “If the information that you provide is reliable and useful,” he said, “we will help you obtain a visa to reside in the United States and ultimately become a United States citizen.” Although citizenship can potentially follow after a visa-holder undergoes the naturalization process, the incentive...
Should religious groups with suspected terrorist ties be monitored by the federal government? Attorney General John Ashcroft thinks so, and is prepared to implement new, broad-reaching surveillance powers to America?s FBI agents...
...will respect the rights of political freedom and religious freedom, and we are deeply committed to that," Ashcroft told ABC?s "This Week." "But for so-called terrorists to gather over themselves some robe of clericism? and claim immunity from being observed, people who hijack a religion and make out of it an implement of war will not be free from our interest...
...that Ashcroft is poised to lift the 30-year-old ban, how will Americans respond? By now we have to assume Ashcroft is accustomed to a certain amount of criticism; his remarkable tenure as wartime AG has pitted him against civil libertarians and even a few conservatives who take issue with what they see as the administration?s encroachment on individual rights. This week, however, even Ashcroft may be surprised by his opponents, whose ranks include not only members of the ACLU, but some dedicated Christian conservatives. That?s despite the fact that the obvious target of any surveillance activity...
...There?s a chance, of course, says Magarian, that the government will use this new power judiciously, no one?s rights will be threatened and opposition will be virtually non-existent. After all, religion, Magarian says, echoing Ashcroft?s own statements, cannot be a special kind of shield against legitimate criminal investigations. "If you run a religious organization and the government has true probable cause to believe your group is helping terrorists, you shouldn?t be able to hold up religion to keep the government inquiry...