Word: ashcrofts
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Ashcroft had taken the Bush Administration's more controversial initiatives to Capitol Hill, he might have avoided some of the backlash. But while Congress was passing the U.S.A. Patriot Act, the Attorney General was writing far-reaching rules of his own and issuing them through the Federal Register. "We felt that we had been asked for and had given the Administration the tools it needed to fight terrorism," says Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin. Its unhappiness at being kept in the dark is the reason the Senate Judiciary Committee called Ashcroft in this week to explain himself...
...Bush Administration has also, in at least one controversial case, attempted to push aside the judiciary. A Justice Department rule issued by Ashcroft in late October without public notice or debate says the INS can ignore an immigration judge's order to release an alien on bail while his deportation is being litigated. The order threatens to usher in Alice in Wonderland proceedings, in which the result is the same no matter which way the judge rules...
...John Ashcroft isn't the smoothest guy in Washington. A more Reaganesque man might have been able to expand the FBI's Rolodex in the Sept. 11 investigation with greater finesse and quiet. After all, a poll shows that 67% of Americans approve of his ongoing policy of interviewing about 5,000 people, ages 18 to 33, within the Arab-American and Islamic communities who have arrived here on visas since 2000. Unable to conduct all the interviews using the FBI, the Attorney General enlisted local law enforcement to request interviews. But by asking local officials to do some...
Responding to the criticism and police refusals, Ashcroft offered last Thursday to give three-year S visas (known by immigration lawyers as "snitch visas") as a reward for useful information provided by interviewees or anybody else, here or abroad, who knows anything about terrorist plots. At least he knows that when you're not good at sweet talk, a real sweetener always works...
...their major isn't the most effective way to thwart global terrorism. A similar strategy was attempted during the Gulf War; it failed to yield any significant leads, but it did arouse some ill-will in the Arab-American community. Former FBI and CIA director William Webster worries about Ashcroft's prevention-first policy, warning that nothing will be gained if preemptive arrests are made before all the players in a terrorist conspiracy are identified and located. Those who escape the net will regroup--and plug the leaks that led to the arrests by killing suspected informants...