War On Terrorism

Shaping The Law

CIRCUMSTANCES THRUST ASHCROFT INTO POWERFUL ROLE

Top Lawman Came Back From Election Defeat

Washington -- "For every crucifixion," John Ashcroft likes to say, "a
resurrection is waiting to follow," and, more than most people in
Washington, he should know.

Just a year ago, Ashcroft's future looked grim. He had lost his Senate
seat after a single term -- to a dead man. He was not close to George
W. Bush, whose own election was not yet assured. He was not Bush's
first choice for attorney general, and when offered the job, he had to
endure a bruising confirmation at the hands of his old Senate colleagues.

But since Sept. 11, Ashcroft has emerged as perhaps the most powerful
attorney general of modern times, rivaling his ideological opposite
Robert F. Kennedy, despite a relationship with his president that
aides to both say remains more professional than personal. Working
seven days a week at the center of the Bush administration's
anti-terrorism campaign, Ashcroft has moved swiftly -- and sometimes
unilaterally -- to expand the government's powers to wiretap and
detain terrorism suspects and monitor their conversations with their
lawyers.

"We frankly go to bed every night asking ourselves, 'Have we done
everything we can to protect the liberty and freedom and security of
our citizenry?' " Ashcroft said in a telephone interview on Friday.

For weeks, Ashcroft has been in the thick of the war, from the
issuance of the order signed by Bush to prosecute foreign citizens
accused of terrorism in extraordinary military tribunals, to
day-to-day operations of the FBI. He has been an almost constant
presence at the bureau's command center and, with the bureau director,
Robert Mueller, has personally directed the investigations in the
Sept. 11 and anthrax attacks.

New Course On Legal Policy

And, even while immersed in the two-front war on terrorism, he has set
a new course on other legal policy, beginning a crackdown on the
distribution of marijuana for medical purposes in California and
threatening the licenses of doctors who prescribe drugs to help
patients end their lives under the terms of the assisted-suicide law
twice approved by the voters of Oregon.

In the process Ashcroft, 59, has not only become one of the most
activist officials in the history of the Justice Department but also a
target for a growing group of critics in both parties who contend that
some of the administration's tactics in its war on international
terrorism risk threatening civil liberties at home.

"I don't know whether there's a panic," said Sen. Patrick Leahy,
D-Vt., who heads the Judiciary Committee, "but there's such a sense of
concern, either at the Justice Department or at the White House, that
they feel they've got to start acting arbitrarily, trying things that
have never been tried before."

Leahy, with his Republican colleague Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, has
summoned Ashcroft to a hearing after Thanksgiving to explain some of
his recent anti-terrorism moves. "I don't know anybody on the Hill
who feels that some of these things have done anything that has
increased our security," Leahy added.

Ashcroft insists he has acted in accordance with his legal powers and
the Constitution to combat new and troubling threats.

"As we believe steps are available for us to take that are within the
statutory authority," he said, "and within the Constitution and the
framework of liberties, which we are all responsible for protecting,
we're going to adapt our procedures and processes to maximize the
security of the American people and reduce the danger of these kinds
of terrorist attacks."

The deeply conservative son and grandson of evangelical Christian
preachers, a man so punctilious that he likes to bake chocolate chip
cookies uniform enough to be stacked in Pringles potato chip cans, Ashcroft
has told friends that the terrorist attacks amount to a call he cannot
shirk. He certainly cannot avoid the spotlight of as many as 10 televised
interviews in a single day.

In a public career that began with a failed Republican primary
campaign for Congress from his home state of Missouri in 1972 and
eventually led to two terms as state attorney general and two terms as
governor before his election to the Senate in 1994, Ashcroft has often
felt underestimated, friends say. But his family likes to joke that he
is the proverbial man who falls into a sewer and comes out with a ham
sandwich: always turning his troubles to his advantage.

Loyalty Pays Off

Two years ago, he explored a run for the White House, hoping to
galvanize conservative Republicans. He decided against running to
concentrate on his re-election to the Senate, but lost in a strange
race. Ashcroft's opponent, Gov. Mel Carnahan, was killed in a plane
crash shortly before the election, yet narrowly won after Missouri's
governor promised to appoint Carnahan's widow, Jean, to his seat.

But the presidential dream dies hard, and Ashcroft's current post
could give him a powerful platform for the future if he succeeds.

Ashcroft's good friend Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said: "He's a very
humble person. I know he may not always come across that way, but he
is. He's always very much in control, and somebody who doesn't know
him might get the impression from seeing him on TV that he was
arrogant, but he isn't."

In a city often celebrated for its vices, Ashcroft neither smokes nor
drinks. His idea of a good time is a big bowl of ice cream (any
flavor), playing the piano or singing baritone on gospel hymns.

But aides and friends also attest to his sense of humor and say say he
is not above puncturing tense meetings at the Justice Department with
his imitation of Montgomery Burns, the misanthropic nuclear power
plant owner on "The Simpsons."

His critics insist he lacks the temperament to administer the nation's
laws impartially.

"These last three weeks reflect what John Ashcroft has been about for
the past three decades," said Ralph G. Neas, president of People for
the American Way, the liberal advocacy group. "It's absolutely
chilling to see the person entrusted with enforcing our laws and
defending our civil liberties showing so little concern for the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights."

The events of Sept. 11 began what Ashcroft's associates regard as the
beginning of his second term as attorney general, as the hijackings,
the possibility of more attacks and the new threat of bioterrorism
thrust Ashcroft into a central role in the Bush administration.

In the weeks since, Ashcroft has been among the chief proponents of
change, asserting that the country's law enforcement and
counterterrorism agencies must shift to a wartime footing to prevent
further attacks with steps that have enraged civil liberties groups.

A senior aide said that Ashcroft regarded himself as a civil
libertarian, but one who believes that war forces the government to
take aggressive steps to protect civil liberties. Kyl also said
Ashcroft had a "strong civil libertarian bent" on issues like Internet
privacy and a wariness of government power.

"When he establishes something that grants government power, I know
that he's thought it through very carefully," Kyl said. "He's very
well balanced. He's not going to let the extraordinary pressure of
this unbalance him to make him something that he's not"

But Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., the only member of the Senate to vote
against the administration's broad anti-terrorism bill, said he has
been troubled by Ashcroft's failure to provide an explanation of the
hundreds of people arrested who have not been identified. Many have
been released, but some remain in custody as material witnesses who
could be charged with crimes.

Ashcroft has also ordered vast overhauls of the FBI, the Immigration
and Naturalization Service and the Justice Department itself. Each
step has been labeled an effort to combat terrorism, but some, like
the reorganization of the immigration service, are long-debated ideas.

He permitted authorities to eavesdrop on conversations between lawyers
and some people in federal custody who are suspected of terrorism.
Justice Department officials said such eavesdropping is being used
against only 13 unidentified federal prisoners convicted of terrorist
acts.

Defying Some In FBI

Under Ashcroft's direction, authorities have compiled a list of more
than 5, 000 foreign men living in the United States legally on
business, tourist or student visas. The men, mainly from Middle
Eastern countries, are being sought for voluntary interviews as
possible witnesses who might have information about terrorist operations.

Ashcroft has issued warnings of new terrorist threats, based on vague
but credible intelligence information, overruling some reluctant FBI
officials. No new attacks occurred, but associates said that he felt
the threats could not be withheld.

"The risks have never been at this scale in American history,"
Ashcroft said.

He disagreed with critics, including those in the administration, who
have complained that the warnings ratcheted up the fear about attacks
without providing specific advice or information about how to respond.

"The worst decision we could make is to believe that this could never
happen again" he said.