Defiant Ashcroft strong facing former colleagues

WASHINGTON -- Summoned to Capitol Hill to defend the Bush administration's handling of the terrorist investigation, Attorney General John Ashcroft struck back at its critics.

Shored by a national poll that showed most Americans don't mind curtailing some civil rights in these times, Ashcroft deflected much of the criticism with strong arguments that tapped into public fears.

"Terrorist operatives infiltrate our communities, plotting, planning, waiting to kill again," Ashcroft told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "They enjoy the benefits of our free society, even as they commit themselves to our destruction."

He held aloft an al-Qaida training manual seized in a London raid, calling it a "how-to guide for terrorists that instructs enemy operatives in the art of killing in a free society."

With the wounds of Sept. 11 still raw, many senators expressed support for the administration's tactics.

But others focused on complaints that the administration had not consulted adequately with Congress and how rights might be curbed.

"The Constitution does not need protection when its guarantees are popular, but it very much needs our protection when events tempt us to -- just this once -- go beyond the Constitution," said committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

Ashcroft, a former Missouri senator and member of the judiciary panel, said he is reminded each morning of the threat the U.S. faces when he reads intelligence briefings.

"If ever there were proof of evil in the world, it is in the pages of these reports," he said. "They are a chilling daily chronicle of hatred of America."

Leahy and other senators pressed Ashcroft to provide guarantees that the military tribunals would protect rights of the accused. Ashcroft suggested questions should be directed to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, not the Justice Department. The Pentagon is writing the rules of the tribunals, established in a military order by President Bush.

Saying she was "personally very supportive" of the antiterrorism measures, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., wanted to know whether noncitizens "only peripherally involved" in the Sept. 11 attacks will be tried in military venues.

Ashcroft did not give an answer that satisfied the Democratic senators, prompting Leahy to say, "That's why we need a law."

Ashcroft also defended the government's monitoring of conversations between suspected terrorists and their attorneys, saying a 1977 Supreme Court decision supported the practice.

That court decision requires the government to inform attorneys when they listen in on a client conversation. Sixteen of 158,000 federal prisoners are subject to such monitoring, Ashcroft said.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., asked Ashcroft to explain how he would wield new authority to keep in jail immigration violators deemed to be security threats, even after an immigration judge has ordered their release on bail.

Ashcroft said he will make such decisions "in the national interest."

A longtime gun control advocate, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., grilled Ashcroft on his decision to withhold background-check records of firearms buyers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The FBI wanted to know whether any of the more than 1,000 people detained after the Sept. 11 attacks had illegally purchased guns.

Ashcroft, a staunch gun rights advocate, blocked the FBI. As a senator, he had opposed the bill that established the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which gun control advocates said would help keep weapons out of criminals' hands.

Schumer argued that the law gives Ashcroft leeway to open the records to criminal investigators.

Ashcroft demurred when Schumer challenged him to say he would support a bill to clarify the FBI's access to the records for law-enforcement purposes.

Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., got Ashcroft to admit that, contrary to his earlier statements, no law bars him from releasing the names of nonpermanent residents detained on immigration violations.

On Thursday, Ashcroft instead stressed the need to protect the privacy of the 563 people still detained on immigration charges.

Ashcroft also denied that he had prevented any of the detainees from obtaining counsel.

While noting that immigration violators are not entitled to counsel at government expense, Ashcroft said he had tried to hook up organizations that offer pro-bono services with the detainees.

Feingold, noting reports that some detainees get as little as 15 minutes a week on the phone, challenged him. "The right to an attorney is meaningless if it is impossible for the person in custody to contact" the outside world, he said.

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