Attorney General Ashcroft Speaks About the Patriot Act
Prepared Remarks of Attorney General Ashcroft at the Federalist Society National Convention
November 15, 2003
ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: Thank you for the invitation to join you here this
morning, I would like to know when the Federalist Society began keeping farmers?
hours. I mean, a speech at 8 AM on a Saturday?
When your friends at the American Constitution
Society for Law and Policy held their inaugural event, they let Janet Reno speak
at a far more civilized hour. How do
you expect me to do this and be fresh for tonight?s John Ashcroft Dance
Party?
I do appreciate your invitation to speak to you this
morning. The Federalist Society and its
membership have been resolute defenders of our nation?s founding ideals: liberty, the rule of law, limited
government. It is in this capacity that
the Federalist Society is so necessary today.
For the past two years, you have been part of the
debate about how best to preserve and protect our liberty in the face of a very
real terrorist threat.
America has an honored tradition of debate and
dissent under the First Amendment. It
is an essential piece of our constitutional and cultural fabric. As a former politician, I have heard a few
dissents in my time, and even expressed a couple of my own.
The Founders believed debate should enlighten, not
just enliven. It should reveal truth,
not obscure it. The future of freedom
demands that our discourse be based on a solid foundation of facts and a
sincere desire for truth. As we
consider the direction and destiny of our nation, the friends of freedom must
practice for themselves ? and demand from others ? a debate informed by fact
and directed toward truth.
Take away all the bells and whistles ? the rhetorical
flourishes and occasional vitriol ? and the current debate about liberty is
about the rule of law and the role of law.
The notion
that the law can enhance, not diminish, freedom is an old one. John Locke said the end of law is, quote,
"? not to abolish or restrain but to preserve and enlarge
freedom." George Washington called
this, "ordered liberty."
There are some voices in this discussion of how best
to preserve freedom that reject the idea that law can enhance freedom. They think that passage and enforcement of
any law is necessarily an infringement of liberty.
Ordered liberty is the reason that we are the most
open and the most secure society in the world.
Ordered liberty is a guiding principle, not a stumbling block to security.
When the first societies passed and enforced the
first laws against murder, theft and rape, the men and women of those societies
unquestionably were made more free.
A test of a law, then, is this: does it honor or degrade liberty? Does it enhance or diminish freedom?
The Founders provided the mechanism to protect our
liberties and preserve the safety and security of the Republic: the Constitution. It is a document that safeguards security, but not at the expense
of freedom. It celebrates freedom, but
not at the expense of security. It
protects us and our way of life.
Since September 11, 2001, the Department of Justice
has fought for, Congress has created, and the judiciary has upheld, legal tools
that honor the Constitution ? legal tools that are making America safer while
enhancing American freedom.
It is a compliment to all who worked on the Patriot
Act to say that it is not constitutionally innovative. The Act uses court-tested safeguards and
time-honored ideas to aid the war against terrorism, while protecting the
rights and lives of citizens.
Madison noted in 1792 that the greatest threat to our
liberty was centralized power. Such
focused power, he wrote, is liable to abuse.
That is why he concluded a distribution of power into separate
departments is a first principle of free governments.
The Patriot Act honors Madison?s ?first principles? ?
giving each branch of government a role in ensuring both the lives and
liberties of our citizens are protected.
The Patriot Act grants the executive branch critical tools in the war on
terrorism. It provides the legislative
branch extensive oversight. It honors
the judicial branch with court supervision over the Act?s most important
powers.
First, the executive branch.
At the Department of Justice, we are dedicated to
detecting, disrupting, and dismantling the networks of terror before they can
strike at our nation. In the past two
years, no major terrorist attack has been perpetrated on our soil.
Consider the bloodshed by terrorism elsewhere in that
time:
- Women and children slaughtered in Jerusalem;
- Innocent, young lives snuffed out in Indonesia;
- Saudi citizens savaged in Riyadh;
- Churchgoers in
Pakistan murdered by the hands of hate.
We are using the tough tools provided in the USA
Patriot Act to defend American lives and liberty from those who have shed blood
and decimated lives in other parts of the world.
The Patriot Act does three things:
First, it closes the gaping holes in law
enforcement?s ability to collect vital intelligence information on terrorist
enterprises. It allows law enforcement
to use proven tactics long used in the fight against organized crime and drug
dealers.
Second, the Patriot Act updates our
anti-terrorism laws to meet the challenges of new technology and new threats.
Third, with these critical new investigative
tools provided by the Patriot Act, law enforcement can share information and
cooperate better with each other. From
prosecutors to intelligence agents, the Act allows law enforcement to ?connect
the dots? and uncover terrorist plots before they are launched.
Here is an example of how we use the Act. Some of you are familiar with the Iyman
Faris case. He is a naturalized
American citizen who worked as a truck driver out of Columbus, Ohio.
Using information sharing allowed under the Patriot
Act, law enforcement pieced together Faris?s activities:
- How Faris met senior Al Qaeda operatives in a training camp in Afghanistan.
- How he was asked to
procure equipment that might cause train derailments and sever suspension
systems of bridges.
- How he traveled to New
York to scout a potential terrorist target.
Faris pleaded guilty on May 1, 2003, and on October
28, he was sentenced under the Patriot Act?s tough sentences. He will serve 20 years in prison for
providing material support to Al Qaeda and conspiracy for providing the
terrorist organization with information about possible U.S. targets for attack.
The Faris case illustrates what the Patriot Act
does. One thing the Patriot Act does
not do is allow the investigation of individuals, quote, "? solely upon
the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution of
the United States."
Even if the law did not prohibit it, the Justice
Department has neither the time nor the inclination to delve into the reading
habits or other First Amendment activities of our citizens.
Despite all the hoopla to the contrary, for example,
the Patriot Act ? which allows for court-approved requests for business
records, including library records ?
has never been used to obtain records from a library. Not once.
Senator Dianne Feinstein recently said, quote,
?I have never had a single abuse of the Patriot Act reported
to me. My staff e-mailed the ACLU and asked them for instances
of actual abuses. They e-mailed back and said they had none.?
The Patriot Act has enabled us to make quiet, steady
progress in the war on terror.
Since September 11, we have dismantled terrorist
cells in Detroit, Seattle, Portland, Tampa, Northern Virginia, and Buffalo.
We have disrupted weapons procurement plots in Miami,
San Diego, Newark, and Houston.
We have shut down terrorist-affiliated charities in
Chicago, Dallas and Syracuse.
We have brought criminal charges against 286
individuals. We have secured convictions
or guilty pleas from 155 people.
Terrorists who are incarcerated, deported or
otherwise neutralized threaten fewer American lives. For two years, our citizens have been safe. There have been no major terrorist attacks
on our soil. American freedom has been
enhanced, not diminished. The
Constitution has been honored, not degraded.
Second, the role Congress plays.
In six weeks of debate in September and October of
2001, both the House of Representatives and the Senate examined studiously and
debated vigorously the merits of the Patriot Act. In the end, both houses supported overwhelmingly its passage.
Congress built into the Patriot Act strict and
structured oversight of the Executive Branch.
Every six months, the Justice Department provides Congress with reports
of its activities under the Patriot Act.
Since September 24, 2001, Justice Department
officials, myself included, have testified on the Patriot Act and other
homeland security issues more than 115 times.
We have responded to hundreds of written and oral questions and provided
reams of written responses.
To date, no congressional committee has found any
evidence that law enforcement has abused the powers provided by the Patriot
Act.
Legislative oversight of
the executive branch is critical to ?ordered liberty.? It ensures that laws and those who
administer them respect the rights and liberties of the citizens.
There has not been a major
terrorist attack within our borders in the past two years. Time and again, Congress has found the
Patriot Act to be effective against terrorist threats, and respectful and
protective of citizens? liberties. The
Constitution has been honored, not degraded.
Finally, the judiciary.
The Patriot Act provides for close judicial
supervision of the executive branch?s use of Patriot Act authorities.
The Act allows the government to utilize many
long-standing, well-accepted law enforcement tools in the fight against
terror. These tools include delayed
notification, judicially-supervised searches, and so-called roving wiretaps,
which have long been used in combating organized crime and in the war on drugs.
In using these tactics to fight terrorism, the
Patriot Act includes an additional layer of protection for individual
liberty. A federal judge supervises the
use of each of these tactics.
Were we to seek an order to request business records,
that order would need the approval of a federal judge. Grand jury subpoenas issued for similar
requests by police in standard criminal investigations are issued without
judicial oversight.
Throughout the Patriot Act, tools provided to fight
terrorism require that the same predication be established before a federal
judge as with similar tools provided to fight other crime.
In addition, the Patriot Act includes yet another
layer of judicial scrutiny by providing a civil remedy in the event of
abuse. Section 223 of the Patriot Act
allows citizens to seek monetary damages for willful violations of the Patriot
Act. This civil remedy serves as a
further deterrent against infringement upon individual liberties.
Given our overly litigious society, you are probably
wondering how many such civil cases have been filed to date. It is a figure as astronomical as the
library searches. Zero.
There is a simple reason for this ? the Patriot has not
been used to infringe upon individual liberty.
Many of you have heard the hue and cry from critics
of the Patriot Act who allege that liberty has been eroded. But more telling is what you have not
heard. You have not heard of one single
case in which a judge has found an abuse of the Patriot Act because, again, there
have been no abuses.
It is also important to consider what we have not seen
? no major terrorist attacks on our soil over the past two years.
The Patriot Act?s record demonstrates that we are
protecting the American people while honoring the Constitution and preserving
the liberties we hold dear.
While we are discussing the judiciary, allow me to
add one more point. To be at its best,
the judiciary requires a full bench.
This is not like football or basketball, where the bench consists of
reserves who might not see action. The
judicial bench, to operate best for the people, must be at full strength.
Let me say this ? President Bush has performed his
duties admirably in selecting and nominating highly qualified jurists to
serve.
The language in a judge?s
commission reads, and I quote, ?George
W. Bush, President of the United States of America ? to all who shall see this,
presents greeting: Know ye that reposing special confidence and trust in the
wisdom, uprightness and learning, I have nominated ??, you can fill in the
blank, with the name Janice Rogers Brown, or Bill Pryor, or Priscilla Owen, or
Carolyn Kuhl [Cool].
The commission?s language may seem
anachronistic. The ideals the men and
women of the bench must uphold are not:
Wisdom. Uprightness. Learning.
The president?s nominees personify those noble
ideals. They are proven defenders of the rule of law. They should be treated fairly.
They deserve to be treated with the dignity that befits the position to
which they seek to serve our country and its citizens.
You may think that some of the best of the
president?s nominees are being treated unfairly. In that case, you may want to exercise your right
to dissent. The future of freedom and
the rule of law depend on citizens informed by fact and directed toward truth.
To be sure, the law depends
on the integrity of those who make it, enforce it, and apply it. It depends on the moral courage of lawyers
like you ? and our citizens ? to insist on being heard, whether in town hall
meetings, county council meetings, or the Senate.
There is nothing more noble than fighting to preserve
our God-given rights. Our proven tactics
against the terrorist threat are helping to do just that.
For more than two years, we have protected the lives
of our citizens here at home. Again and
again, Congress has determined and the courts have determined that our
citizens? rights have been respected.
Twenty-six months ago, terrorists attacked our nation
thinking our liberties were our weakness.
They were wrong. The American
people have fulfilled the destiny shaped by our forefathers and founders, and
revealed the power of freedom.
Time and again, the spirit of our nation has been
renewed and our greatness as a people has been strengthened by our dedication
to the cause of liberty, the rule of law and the primacy and dignity of the
individual.
I know we will keep alive these noble aspirations
that lie in the hearts of all our fellow citizens, and for which our young men
and women are at this moment fighting and making the ultimate sacrifice.
What we are defending is what generations before us
fought for and defended: a nation that
is a standard, a beacon, to all who desire a land that promises to uphold the
best hopes of all mankind. A land of
justice. A land of liberty.
Thank you.
God bless you. And God bless
America.
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