John Ashcroft

WASHINGTON: Attorney General John Ashcroft, in his most forceful defense to date of the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism efforts, warned on Aug. 19 that any attempt to strip law enforcement agents of their expanded legal powers couldthe way to further terrorist attacks.

“To abandon these tools,” Ashcroft said in a speech that kicked off a multi-city tour, “would senselessly imperil American lives and American liberty, and it would ignore the lessons of Sept. 11th.”

The attorney general’s remarks were at once an acknowledgment of the momentum achieved by opponents of the USA Patriot Act ---- as the law that grew out of the Sept. 11 attacks is known

---- and a declaration of the Bush administration’s commitment to preserve and perhaps even expand that law.

Some members of Congress and civil liberties groups maintain that the Patriot Act has given federal agents too much power to pursue terrorist suspects, threatening the civil rights and privacy of Americans. But Ashcroft argued that the law has been essential to preventing another terrorist attack in the U.S. Expanding the powers of federal agents to use wiretapping, surveillance and other investigative methods and to share intelligence information “gives us the technological tools to anticipate, adapt and out-think our terrorist enemy,” he said.

Ashcroft’s speech before the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning group, led off a series of appearances that will take him to more than a dozen cities around the country in the next month to speak in defense of the Patriot Act. Ashcroft will deliver his message before law enforcement groups but is not scheduled to address any public groups, officials said. That task will be left to federal prosecutors around the country, who Ashcroft has asked to organize town hall-style forums on the Patriot Act in their cities.

In another element of the campaign, the Justice Department on Aug. 19 also began a new Web site on the Patriot Act. Officials said the site, www.lifeandliberty.gov, is aimed at “dispelling some of the major myths perpetuated as part of the disinformation campaign” by critics of the Patriot Act. The speaking tour comes at a time when opponents of the Patriot Act appear to have made significant headway in recent months in raising concerns about the law’s impact.

The Republican-led House voted overwhelmingly last month to repeal a key provision of the law that allows federal authorities to delay notification that search warrants have been executed. Lawmakers have proposed other measures that would also scale back surveillance powers and other aspects of the legislation.

More than 150 communities around the country have passed resolutions opposing the law. Librarians in numerous cities have complained -- despite the adamant denials by the Justice Department and the FBI -- that government agents may be using their expanded powers to snoop into people's reading habits. And the ACLU and other civil liberties groups are suing to have parts of the law declared unconstitutional.

(By Permission, The New York Times)