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Attorney General Eric Holder lacks authority to make a decision on moving terror detainees to civilian courts for trial, one of his predecessors said Wednesday. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, who held his position during the Bush administration from 2001-2005, said that Holder lacked the legal standing to decide to move alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other terror detainees to federal courts in New York City to stand trial. >p> "The attorney general doesn't have the authority to mandate that the secretary of Defense turn somebody over to him and yield jurisdiction so that something that would have...

This past August, the current Attorney General, Eric Holder, decided to launch an investigation of the CIA's methods of interrogation of suspected Islamic terrorists.A move lauded by terrorists.And condemed by seven former CIA directors, that Holder's actions in that regard, could actually help Al-Qaeda. Not to mention other Islamists.Meanwhile, Janet Napolitano, head of Homeland Security, has been in Abu Dhabi in the UAE discussing "security issues" with United Arab Emirates officials.After the Ft. Hood jihad terror attack, Napolitano made comments while in the UAE, that could basically be understood as an apology to the Muslim world,--if Americans are suspicious or angry toward Islam, because we have been attacked again.After 9/11, then Attorney General John...

WASHINGTON – Former Attorney General John Ashcroft and one of his hardline lieutenants face the rare prospect of being held personally liable for alleged violations of individuals' rights in the aggressive aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks. High-ranking officials usually are protected from such civil rights claims. Not necessarily in these cases. Three federal courts have left open the possibility that former Bush officials may have to reach into their own pockets to compensate people who were swept up in the law enforcement and intelligence efforts after the Sept. 11 attacks.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- A federal appeals court delivered a stinging rebuke Friday to the Bush administration's post-Sept. 11 detention policies, ruling that former Attorney General John Ashcroft can be held liable for people who were wrongfully detained as material witnesses after 9/11.

BOISE, Idaho - A federal appeals court delivered a stinging rebuke Friday to the Bush administration’s post-Sept. 11 detention policies, ruling that former Attorney General John Ashcroft can be held liable for people who were wrongfully detained as material witnesses after 9/11. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the government’s improper use of material witnesses after Sept. 11 was “repugnant to the Constitution and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history.” The court found that a man who was detained as a witness in a federal terrorism...

Ashcroft liable for detentions, court finds By Tony Romm - 09/04/09 04:18 PM ET Former Attorney General John Ashcroft may be sued and held liable for wrongly detaining witnesses after the Sept. 11 attacks, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday. In its decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that Abdullah Al-Kidd, a U.S. citizen detained as a material witness for two weeks, may sue the former attorney general for breaching his constitutional rights. Al-Kidd claimed during the case that his brief imprisonment caused him to lose a scholarship and crippled his chances of finding employment, according...

BOISE, Idaho – A federal appeals court delivered a stinging rebuke Friday to the Bush administration's post-Sept. 11 detention policies, ruling that former Attorney General John Ashcroft can be held liable for people who were wrongfully detained as material witnesses after 9/11. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the government's improper use of material witnesses after Sept. 11 was "repugnant to the Constitution and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history." The court found that a man who was detained as a witness in a federal terrorism...

Dr. Howard Dean’s fans come out for the big Democratic summer shindig As Tom Andrews, the director of the leading national antiwar coalition, began his speech at the Maine Democrats’ big outdoor summer shindig in Falmouth, John Baldacci signaled his bodyguard/driver to move the large, dark SUV up the driveway. The vehicle soon hid in the trees, its engine quietly humming. At first, the governor seemed to be paying attention as Andrews, the former First District congressman, launched into rousing tales of how the country, under President George W. Bush, had gone "from peace and prosperity to war and recession."...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (July 18, 2009) — Two major conferences are coming later this month to Fort Leonard Wood, one of them featuring John Ashcroft, Missouri’s former governor and the nation’s former attorney general, speaking on combating weapons of mass destruction in a post-9/11 environment. Ashcroft’s speech will be part of the Joint Senior Leaders’ Course, held from July 23 to 25, which focuses on chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear training being offered by Fort Leonard Wood’s CBRN School. Another conference will be held at Fort Leonard Wood the following week that specifically focuses on foreign military issues of...

Former Boeing instructor pilot Anthony Keyter has filed a federal civil lawsuit against Boeing, alleging that the Chicago-based aerospace company plotted to murder him. Boeing test pilot Anthony Keyter says that Boeing plotted to kill him. The lawsuit indicates that Keyter lives in Gig Harbor and that he is representing himself. The suit, filed Monday with the U.S. District Court of Western Washington, charges that Boeing plotted to kill Keyter after Keyter filed another civil complaint against President George W. Bush. "President Bush, via his agents, contacted high level executives of The Boeing Company and initiated a criminal plot to...

The Bush administration authorized secret surveillance activities that still have not been made public, according to a new government report that questions the legal basis for the unprecedented anti-terrorism program. It's unclear how much valuable intelligence was yielded by the surveillance program started after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, according to the unclassified summary of reports by five inspectors general. The reports mandated by Congress last year were delivered to lawmakers Friday. President George W. Bush authorized other secret intelligence activities — which have yet to become public — even as he was launching the massive warrentless wiretapping program,...

BOSTON (AP) — A Boston city councilor charged with extortion alleges the state's former U.S. attorney targeted him at the behest of former Attorney General John Ashcroft. City Councilor Chuck Turner sent an e-mail to supporters before a court hearing Thursday suggesting Michael Sullivan sought indictments against him and former Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, another prominent black politician, because he was trying to ingratiate himself with Ashcroft — for whom he now works. "I personally believe that former Attorney General Ashcroft said to Sullivan that if he could take down Senator Wilkerson and myself, he would put up the money to...

9/11, Info Sharing, and “The Wall” The rise of “the wall” between intelligence and law enforcement personnel that impeded the sharing of information within the U.S. government prior to September 11, 2001 was critically examined in a detailed monograph (pdf) that was prepared in 2004 for the 9/11 Commission. It is the only one of four staff monographs that had not previously been released. It was finally declassified and disclosed earlier this month [http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/wall.pdf --searchable HTML transcript at http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:KyzY5fDka0AJ:www.fas.org/irp/eprint/wall.pdf+%22legal+barriers+to+information+sharing:+the+erection+of+a+wall+between+intelligence+and+law+enforcement+investigations%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us]. In April 2004, Attorney General John Ashcroft testified (pdf) that the failure to properly share threat information in the summer of...

Former Atty. Gen. Testifies Today Former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft answered questions about his role in the drafting of detainee interrogation rules. In his opening statement, Ashcroft admitted that he had "limited recollection" of the events pertinent to the committee's inquiry.

<p>I'm no Brent Bozell or Bernard Goldberg, but I know undisclosed media bias when I see it.</p> <p>After reading Newsweek's hit piece on Attorney General John Ashcroft, it occurred to me that the publication should consider changing its name to Opinionweek. Or is that name taken?</p>

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee on Monday threatened to serve subpoenas on former Attorney General John Ashcroft and two others associated with the Bush administration's interrogation policies if they don't agree to testify. If the three — including John C. Yoo, the former assistant deputy attorney general, and David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff — do not reply by Friday, "I will have no choice but to consider the use of compulsory process," Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., wrote in letters to them. That's Washington-speak for issuing congressional subpoenas, tough talk that Conyers has leveled at...

"I did not mean to...I'm sorry about that. I apologize publicly."

ASHCROFT, CRITICS FACE OFF Former U.S. attorney general peppered with questions in wide-ranging talk at Skidmore College By MARC PARRY, Staff writer SARATOGA SPRINGS -- Nobody threw eggs. The crowd didn't walk out in protest. But John Ashcroft was treated to a verbal grilling Wednesday as a guest speaker at largely liberal Skidmore College. An overflow assembly of more than 600 people questioned Ashcroft, President Bush's former attorney general, about the war in Iraq, abortion, torture, surveillance, drugs and immigration. A gay student asked him about gay marriage. "You can have a relationship, you just can't have the special status,"...

A congressional committee that has questioned U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie's appointment of former Attorney General John Ashcroft to a multimillion-dollar contract yesterday postponed a hearing on the issue after it was unable to get assurances that either Christie or Ashcroft would testify. ... Christie, the top federal law enforcement officer in New Jersey, has said he would testify if directed by the Justice Department. The subcommittee on commercial and administrative law had called the hearing to explore what members had said was a troubling trend: an increase in out-of-court settlements between federal prosecutors and corporations under investigation. The settlements, called...

A federal appeals panel sympathetic to the government's detention of illegal immigrants after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks seems ready to exempt former Attorney General John Ashcroft from a lawsuit alleging the detainees were abused. The three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Thursday in a government appeal of a ruling by Judge John Gleeson in Brooklyn that concluded that lawsuits could go forward against Ashcroft and other high-ranking federal officials. Appeals court Judges Dennis Jacobs and Reena Raggi, however, expressed skepticism that Ashcroft was directly involved in conditions at the lockup. The lawsuits are...

WASHINGTON -- Five years after a gay advocacy group was told that it could no longer use the e-mail, bulletin boards and meeting rooms at the Justice Department, Attorney General Michael Mukasey has reversed that decision and issued a revised equal-employment-opportunity policy barring discrimination against any group. Mukasey informed leaders of DOJ Pride last week that the department would give it the same rights as all other DOJ employee organiza- tions, said the group's president, Chris Hook. In a statement, Mukasey said the department will "foster an environment in which diversity is valued, understood and sought" and maintain "an environment...

Gore: Scientists Disagreeing with Climate Alarmism Tied to Big Oil Photo of Noel Sheppard. By Noel Sheppard | December 21, 2007 - 11:46 ET As NewsBusters reported Thursday, over 400 scientists in 2007 "voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called ‘consensus' on man-made global warming." Predictably, Nobel Laureate Al Gore dismissed this historic Senate report by stating through a representative that some of these esteemed scientists from around the world have connections to Big Oil, and, therefore, their opinions should be ignored. Pretty amazing coming from a man that likely has made what some estimate is $100 million...

DETROIT (AP) - The Justice Department is investigating possible misconduct by the lead prosecutor in the nation's first major post-Sept. 11 terrorism trial, according to a published report. U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Collins requested the investigation in November after discovering possible ethical violations involving Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino, the Detroit Free Press reported Saturday, citing sources it did not name. The allegations include withholding evidence from defense attorneys and trying to convince a court employee to get confidential information about a prisoner, the newspaper said. Convertino said Collins is trying to destroy his reputation and career. "This is so untrue,...

In the face of shouting dissenters and shrouded protesters, former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft stood firmly behind his conviction Thursday that the 2001 USA Patriot Act strengthened America's freedom and continues to protect the country from terrorist attacks. Ashcroft spoke about the need for the change in national security thinking after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 to a crowd of more than 700 at Cornell University's Statler Hall. The former attorney general described his experience on 9/11 and how the increased ease with which a terrorist could cause harm to civilians changed the way the government needed to...

The following was received by email and written written by the spouse of the director at the Reagan Ranch I MET AND SPOKE TO JOHN ASHCROFT LAST NITE,(sat) AT A DINNER AT YAF REAGAN RANCH CENTER. HE SPOKE ON LEADERSHIP AND CHARACTER. GOOD SPEAKER. TODAY MARILYN IS GOING BACK INTO TOWN FOR A PRESENTATION OF A FREEDOM MEDAL WITH OLIVER NORTH, AND A SIT DOWN WITH BILL CLARK, PRESIDENT REAGANS ADVISOR, CLOSE FRIEND AND SEC. OF THE INTERIOR UNDER REAGAN .SHE MEETS A BUNCH OF INTERESTING PEOPLE, AND YOU'RE GOING TO LOVE THIS STORY. YESTERDAY, RON ROBINSON , THE DIRECTOR...

<p>WASHINGTON — Hundreds of National Guard members have been requested to beef up security along the U.S.-Canadian border and to relieve Immigration and Naturalization Service workers who need to return to their regular duties, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Sunday.</p> <p>Ashcroft wants the National Guard members to assist with inspections at the crossings and military helicopters to patrol the border.</p>

<p>".....my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America's friends."</p> <p>WASHINGTON - Attorney General John Ashcroft vigorously defended the administration's anti-terrorism policies Thursday and suggested that critics of the Justice Department's actions were aiding the terrorists.</p>

<p>December 7, 2001 -- THE Senate Judiciary Committee convened yesterday so that chairman Patrick Leahy and his Democratic colleagues could rip into Attorney General John Ashcroft and, by extension, the entire Bush administration for their handling of the domestic-terrorism investigation and the plan for military tribunals.</p>

Ashcroft champions stern action KAREN GULLO WASHINGTON -- Attorney General John Ashcroft on Thursday aggressively defended stern law enforcement measures in the wake of terrorist attacks and suggested those who question hard-line tactics are aiding the enemy. "We need honest, reasoned debate, not fear-mongering," said Ashcroft, who was called before Congress to discuss the detention of hundreds of people without charges and military tribunals for accused terrorists. "To those who pit Americans against immigrants and citizens against noncitizens, to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists for they ...

"Why did this hearing, er, er, er..." I was approaching an aide to a Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which had minutes earlier completed a three-hour session with Attorney General John Ashcroft, and I was trying to ask a question politely. "Suck?" the aide said. I nodded. There was no denying it. This much-ballyhooed face-off between Ashcroft and Senate Democrats was more fizzle than sizzle. The Democrats had called Ashcroft before the committee to discuss the civil liberties implications of various Bush antiterrorism initiatives, most notably military tribunals for suspected terrorists who are not US citizens, the ...

Then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft was "feeble," "barely articulate" and "stressed" moments after a hospital room confrontation in March 2004 with Alberto R. Gonzales, who wanted Ashcroft to approve a warrantless wiretapping program over Justice Department objections, according to notes from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III that were released yesterday. One of Mueller's entries in five pages of a daily log pertaining to the dispute also indicated that Ashcroft's deputy was so concerned about undue pressure by Gonzales and other White House aides for the attorney general to back the wiretapping program that the deputy asked Mueller to bar...

...From a purely humanist standpoint, one might conclude that each person owns his or her life. We create living wills so that a family member has the power to “pull the plug” if we become permanently incapacitated. How is it then, that a doctor can be authorized to disable a life support device when I’m a vegetable, but cannot enable a device to stop my heart under other circumstances? In both cases, it is a matter of a physician flipping a switch or prescribing a drug to end a life...

WASHINGTON: On the night of March 10, 2004, a high-ranking Justice Department official rushed to a Washington hospital to prevent two White House aides from taking advantage of the critically ill Attorney General, John Ashcroft, the official testified on Tuesday. One of those aides was Alberto Gonzales, who was then White House counsel and eventually succeeded Ashcroft as Attorney General. "I was very upset," said James Comey, who was deputy Attorney General at the time, in his testimony Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "I was angry. I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a...

WASHINGTON - President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program was so questionable that a top Justice Department official refused for a time to reauthorize it, sparking a standoff with top White House officials that culminated at the bedside of an ailing attorney general, a Senate panel was told Tuesday. Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he refused to recertify the program because Attorney General John Ashcroft had reservations about its legality just before falling ill with pancreatitis in March 2004. The White House, Comey said, recertified the program without the Justice Department's signoff, allowing it to...

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, hired by opponents of the deal, has blasted Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.'s proposed acquisition of XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., saying the combination would leave only one provider in the market. Ashcroft, who served as head of the Justice Department for four years until January 2005, was hired by the National Association of Broadcasters to examine the acquisition. The NAB, which represents traditional radio broadcasters, has been a fierce critic of the acquisition, now worth about $4.4 billion, since it was announced last week. In a letter sent on February 27 to his replacement as...

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft this week became the only Cabinet-level Bush official to attack the Sept. 11 Commission, writing in his memoirs it "seemed obsessed with trying to lay the blame for the terrorist attacks at the feet of the Bush administration, while virtually absolving the previous administration of responsibility." Ashcroft also writes that the commission's hearings "were not so much about discovering the truth as they were about assessing blame and grandstanding," adding that they "degenerated into show trials."

Excerpt - WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and former Attorney General John Ashcroft received the same CIA briefing about an imminent al-Qaida strike on an American target that was given to the White House two months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The State Department's disclosure Monday that the pair was briefed within a week after then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was told about the threat on July 10, 2001, raised new questions about what the Bush administration did in response, and about why so many officials have claimed they never received or don't remember the warning. One...

EXCERPT from link:"In response to inquiries from CBS News over why Ashcroft was traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines, the Justice Department cited what it called a "threat assessment" by the FBI, and said Ashcroft has been advised to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his term."

While sensational news stories about terrorism receive a lot of attention, Americans should understand that the hunt for terrorists in the United States is a “game of inches.” Every incremental step matters; each tiny bit of information can make a difference; seemingly insignificant clues may provide the crucial piece that helps solve the puzzle. We should debate the government’s powers to protect the American people, for their exercise will shape our destiny. We should understand that the debate and our decisions are choices with consequences of life or death for innocent Americans. Which authority under the Constitution, one that is...

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is quietly remaking the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, filling the permanent ranks with lawyers who have strong conservative credentials but little experience in civil rights, according to job application materials obtained by the Globe. The documents show that only 42 percent of the lawyers hired since 2003, after the administration changed the rules to give political appointees more influence in the hiring process, have civil rights experience. In the two years before the change, 77 percent of those who were hired had civil rights backgrounds. In an acknowledgment of the department's special need to...

Former Attorney General, John Ashcroft, speaking at Vanderbilt, says that the death penalty saves lives and deters crime.

They were loyal conservatives, and Bush appointees. They fought a quiet battle to rein in the president's power in the war on terror. And they paid a price for it. A NEWSWEEK investigation. Feb. 6, 2006 issue - James Comey, a lanky, 6-foot-8 former prosecutor who looks a little like Jimmy Stewart, resigned as deputy attorney general in the summer of 2005. The press and public hardly noticed. Comey's farewell speech, delivered in the Great Hall of the Justice Department, contained all the predictable, if heartfelt, appreciations. But mixed in among the platitudes was an unusual passage. Comey thanked "people...

Hundreds of noncitizens were swept up on visa violations in the weeks after 9/11, held for months in a much-criticized federal detention center in Brooklyn as "persons of interest" to terror investigators, and then deported. This week, one of them is back in New York and another is due today - the first to return to the United States. They are no longer the accused but the accusers, among six former detainees who are coming back to give depositions in their federal lawsuits against top government officials and detention guards, at a time when the constitutionality of part of the...

Ashcroft shows his true colors The struggle to establish civil liberties against the backdrop of these security threats, while difficult, promises to build bulwarks to help guarantee that a nation fighting for its survival does not sacrifice those national values that make the fight worthwhile." William J. Brennan, Speech delivered to law school of Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel, December 22, 1987 Just because Attorney General John Ashcroft's Justice Department and its assorted enforcement agencies have been unable to locate the source of the anthrax does not mean they haven't been busy. During October Mr. Ashcroft took steps to remind ...

ACLU and ABA Would Protect WTC Terrorists From U.S. Eavesdropping Ashcroft Got It Just Right By Ann Coulter The Week of November 19, 2001 What this country needs right now is a real civil liberties crackdown to give liberals something serious to worry about. I&#146;m leaning toward an emergency suspension of the 1st Amendment. My reasoning is this: Most newspapers last week carried yet another breathless report on how liberals might have finally discovered some method of counting the Florida ballots that would have made Al Gore the winner. On the basis of every recount either requested by Gore or ...

In debating a lib today about the legality and constitutionality of the President's wire-tapping, I came across an article from National Review on this site located here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1551281/posts... Doing a simple search on Google I came across this PBS Online NewsArticle from 11\18\2002... I will excerpt this article with link but my question is- has a single person in the MSM brought this up?? Nov. 18, 2002, 5:30pm EST COURT UPHOLDS EXPANDED U.S. WIRETAPPING POWERS A federal appeals court ruled Monday that the U.S. government has an expanded authority to use wiretaps and other surveillance techniques in its efforts to...

The top deputy to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft refused two years ago to approve important parts of the secret program that allows domestic eavesdropping without warrants, prompting two leading White House aides to try to win the needed approval from Mr. Ashcroft himself while he was hospitalized after a gall bladder operation, according to officials knowledgeable about the episode. With Mr. Ashcroft recuperating from gall bladder surgery in March 2004, his deputy, James B. Comey, who was then acting as attorney general, was unwilling to give his certification to crucial aspects of the classified program, as required under the procedures...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- An Ohio trucker has admitted to helping plan al Qaeda attacks in the United States after meeting terror chief Osama bin Laden at an Afghanistan terror training camp. Iyman Faris, 34, checked out the chances of destroying a New York bridge and tried to buy equipment for proposed al Qaeda attacks while appearing to be a law-abiding trucker, according to documents unsealed Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia. Faris pleaded guilty May 1 to providing material support to al Qaeda and to conspiring to do so, according to the documents. The charges together carry...

Mr. Ashcroft reduced the number of judges on the board to 11 from 23. "They just hacked off all the liberals is basically what they did," said Ms. Rosenberg, who served on the board from 1995 to 2002.

In "The Age of Anxiety," Haynes Johnson makes a depressing observation: "Although McCarthy and the leading players of his time… have long since passed from the scene, McCarthyism remains a story without an ending." ...McCarthyism... has become an all-purpose incantation, referring to everything from genuine political repression to folks not buying a singer's records.... Calling someone a McCarthyite has become a form of McCarthyism. ...Mr. Johnson ignores the genuine threat that communist spies posed to the U.S.; he elides the justified anticommunist efforts of the 1930s and 1940s with the abuses of McCarthyism; and he compares McCarthyism with modern-day conservatism....