Posted on Sat, Mar. 15, 2003
Ashcroft gains power through security shift
Even conservatives say attorney general may hold too much strength
ERIC LICHTBLAU AND ADAM LIPTAK
New York Times
WASHINGTON - In the bureaucratic reshuffling over homeland security, Attorney General John Ashcroft came out a winner.
Ashcroft took control of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and with it an issue close to his conservative agenda -- guns. And he gave up responsibility for two areas of law enforcement that had brought ridicule to the Justice Department: the color-coded threat alert system and immigration.
In recent months, Ashcroft, once regarded as a peripheral, even clumsy player in the Bush administration, has not only honed his skills as a bureaucratic infighter, he has also patched his tenuous relations with President Bush, who told Ashcroft last month that he was doing "a fabulous job."
With the addition of nearly 5,000 law enforcement officials from the firearms bureau, Ashcroft has again expanded the policing authority of the Justice Department, a hallmark of his tenure as attorney general.
With the fight against terrorism as his bully pulpit, Ashcroft has pushed the powers of federal law enforcement in directions few thought possible before the Sept. 11 attacks. His reach extends not only to counterterrorism, but also to issues like the death penalty and gun policy, which he attacks with equal aggressiveness.
Despite a years-long effort to shrink government as a senator from Missouri, Ashcroft has significantly broadened the reach of the attorney general, legal scholars and law enforcement officials agree.
All of which has left many of his critics increasingly worried.
Even some of his conservative peers complain that Ashcroft may have grown too powerful.
To his critics, Ashcroft is a Big Brother figure: an attorney general whose expanding scope has allowed the Justice Department to use wiretaps, backroom decisions and an expanded street presence to spy on ordinary Americans, read their e-mail messages or monitor their library checkouts, all in the name of fighting terrorism. And the department's consideration of proposals that could give it still greater counterterrorism authority has provoked fresh concerns.
The former Republican congressman Dick Armey, on his way out the door last year as House majority leader, said he thought Ashcroft and the Justice Department were "out of control."
Talking in his office, Ashcroft scoffs at the accusation that the department has become too expansive or that he has secretly tried to usurp authority from Congress. He says he is happy to defer to Congress.
"I don't want to be in control," he said in an interview on Friday. "I had a chance to be a part of that, and enjoyed it while I was there, but I don't aspire to be legislative."
Ashcroft has managed to blunt Congressional criticism through the carefully timed announcements of one major terrorist arrest after another. And he has also emerged as a useful political foil for President Bush.
While the president has visited mosques to deliver a message of respect for Muslims, for instance, it was left to Ashcroft to orchestrate an unpopular program to register Middle Eastern immigrants. And after Bush last year announced that he wanted to enlist workers for a terrorist "tips" program, Ashcroft was dispatched to Capitol Hill to defend the unpopular idea.
"I think Ashcroft understands that he's a lightning rod for this administration," said a Justice Department official close to the attorney general who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "He's at the center of so many different policies -- terrorism, affirmative action, the death penalty -- and he's no stranger to controversy. He's been living it all his life."
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