Ashcroft Drags His Feet In the War Against Terrorism

[Fear_Itself]

Attorney General John Ashcroft testifying before Congress, 9/24/01:

** It’s our position at the Justice Department and the position of this administration that we need to unleash every possible tool in the fight against terrorism and to do so promptly.**

Now, With Bill Moyers, 11/15/2002:

**Ashcroft ordered that all government lists — including voter registration, immigration and driver’s license lists — be checked for links to terrorists. But there was one list Ashcroft did not want used - the gun purchasers background check.

Every person who buys a gun from a dealer must pass an instant criminal background check. It’s called the National Instant Criminal Background check system or NICS. The records of those checks are kept by the FBI. After September 11th, the ATF wanted to review those records to see if any suspected terrorists had bought guns.

They wanted to know whether any of them had slipped through the system. The Department of Justice stepped in and stopped the FBI in their tracks. The Department of Justice said no, you can’t do that. You can’t use the records of approved gun purchasers in connection with a criminal investigation.

…

Attorney General John Ashcroft testifying before Congress, 12/6/01:

“It’s my belief that the United States Congress specifically outlaws and bans the use of the NICS database and that’s the use of approved purchase records, for weapons checks on possible terrorists or on anyone else.”

What the Attorney General did not tell Congress in December is revealed in this internal Justice Department memo, obtained by NOW. It turns out that Ashcroft’s own Justice Department had just issued an opinion that supported the F.B.I’s longtime practice of checking criminal suspects against the gun background check records.

And it said, “We see nothing in the NICS regulations that prohibits the FBI from deriving additional benefits from checking audit log records.”

Ashcroft refused to follow his own Justice Department’s interpretation of the law.**

So why is it proper for the government to investigate the driving records, voter registration and immigration records of innocent citizens and legal resident aliens, yet suddenly it is not acceptable to use the NICS database to find terrorists? Ashcroft lied to the nation when he said he would use every possible tool to track down terrorists; the truth is, the Bush administration is controlled by the NRA, and cannot risk offending this all-powerful lobby by doing anything that could be perceived as support for a gun control measure like NICS. The power base of the Republicans rests on a three-legged stool: anti-gun control, anti-abortion, and anti-taxes. Anything that deviates from slavish devotion these dogma is doomed. The war on terrorism, and the security of the nation, will always take a back seat to the security of the Republican Party.

[Bricker]

I agree with Mr. Ashcroft. The law prohibits the use of the purchase database for any other reason than to approve or deny gun purchases. Indeed, when opponents in Congress said they didn’t want to create the database, for fear it would be used for purposes other than purchase approval, the sponsors of the bill claimed that this could never happen - that the bill was crafted to protect privacy.

It may make sense to change this law, of course. But not only does the law prohibit the use of the database in this way, it was sold that way to deflect criticism. at the time it was created.

• Rick