John David Ashcroft, the 79th Attorney General of the United States, shared his insight into the weighty dynamic between liberty and security in a post-9/11 world last Thursday in the Chapel.
The Wabash Commentary co-sponsored the event with the conservative Young America’s Foundation. Tyler Gibson’09 and Brandon Stewart ‘08 introduced Mr. Ashcroft.
Looking out into a full crowd, with security at the entrances and protesters outside, Ashcroft opened his talk by loosening the crowd.
“I can’t believe [Brandon] didn’t mention that I am probably the only person in history to lose an election to a dead guy,” said the former attorney general, referring to his failed 2000 bid for re-election to the United States Senate in Missouri.
The mood of the audience changed dramatically, however, when the former attorney general began to recount the events of September 11th. At the time of the attacks, he was in a plane on his way to Milwaukie, Wisconsin to promote President Bush’s education initiatives. The flight was interrupted by a message from the cockpit to call the Justice Department Command Center. The news about the attacks prompted them to refuel and return to Washington. Then, with a military escort, he was taken to “a remote location” so that he could safely begin to respond to something he believed “profoundly changed America.” In his first meeting with President Bush after the attacks, the president turned to Ashcroft and said, “Never let this happen again.”
Because 9/11 created what Ashcroft described as a “new paradigm of peril,” the focus and methods of securing the nation against terrorism had to change as well. Unlike the prosecution model for domestic crime, which focuses on recreating events that have already occurred, the government had to redirect its focus from the past to the future in order to protect the nation against possible future attacks.
“There are certain things that when they come together, you need to interrupt them,” said Ashcroft.
He talked about the lethality of modern weapons and the deliverability of attacks by groups like Al-Qaeda that do not wear uniforms or carry the flag of any country. The demand for prevention requires more information.
“We need information to stop these activities,” said Ashcroft, leading into a discussion of the measures adopted by the United States government shortly after the attacks, including the USA PATRIOT Act, one of the most well-known and controversial of the laws passed after 9/11 that gives law enforcement additional tools to prevent future attacks.
Ashcroft made the case that the Bush Administration had been more restrained than other wartime presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The former attorney general defended the Administration’s policy toward detainees, arguing that “we should not give the protections of war to those who violate the rules of war.”
And he responded to the concern that laws like the PATRIOT Act threaten Americans’ civil liberties.
“Some talk of balancing the values of liberty and security, but I take a different view,” said Ashcroft. “I prefer to see liberty as the value. I think security is a means to ensuring liberty. The test should be whenever we seek to enact a law, will our liberty be worth more if we enact it or if we don’t enact it.”
With this framework, the former attorney general laid out the terms of a debate that he says our generation will have to resolve.
There were various responses to the Ashcroft event.
Paul A Heinemann ’07 boycotted the speech and organized a protest before the event.
“I am very happy that I boycotted Ashcroft,” said Heinemann. “I am quite convinced that Ashcroft has set this great country back and struggled, at the behest of the president, to rob us of our liberties. Furthermore, I believe that my actions and the hostile reaction I received from some students illustrates that this campus is fearful of political expressions.”
This hostile reaction refers to private and public emails as well as commentary in this paper.
“Many of the all campus emails that were sent only served to insult my beliefs and intimidate others from expressing theirs,” Heinemann said. “I received many private emails from both faculty and students expressing just such intimidation. To all those who would seek to intimidate people from freely expressing there politics, I say that the more you berate me, the stronger my resolve.”
Kyle Cassidy ’08 and Chris Serak ’08 attended the event but came away unfulfilled.
“Ashcroft seemed unwilling to answer tough questions, and was instead more interested in pandering to the conservative audience,” said Serak. “Generally the speech was uninformative, lack luster, and dumbed down. I expected a much more intellectual discussion.”
Cassidy thought it was “pretty bland.” “All motherhood and apple pie and 9/11 without much reasoning as to why these things necessitate tossing out the Constitution,” said Cassidy. “His responses to questions at the speech and in Prof. Himsel's class indicated that he was more thuggishness than competence. He relied more on bullying than on conversance with the facts in his answers.”
Others in attendance left satisfied.
“It’s a good thing he came,” said Forrest Craig ’10. “The media twists it to make it seem like the government is spying on its citizens when it’s really not the case. I wouldn’t label him a fascist. I thought the most important part about the speech was his notion of liberty; that he was preoccupied with preserving the balance of liberty and security.”