Worse Than Ashcroft

There's a lot more about Alberto Gonzales that will prepare you for what to expect for the next four years from the Justice Department. In a January 2002 memorandum to George W. Bush, he emphasized that this new war on terror "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions." (Emphasis added.) Gonzales also told George W. Bush that in denying these "detainees"--many of them now held at Guantánamo for nearly three years without charges--prisoner of war status under the Geneva Conventions, the president didn't have to worry about being held accountable by the courts. As commander in chief, his actions were unreviewable. Said the Supreme Court, in June, concerning the accuracy of the advice from the next attorney general of the United States about deep-sixing U.S. citizens, "We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of [American] citizens." And the Court also ruled he was wrong about the noncitizen prisoners at Guantánamo. Alberto Gonzales, moreover, will not in the least disturb John Aschroft's beloved USA Patriot Act, because Gonzales helped write it, and he wholly agrees with his patron, the president, that nothing in it should be changed despite the act's "sunset clause" that allows Congress to review sections of the act by December 2005. [more]

• Rights groups call for 'scrutiny' of Gonzales [more] Notably absent was the largest Latino organization, the National Council of La Raza, which praised Gonzales and raised no objections to his nomination when it was announced. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, an influential California group that has called for close scrutiny of Gonzales, also did not sign the letter. [more]