Just Think - News Archive

(Chanur's Note: is he protecting their privacy or is he keeping their whereabouts unknown from family/lawyers?)

Ashcroft Defends Not Listing Detainees
Privacy Rights At Issue, He Says
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 27, 2001; Page A04


Attorney General John D. Ashcroft yesterday defended his refusal to release the names of hundreds of people detained in connection with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, saying that doing so would create "a public blacklist" that would violate the detainees' privacy rights.

Ashcroft also said that such a list could help Osama bin Laden, though he did not explain how.

"The law properly prevents the department from creating a public blacklist of detainees that would violate their rights," Ashcroft said at a news conference, adding that none of those detained has been denied access to a lawyer. "They are not being held in secret," he said.

(Chanur's Note: Though any charges brought against them would be a matter of public record, hence they are being held in secret)

Ashcroft maintains that the effort has disrupted potential terrorist activities in the United States. But he has been criticized by civil liberties advocates and some lawmakers for secretive and aggressive detention practices.

"It is ironic that the government is now concerned about rights when it has arrested and jailed hundreds of people without giving the American public any proof that the detainees are being treated fairly," said Lucas Guttentag, director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project.

More than 1,100 people had been detained for immigration violations and criminal charges when the Justice Department stopped updating statistics earlier this month. A small number were arrested as material witnesses who authorities believe may have information vital to prosecutors. In most cases, officials have declined to release any information about the detainees, including where they are being held, the names of their lawyers or the progress of their cases.

Ashcroft also said yesterday that the FBI issued a warning to its field offices this month that terrorists might attack natural gas supplies if bin Laden were captured or killed. The Nov. 17 warning was relayed to some utilities and energy companies across the country, prompting them to further tighten security.

Ashcroft said that although the alert was based on an "uncorroborated report of undetermined reliability," it was warranted because of the danger posed by an attack on a natural gas pipeline or refinery. According to the information received by the FBI, the attack order came from bin Laden, leader of the al Qaeda terrorist network, one official said.

The threat was linked to the death or capture of bin Laden and Taliban leader Mohammad Omar.

Ashcroft seemed doubtful, however, that such an attack might require any kind of triggering event. "It didn't take anything specific to trigger the attacks on the World Trade Center or the Pentagon," he said.

Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III have issued two nationwide alerts about possible attacks, but neither mentioned specific targets or triggers. Earlier this month, California Gov. Gray Davis (D) warned of possible attacks on bridges in that state, but the FBI later determined that the source of that report was not credible.

The United States has about 1.4 million miles of natural gas pipelines, including about 200,000 miles of interstate lines used to transport large volumes of gas, according to industry groups.

"We take any kind of threat like the one issued last week very seriously," said Martin E. Edwards III, legislative affairs director for the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, which represents owners of the large pipelines used to move gas around the country.

First Lady Thought President's Macho Talk of Wanting Bin Laden 'Dead or Alive' Made Him Look Like A Hot Tempered Cowboy; 'Bushie, You Gonna Git 'Im?'

NEWSWEEK
In Newsweek's December 3 issue (on newsstands Monday, November 26), President George and Laura Bush talk about September 11 and the war in Afghanistan, in their first interview since the attacks. Newsweek reconstructs the final minutes of Flight 93, as passengers tried to overpower their hijackers, with new information provided by informed sources who described in detail the words and sounds on the cockpit voice recorder. Plus: the military effort, and Hollywood's push for war movies. (PRNewsFoto)[TK]
NEW YORK, NY USA 11/25/2001

Friends Say Laura Has At Times Felt Sad and Isolated Since Sept. 11,
But She Says Bush Steadies Her

NEW YORK, Nov. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- When President George W. Bush remarked
that he wanted Osama bin Laden "dead or alive," First Lady Laura Bush thought
the macho talk made him look more like a hot tempered cowboy than a
cool-headed statesman, writes White House Correspondent Martha Brant in the
December 3 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, November 26). Since Bush
can't stand being lectured, the first lady decided to use humor to make her
point. Sidling up to him later, she gently barbed, "Bushie, you gonna git
'im?" The president got the point and for days later he told people that
Laura hadn't "approved" of his choice of words.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20011125/HSSA007 )
"She didn't want to see me become too bellicose, react with bloodlust,"
Bush explained in an exclusive interview with Newsweek. "I'll tell you this:
she's not a shrinking violet. I mean, if I do something she thinks needs to
be toned down, or something, she'll tell me."
In the weeks since the attacks, the once private Laura Bush has emerged as
a voice of calm and reason not just for her husband, but for the nation. At
home in the White House residence, friends say, she sees herself as a
protector of another kind, trying to preserve as much of a normal private life
as possible for her family. She makes sure the president takes time for one
of his favorite pastimes, playing with their two dogs. And she keeps family
and friends close by to lift the president's spirits, inviting them for
evenings at the White House or Camp David.
Since the attacks and the heightened security around the White House, Mrs.
Bush has at times felt sad and isolated, Newsweek reports. Friends say she
was visibly down for days after having visited with kids in Manhattan whose
school was shuttered after September 11. For support, the First Lady has
turned to her 82-year old mother and her love of books. But she says her
greatest support comes from her husband. "He acts like I steady him," she
tells Newsweek. "But the fact is, he steadies me. I really am not that
afraid. I mean, you know, if something happens, it happens. I think both of
us have a little bit of an attitude that -- you know, this is our life right
now and we can deal with it. We can handle it."
The first lady also says she doesn't think her husband has changed since
the attacks. "I think what people see now is exactly what I've always seen
and always known how he was. He's very focused, he's very disciplined. I
said that a million times during the campaign and I don't think it ever
resonated with the press. And, of course, he's more serious -- everyone is
more serious in our country," she said.

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SAT NOV 24 2001 15:21:38 ET XXXXX

ASHCROFT DETAINS JEWS

Controversy surrounds Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Justice Department's detention of at least 60 Israeli Jews in the United States as part of America's September 11 terror probe.

Some of the Jews have been jailed for up to 60 days on the pretext of minor offenses involving working papers and other violations.

None of the detainments have produced a single public charge in connection with Sept. 11.

MORE

Federal officials have presented no evidence that the Jews, most of whom worked selling toys and trinkets at kiosks in shopping malls, had anything to do with terrorism, reported the WASHINGTON POST on Friday.

In one of the few cases to reach a hearing, a federal administrative law judge in Cleveland rejected any suggestion that the 11 Jews before her had any ties to terrorists.

Five young Israelis recently released from two months in US jails described oppressive conditions and rough treatment, saying they "were treated like terrorists" even after it quickly became clear they were not involved in the World Trade Center attack.

MORE

The Israelis claimed last night they were deliberately kept with Arab and Moslem prisoners, who beat them badly, and that they were deprived of food and basic sleeping and toilet conditions.

Their imprisonment was extremely traumatic and has left physical and emotional scars, the JERUSALEM POST reported in Sunday editions.

The five Jews, who worked for a New Jersey moving company, said that they were arrested in a security sweep, after neighbors reported them to the authorities when they heard them speaking Hebrew and thought it was Arabic and that they were somehow tied to the terror attack.

It was reported they were picked up after they photographed themselves smiling against the backdrop of the burning Trade buildings.

The five have retained a lawyer in the United States to file a lawsuit for the treatment they received in jail.

Developing...

Bush embraces big government after all
(Filed: 22/11/2001)

President likens powers to Roosevelt action, reports Stephen Robinson

THE IMPERIAL presidency is back in Washington as the man who ran for the White House against the powers of centralised government assumes wider controls in his conduct of the campaign against terrorism.

With virtually no complaint from members of Congress, President Bush has taken new emergency powers while widening the scope of "big government", which previously he campaigned against.

In justifying stringent new powers to detain aliens and put them on trial in secret, Mr Bush has compared his position to that of Franklin D Roosevelt in meeting the Nazi and Japanese threats 60 years ago.

The actions against "alien suspects" are finding general favour as the national mood is now firmly behind the government and its workers - notably the police and firemen - who served bravely in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

The Gallup polling organisation reports a sharp increase in popular support for the workings of the federal government. Some three quarters of Americans now approve of the job being done by Congress, the highest level since the question was first asked in 1974.

Earlier this week, Mr Bush signed into law an aviation security bill that took airport safety out of the hands of the airlines and at a stroke turned 28,000 luggage screeners into government employees, all of whom must now be US citizens.

However, these actions are relatively uncontroversial compared to the national security measures he has taken.

Mr Bush has signed an executive order giving him powers to determine that foreign terrorism suspects be tried and executed in secret by military tribunals, even if a third of the officers attending doubt the defendant's guilt.

Arab-Americans in the Detroit area are growing incensed by the use of overt "racial profiling" in a sweep to interview some 5,000 people of Arab descent.

"I need to have that extraordinary option at my fingertips," Mr Bush said, defending his new powers.

"I would remind those who don't understand the decision I made that Franklin Roosevelt made the same decision in World War Two. Those were extraordinary times as well."

In other areas, Mr Bush is taking decisions himself which previously would have been made by consensus with Congress or with other arms of the government.

On security grounds, Mr Bush has curtailed the briefings he formerly gave to senior members of Congress about the progress of the military campaign in Afghanistan. And the White House is no longer giving details of how many suspects have been arrested in connection with the terrorist attacks.

"It is not uncommon in times of war for a nation's eyes to focus on the executive branch and its ability to conduct the war with strength and speed," said Ari Fleischer, White House spokesman.

It is certainly true that US administrations tend to assume greater powers in times of crisis. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War, while Japanese-Americans were interned after Pearl Harbor.

The term imperial presidency was used by Arthur Schlesinger to describe the powers assumed by Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon during the Vietnam war when the party structure fractured and the White House became more isolated and authoritarian.

Conservative eyebrows were raised this week when Mr Bush abruptly signed an executive order renaming the headquarters of the Justice Department in honour of Robert F Kennedy, a hero to American liberals. This was seen as a sop to the Democratic leadership in Congress in an effort to ensure easy passage of any further legislation.

However, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, Robert Kennedy's daughter, used the occasion of the renaming ceremony to condemn Mr Bush's recent anti-terrorism initiatives, making the point that her father would have strongly disapproved of such illiberal measures.

One irony of the new security regime is that the FBI and CIA, the two agencies which so badly let down Americans by failing to foresee the September 11 atrocities, have been rewarded with a vast expansion of their authority.

With a personal approval rating of 87 per cent and public support for the campaign against terrorism still solid, Mr Bush seems to have calculated that he can afford to ignore the protests in the press and from civil liberties groups.

But his actions still represent a remarkable turnaround for a man who campaigned for the presidency by highlighting the dangers of a too-powerful executive, and who repeatedly cast the federal government as a problem rather than a solution.

Assault on Liberty
by Nat Hentoff
Abandoning the Constitution to Military Tribunals
November 21 - 27, 2001

During his terms as governor of Texas, George W. Bush made it clear that he was dangerously ignorant of the Constitution—not only denying due process to the record number of people he executed but also refusing effective counsel to indigent inmates of Texas prisons.

But as president, Bush, terrorized by the terrorists, is abandoning more and more of the fundamental rights and liberties that he—and his unquestioning subordinates—assured us they were fighting to preserve.

On Thursday, November 15, William Safire—The New York Times' constitutional conservative—distilled Bush's new raid on the Constitution:

"Misadvised by a frustrated and panic-stricken attorney general, a president of the United States has just assumed what amounts to dictatorial power to jail or execute aliens. . . . We are letting George W. Bush get away with the replacement of the American rule of law with military kangaroo courts. . . . In an Orwellian twist, Bush's order calls this Soviet-style abomination 'a full and fair trial.' "

What Bush has done by executive order—bypassing Congress and the constitutional separation of powers—is to establish special military tribunals to try noncitizens suspected of terrorism. Their authority will extend over permanent noncitizen American residents, lawfully living in the United States, as well as foreigners.

The trials will be held here or in other countries—like Pakistan or "liberated" Afghanistan—and on ships at sea. The trials will be in secret. There will be no juries. Panels of military officers will be the judges—with the power to impose the death penalty if two-thirds of these uniformed judges agree. There will be no appeals to any of the sentences. (Even in regular court martials, judges must rule unanimously for executions.)

The defendants may not be able to choose their own counsel—lawyers who, after all, might get in the way of the swift justice commander in chief Bush has ordered.

The military tribunal will have other, more extensive ways to undermine the rule of law than exist in court martials or regular trials. The evidence to be allowed will be without the range of protections accorded defendants in what used to be the American system of justice.

For example, under "the exclusionary rule" in American courts, illegally obtained evidence cannot be used at a trial. Neither can hearsay evidence, which can include rumor and other unverified information about which a witness has no personal knowledge. Such evidence helps produce a death sentence.

Much of the prosecution's evidence will be withheld from the defendant and from whatever lawyer he or she can get because it will allegedly be based on classified intelligence sources. And the military officers in charge will, of course, decide the severe limits on the defense in other respects as well. These secret trials will be based, to a large extent, on secret evidence.

As for proving guilt, the standard will fall below "beyond a reasonable doubt." In a startled response, Democratic senator Patrick Leahy, who caved in to the administration and supported the anti-terrorism bill, with its pervasive assaults on the Constitution, has awakened to what this reckless president is capable of.

Leahy said in the November 15 New York Times that these drumhead tribunals with their arbitrary standards can "send a message to the world that it is acceptable to hold secret trials and summary executions without the possibility of judicial review, at least when the defendant is a foreign national."

Bush is sending a corollary message to the world that is particularly dangerous to American citizens arrested by foreign governments on charges of endangering their national security—journalists reporting "state secrets," travelers talking to native dissenters, or overly curious visiting academics. If the United States can prosecute and even execute loosely identified "supporters" of "terrorism" secretly and swiftly, why can't other countries follow that lawless example in their own interests?

Until now, Attorney General John Ashcroft has taken most of the direct heat for the Bush administration's contempt of both the Bill of Rights and the separation of powers, as well as its ending of lawyer-client confidentiality for dragnet suspects in federal prisons, and its holding of suspects in prisons for days and weeks without releasing their names or the charges, if any, while their families and lawyers search for them.

But now, as the only president we've got, Bush has taken center stage as he further dismantles the Constitution through these military tribunals. In this executive order he has issued as commander in chief, only he—our maximum leader—will decide, in each case, who is to be brought before what in the Old West were called "hanging judges." Then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will appoint members of the tribunals and set up the rules. Remember, there will be no appeals to United States courts or to international tribunals.

We have already seen on television and elsewhere in the media a parade of apparatchiks of the president. Included are his loyal vassals in the administration and various legal scholars of realpolitik. This is a war, they intone, and these (presumptive) terrorists do not deserve to be judged by our constitutional standards.

Moreover, Bush's good soldiers add, there can't be an open trial, as the Constitution demands, because our intelligence sources would be revealed. Under the once vaunted American system of justice, defense lawyers would have been entitled to see some of that evidentiary background. But in an open court, the president's defenders argue, witnesses against these dread defendants would be in danger of their lives from the terrorists' hidden colleagues among us.

In the November 15 New York Times, Professor Phillip Heymann of Harvard Law School, a former deputy attorney general, was asked about such rationales:

"Mr. Heymann said that some terrorists, notably those charged in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, had been successfully prosecuted in the civilian courts with a law [the Classified Information Procedures Act] that allows classified information to be used in a trial without being disclosed to the public.

"Similarly . . . Mr. Heymann said that countless Mafia and drug-cartel trials had been conducted where both witnesses and jurors were protected."

Then Heymann cut to the duplicitous core of George W. Bush's summoning of the military tribunals:

"The tribunal idea looks to me like a way of dealing with a fear that we lack the evidence to convict these people." (Emphasis added.)

On Ted Koppel's Nightline (November 14), Harvard Law School professor Anne Marie Slaughter reminded the president and the rest of us that this war is being fought to protect and preserve American values.

"One of these values," she said, "is justice. And we have an entire system designed to achieve that. To forsake that now is to betray the cause we're fighting for."

Also, with regard to our pride in the American system of justice, Slaughter pointed out, "We are trying to gain the confidence and the support of people in Muslim countries around the world, as well as in our own coalition. From that point of view, this is disastrous. They're asking us for evidence [of worldwide terrorism]. We're now saying, 'Well, we can't give you evidence.' "

Brushing these counterarguments aside, defenders of the president insist there are historical precedents for these military tribunals—the trial and hanging of British secret agent John Andre in 1780; the convictions during the Civil War by the Union army of opponents of Abraham Lincoln's policies; and the trials and executions of German saboteurs sneaking into this country during the Second World War.

In response, Georgetown University law professor David Cole emphasized on Nightline, "The only times that military tribunals have been permitted in the past have been in a declared war with respect to enemy aliens—people who are involved in fighting against us in a declared war on behalf of a nation with which we're at war."

Bush asked for an official declaration of war, but Congress declined. So, as Cole said, "We are not in a declared war." Furthermore, "this [Bush executive order] is not limited to people, even to the Al Qaeda people who are fighting against us. This is an extremely broad executive order . . . that's wholly unprecedented."

As the November 15 Washington Post reported: "[This order] would grant the Bush administration complete freedom to set the terms of the prosecution. Defendants could include suspects in attacks on Americans or U.S. interests, and anyone suspected of harboring them." And Ashcroft has "raised the possibility that the government may seek military trials against [the large numbers of] suspects now in custody"—not one of whom has been connected to the September 11 attacks.

At one point in the debate over the USA PATRIOT Act (the anti-terrorism bill), the ACLU reminded us that "the president is not above the law." Now the ACLU, in view of the military tribunals Bush has set up, calls on Congress "to exercise its oversight powers before the Bill of Rights in America is distorted beyond recognition."

In view of Congress's yielding most of what John Ashcroft wanted in his and Bush's anti-terrorism bill—despite the damage to the Bill of Rights—its members, concerned with being reelected in this time of terrorism, are not likely, with a few exceptions, to rise to the defense of American values and laws.

Justice Louis Brandeis, dissenting in the first wiretap case before the Supreme Court (Olmstead v. United States, 1928), foreshadowed the advent of George W. Bush:

"Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. . . . To declare that in the administration of the criminal law, the end justifies the means . . . would bring terrible retribution. Against this pernicious doctrine this Court should resolutely set its face."

In 1928, the Supreme Court agreed with the government's subversion of the Fourth Amendment's privacy protections—setting the initial stage for the current vast expansion of electronic surveillance by the Bush administration—and not only over suspected terrorists. The Court has another chance now to teach the president that he is not above the law. Tell that to your representatives and senators—now!

USA Today
11/19/2001
Pentagon builds case to bomb Iraq
By Barbara Slavin, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Defense Department strategists are building a case for a massive bombing of Iraq as a new phase of President Bush's war against terrorism, congressional and Pentagon sources say. Proponents of attacking Iraq, spearheaded by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, are now arguing privately that still-elusive evidence linking Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's regime to the terrorist attacks Sept. 11 is not necessary to trigger a military strike.

NEWSWEEK
In the November 26 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, November 19): Newsweek covers the hunt for Osama bin Laden. In the week of military victories and quashing of the Taliban, Newsweek examines the progress in Afghanistan and what's ahead for bin Laden - where he may go or hide. Coverage includes a photo essay from the front lines. Also: an update on AA Flight 587; the future of the airline industry; how Americans will be celebrating Thanksgiving with a look at changes in lifestyles.[AC]
NEW YORK, NY USA 11/18/2001

Secret Legal Document Gave Bush Wartime Powers,
Including Holding Secret Tribunals

NEW YORK, Nov. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- After he signed an order allowing the
use of military tribunals in terrorist cases, President George W. Bush
insisted he alone should decide who goes before such a military court, his
aides tell Newsweek. The tribunal document gives the government the power to
try, sentence -- and even execute -- suspected foreign terrorists in secrecy,
under special rules that would deny them constitutional rights and allow no
chance to appeal.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20011118/HSSA005 )
Bush's powers to form a military court came from a secret legal
memorandum, which the U.S. Justice Department began drafting in the days after
Sept. 11, Newsweek has learned. The memo allows Bush to invoke his broad
wartime powers, since the U.S., they concluded, was in a state of "armed
conflict." Bush used the memo as the legal basis for his order to bomb
Afghanistan. Weeks later, the lawyers concluded that Bush would use his
expanded powers to form a military court for captured terrorists. Officials
envision holding the trials on aircraft carriers or desert islands, report
Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff and Contributing Editor Stuart
Taylor Jr. in the November 26 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday,
November 19).
The idea for a secret military tribunal was first presented by William
Barr, a Justice Department lawyer -- and later attorney general -- under the
first President Bush, as a way to handle the terrorists responsible for the
1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The idea didn't take back
then. But Barr floated it to top White House officials in the days after
Sept. 11 and this time he found allies, Newsweek reports. Barr's inspiration
came when he walked by a plaque outside his office commemorating the trial of
Nazi saboteurs captured during World War II. The men were tried and most were
executed in secret by a special military tribunal.

CNN
Nov 26, 2001
The White House wants to try terrorists in secret. Is this really in America's best interest?
By Josh Tyrangiel

With reporting by James Carney, John F. Dickerson, Viveca Novak, Elaine Shannon and Michael Weisskopf/Washington
In his Sept. 20 speech before a joint session of Congress, President Bush described America's new enemy with uncharacteristically careful locution. Not wanting to grant al-Qaeda members the holy-warrior status they so fervently asserted for themselves, Bush painted them as thugs--criminals who had hijacked Islam as well as American planes. "Al-Qaeda is to terror," said the President, "what the Mafia is to crime." When Bush dropped the language of precision to indulge in a rhetorical flourish--"Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done"--it was understood to be merely that: a flourish, not policy.

Suddenly, surprisingly, the hour of justice is approaching. Since Sept. 20, the sharpest legal minds in the White House and Department of Justice have been working to turn the President's poetic abstraction into specific judicial doctrine. What they have cooked up for al-Qaeda and other terrorists is undeniably shrewd and, to civil libertarians, profoundly chilling. Last week Bush signed the results of the legal labor--a military order allowing foreign nationals suspected of terrorism to be judged, at the discretion of the President, by special military tribunals. The proceedings, whose exact rules will be set on a case-by-case basis by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, can be secret. They may take place in the U.S. or abroad. Hearsay can be used as evidence. The defendant has neither the absolute right to challenge the evidence against him nor the right to hear it. He may not have access to the lawyer of his choice. Guilt need not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The verdict need not be unanimous. Executions are allowed. There may not be provision for appeal. Legally, at least, the terrorists have their wish. They are soldiers after all.

Do the ends--speedy, secure trials that protect classified intelligence--really justify the authoritarian means? Bush Administration lawyers answered yes, without a lot of debate. American terror trials are slow and potentially dangerous for juries and judges, they argued. They complained that despite the recent convictions of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and Ramzi Ahmed Yousef (who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993) and Timothy McVeigh, terror cases are hard to win. Trials can be closed to present classified information, but intelligence officers, not their secret sources, take the stand, and their testimony can be challenged as hearsay. In criminal court, say Administration officials, the U.S. would be forced to choose between exposing extremely sensitive sources and tactics used to get the evidence necessary for a conviction, and dropping the case. "For the benefit of the public," said an official, "those are situations we didn't want to be confronted with."

The idea of military commissions had no shortage of conservative legal sponsors in the Bush entourage. Former Attorney General William Barr mentioned tribunals to the White House and the Department of Justice shortly after Sept. 11; George Terwilliger, a former Justice official, did the same. On Sept. 28, John Dean--yes, that John Dean--posted an article on the Internet announcing he had passed the idea on to Justice. In any event, tribunals were already literally under the noses of Administration lawyers. During World War II, room 5235 of what is now the office of legal counsel at the Department of Justice housed one of the last such trials. It ended with death sentences for six of eight Nazi saboteurs who arrived in America via submarine. A plaque commemorates the event.

Many of the lawyers--including deputy assistant attorney general John Yoo and Tim Flanigan, deputy White House counsel--clerked for conservative Supreme Court Justices. They felt that offshore military tribunals would be upheld without much problem. In the absence of a full-scale domestic war, tribunals on American soil were less likely to survive a Supreme Court challenge. That's because the courts have greatly expanded the rights of criminal defendants in the 50 years since such tribunals were held.

But the White House was determined to give the plan a shot. Three weeks ago, the President and Vice President turned up the heat. "It was not moving at the speed the President wanted," says a senior Administration official. "So the message was sent clearly to get it moving even before things started going well [in Afghanistan]."

FBI leaders were not consulted. Had they been, some might have objected. Long-tenured bureau officials still remember the lambasting they took for overstepping constitutional bounds during Watergate. Many believe that tribunals, while permissible, undermine public confidence in the legal system. Nevertheless, their boss, Attorney General John Ashcroft, signed on to the order. The past few weeks have seen Ashcroft approve a suite of gestures--the monitoring of attorney-client communications, the interviewing of 5,000 uncharged foreign nationals on American soil and the detention of at least 1,200 mostly unidentified immigrants--that at best abridge defendants' rights. This latest policy, not to mention Ashcroft's highly quotable endorsement, which made clear that suspected terrorists will not benefit from the presumption of innocence, brought a remarkably diverse chorus of criticism. The American Civil Liberties Union, predictably, was all over Ashcroft, claiming the order was not just a violation of civil rights at home but also a detriment to American credibility abroad. How can we be fighting for the values of our Constitution against an enemy that abhors them, yet ignore those values in pursuing our enemy? Punches also came from the right. In a New York Times column titled "Seizing Dictatorial Power," William Safire exhorted "conservative iconoclasts and card-carrying hard-liners to stand up for American values" and oppose the plan.

To enraged members of both parties in Congress, the Administration was expanding Executive power without even the courtesy of a phone call. Bush's approval ratings are too high an obstacle to climb publicly, but Ashcroft has no such protection. (Bad blood lingered between Congress and Ashcroft from one of his early briefings to House members after the attacks; he suggested that if the legislators had any questions or suggestions, they should call an 800 number.) On Friday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, with ranking minority member Orrin Hatch, sent Ashcroft a terse letter: "We request that you appear before the committee during the week after Thanksgiving." Republican Congressman Bob Barr, considerably less sanguine, told the Washington Post, "I'm not sure we can ever satisfy the Federal Government's insatiable appetite for more power."

The reason for speeding up the order, which according to one participant took 18 drafts, is that Justice officials believe they have enough evidence to seek the indictment of at least one suspected terrorist already in detention. He is Zacarias Moussaoui, a French-Moroccan who was arrested last August on immigration violations and is being held in New York City. He was not part of the Sept. 11 attacks, but the FBI believes he belongs to another al-Qaeda cell. A search of Moussaoui's laptop turned up material about crop dusters and aerosol chemical dispersal. According to Administration sources, charges against Moussaoui have not yet been filed because there is a raging debate about whether he should be the first to sit before a tribunal. More cases may be on the way. Says an Administration official: "If we thought there were just going to be a small handful of people tried, it may not have been worth going to this trouble."