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American Morning

Sound-Off: Has Ashcroft Gone Too Far?

Aired November 16, 2001 - 08:43   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Time now for this morning's "Sound-off." Today's issue: national security versus civil liberties. Earlier this week, President Bush approved an option to use military courts to prosecute terrorism suspects. Well, last week, Attorney General John Ashcroft approved monitoring communications between some suspects and their lawyers. Is this the answer?

William Safire of "The New York Times" provides one view: "The solution is not to corrupt out judicial tradition by making bin Laden the star of a new Star Chamber. The solution is to turn his cave into his crypt. When fleeing Taliban reveal his whereabouts, our bombers should promptly bid him farewell with 15,000-pound daisy-cutters and 5,000-pound rock-penetrators."

Do these extraordinary time warrant extraordinary measures, even if they might erode some civil rights.

Here to debate that issue, syndicated columnist Julianne Malveaux, and "National Review" editor Rich Lowry.

Good to have the two of you with us this morning.

JULIANNE MALVEAUX, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Good to be here.

ZAHN: All right.

All right, Julianne, what's wrong with what the president is considering as an option?

MALVEAUX: Military tribunals, circumventing Congress, we don't need to go this far to fight in this undeclared war. We keep hearing about a war, but we have not declared war. But I am very concerned when you say you are going to stop 5,000 people of Arab descent, men between the ages of 18 and 33. That's a slippery slope. It's beginning to look like Japanese interment. You say things like you are going to suspend attorney-client privilege, all kinds of other things. We allow the terrorists to win when we say we are willing to suspend all these protections, constitutional protections that we fought very hard for, just because we are paranoid.

We've tried terrorist here, Paula. We've tried terrorists here. We've tried Timothy McVeigh here, we've tried Nazi war criminals here, in our courts, with our rules, so why do we need to suspend the rules.

ZAHN: You want to try to answer that, Rich Lowry? I know you wanted to jump in that about 20 seconds ago.

RICH LOWRY, "NATIONAL REVIEW": First of all, we're clearly at war, everyone from Tom Daschle on the left to Jesse Helms on the right, agrees that we're at war. The fact is this nation often wages war without technically declaring war. We've waged war for years in Korea, in Vietnam, under these circumstances.

And the fact is Osama bin Laden is enemy of the United States. He is a combatant. He in way deserves legal protections, and privileges and guarantees that an American citizen would have in an average trail.

ZAHN: But the point I think Julianne was making, what about the prospect of racial profiling?

LOWRY: Well, they have -- you know, the attorney general, the Justice Department has arrested a loot of people on various violations, but as far as we know, most of them have been released, and the ones that are still in jail are in jail because they violated laws.

And the fact is...

(CROSSTALK)

LOWRY: ... we don't know if that's the case or not, but these detentions may have prevented another attack, and I think that clearly makes it worth it.

MALVEAUX: But secrecy is such we won't even release names. We don't know exactly how many people there are. The secrecy is such, and this whole notion of these military tribunals, but the laws have not been -- the rules haven't been written yet.

I'm not trying to give Osama bin Laden a pass at all, and I almost agree with Sapphire, although I cringe at the brutality of turning his cave into his crypt, but I'm talking about what's happening here, and those civil liberties here in this country that we're prepare to suspend -- and I think we're going to -- I think we also have to look at who's in charge of the Justice Department. Mr. Ashcroft has never been a civil libertarian. In his one term in the United States Senate...

ZAHN: All right, let's not go back and revisit ancient history.

I want to move you all forward with something "The Wall Street Journal" wrote today, and I want both of you to respond to that. In an editorial, it writes -- quote -- "that such tribunals are warranted as a matter of common sense, as a way to shield an essential part of the war effort from the excesses of modern U.S. criminal justice system. The prospect of trying suspected terrorists the same way we tried O.J. Simpson is absurd, and not only because of the global media circus that would give us all Osama, all the time. What about that, Julianne?

MALVEAUX: Excesses of our current judicial system? I think that that's an overstatement, and I think that lets you know where some folks are coming from. Our judicial system has been carefully constructed to provide people with protections. The notion of taking people offshore, to military tribunal with rules is chilling, and who will these people be? Will they simply be terrorists, or will they be other United States citizens. Given the excessive eavesdropping, laws that Mr. Ashcroft has pushed through, and given the circumvention of Congress, I think we all ought to be very nervous and very deliberate about this.

ZAHN: Rich, are you comfortable with the ability for the government to listening in on conversation between lawyers and their clients?

LOWRY: Yes, I think in extraordinary circumstances, yes, if there's evidence that suggests that a suspect is using his attorney- client privilege to communicate with the terrorist cell, and to plan another attack or somehow spread dangerous information, he should be monitored.

And let me go back to the tribunal here. Osama bin Laden should not be read his Miranda rights. He shouldn't benefit from the exclusionary rule, and the fact is that first World Trade Center bombing trials were a disaster. We revealed intelligence sources that may have helped the terrorists determine how we were monitoring them, and they also gave the terrorists important information on how to succeed when they tried to knock down the Trade Centers the next time, which is what they did on September 11th.

ZAHN: Julianne, do you acknowledge just that, that through that process that Rich just said was a disaster so that some of the critical information was leaked out the terrorists and actually give them more currency to do that when pulled off.

MALVEAUX: I think Rich is exaggerated when he says I want someone to read to Osama bin Laden "you have a right to remain silent. I mean, that's silly, and he knows it. At the same time, I think those terrorists trials slow we could make our system work they were convicted.

ZAHN: Hang on. You are not addressing my question of this information that came out of the World Trade Center bombing trial.

MALVEAUX: I think that there are ways that some information could be shielded, and I would certainly support that, but I think that in many, many cases, it's not necessary to have military tribunals.

LOWRY: Look, Osama bin Laden does not deserve the rights and protections of a U.S. citizen. And even the fiercest opponents..

(CROSSTALK)

LOWRY: Yes, you are, yes, you are. Even the fiercest critics...

MALVEAUX: We're talking about 5,000 people being questioned, We are talking about thousands people being detained. We're talking about the word "terrorist" being used any kind of way. Don't try to put bin Laden on my back. I'm not talking about protecting him.

LOWRY: If I can get a word in edgewise here.

ZAHN: All right, you're going to have to get the final word, because I've got to take a commercial break.

MALVEAUX: Even the fiercest critics of this idea, like Bill Sapphire, acknowledge the administration is promulgating it with Osama bin Laden in mind. We have no guarantee that we can kill him. We just might capture her -- him, or he might surrender, and we have to have some system in place to deal with that eventuality.

ZAHN: All right, you two, we've got to leave it there.

Julianne Malveaux, always good to have you with us Sound-Off.

MALVEAUX: Thanks, Paula.

ZAHN: Rich Lowry, you as well. Have a good weekend, you two.

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