But there are a couple of big exceptions, and I have to say, they make me furious. The first is Attorney General John Ashcroft, who has now been revealed to be–how to put this gently?–a liar on an issue directly related to preventing future acts of terrorism. The other example: Democrats in Congress who want to keep the new Department of Homeland Security from being accountable for its performance. President Bush has threatened to veto their bill for the way it approaches civil service, and he’s right.
Ashcroft first. A front-page story in The New York Times on July 24 took note of the fact that even many conservatives are now worried that the attorney general is pushing policies that are too invasive of privacy. Maybe so, but that is not my concern here. The TIPS program announced by Ashcroft may be over the top (and we should all work hard to make sure it isn’t), but at least the motive is right. On Sept. 12, the president told Ashcroft to do whatever it took, within legal bounds, to make sure terrorists didn’t strike again. The attorney general is working, however awkwardly, toward that end.
Or so we thought. Last December, the FBI and Ashcroft got into a spat. The FBI wanted to check its records to see if any of the 1,200 people detained after Sept. 11 had bought guns. This was highly relevant, even critical information. Just prior to Sept. 11, a Michigan jury had convicted several Arab men of buying guns legally in the United States and shipping them to the Middle East for use by terrorists. Whatever you think of gun control, we don’t want terrorists using our laws to arm themselves, right?
Not in Ashcroft’s mind. He said on Dec. 6 that his hands were tied. The law “outlaws and bans” the use of the National Instant Check System in criminal investigations, he said. The Brady Law background checks can only be reviewed for “maintenance,” he said. At the time, I thought this was a bogus interpretation and wrote that Ashcroft was putting the interests of the National Rifle Association above security against terrorism. But the AG had a fig leaf: his claim of a finding from his own Justice Department that this was the law, and he had to obey it.
On July 23, we learned this was, ahem, a crock. The General Accounting Office reported that Ashcroft’s own Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel had on Oct. 1 issued an opinion allowing the background checks to be used for “additional purposes” beyond maintenance. There can be no more important “additional purposes” than finding terrorists, especially since exactly none of those detained have been charged so far with committing acts of terrorism. In other words, evidence is lacking, and one important way to get that evidence is being blocked by none other than the attorney general of the United States. Some patriot.
To my mind, Ashcroft should be forced to resign over this. But of course he won’t be. The president and much of Congress are in bed with the NRA, too.
The Democrats, meanwhile, are in bed with another interest group–the civil service unions. Bush wants the new department of homeland security to be made accountable, so that if, say, a Customs agent got drunk and let in a terrorist, he could be fired for it. At present, he would not be. In case you hadn’t noticed, firing an incompetent federal employee is the impossible dream. It takes months, even years, and is almost a full-time job for the supervisor.
The Democrats say that it isn’t fair to strip all of the employees being involuntarily transferred to the new department of civil service protections. They’re right that some minimal job security–and protection for whistleblowers–should be in the final bill. Other departments, including defense and CIA, should not have different job performance standards. But if the whole government must live by the same rules, this is a perfect opportunity to transform the job security standards for everyone in the federal service. The number of employees currently exempted (in other words, whom you can fire because they are in sensitive jobs) is ridiculously low. That must be changed across the board.
This effort to make the government more accountable has been derided by Democrats as union-busting. That may be part of the motive, but the answer is not to scratch and kick on behalf of the status quo; it’s to fashion a compromise that shows Democrats believe accountability for performance in protecting our lives (yes, those are the stakes) is more important than maintaining some endless regimen of due process protections. National security should trump job security.
Both using the gun background check system to better catch terrorists and reforming the civil service to better catch terrorists seem like no-brainers. It’s a sign of the return to business as usual in Washington that they aren’t.
