Editorial from The Guide	Editorials Archive

President Bush's first attorney general, John Ashcroft, was infamous for his contempt of the Bill of Rights. Ashcroft used the phony wars on drugs, pornography, and terrorism to instill fear and disinformation so as to expand governmental power. Due process was a dodge for drug dealers. Freedom of the press gave the green light to pornographers. And any and all civil liberties could be dangerously exploited by terrorists. Under Ashcroft's twisted logic, decent Americans would never need protection from the government, and anyone asserting such protections was, obviously, up to no good.

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Given his deplorable hostility to civil liberties, it would seem that Ashcroft's exit would be cause for relief. But the man tapped as Ashcroft's successor, Alberto Gonzales, is literally horrific.

As White House counsel, Gonzales issued opinions that urged abrogating the Geneva Conventions to allow for the torture of prisoners of war and other "detainees." Under the Gonzales doctrine, it is okay for the government to lock prisoners in freezers for hours, to prod their genitals with electroshock devices, to tie them naked to boards and dunk them in tanks of ice water so as to provoke fear of drowning, to threaten them with snarling Dobermans, to pose and photograph them in humiliating sexual positions, to choke them into unconsciousness, and to bind them for long periods in excruciating "stress positions." None of these practices, according to our Attorney-General-to-be, should be considered illegal.

Nor does Mr. Gonzales mean to limit the use of such torture to only confirmed terrorists in warlike conditions. In his Senate confirmation hearings, Gonzales suggested that the President-- acting as commander in chief- has the power to order the detention of any American citizen, on American soil, with no charges. According to Gonzales, such detention can be indefinite, and those so detained can be held incommunicado, with no access to a lawyer or the courts.

Furthermore, anyone acting on the President's order to torture (or to ignore any other law that the president deems "unconstitutional") can be "immunized" against prosecution.

Thus, Gonzales goes beyond trashing the Bill of Rights and Constitution- he wants to renege on the principle established at the post-World War II Nuremberg trials that "I was only following orders" is no defense for atrocious actions. Indeed, Gonzales would return us to pre-Magna Carta days wherein the sovereign- President Bush- is above the law.

You do not have to be fringe civil libertarian to be horrified at the implications of the Gonzales doctrine. A dozen high- ranking retired military officers have taken the unprecedented step of writing the Senate to raise their concerns about Gonzalez's nomination. They understand that a US endorsement of torture fosters anti-US animosity, invites retaliatory action against US citizens imprisoned abroad, impairs intelligence gathering, and ultimately makes us weaker and more vulnerable to attack.

It is a sign of the perilous times we live in that the Senate appears ready to confirm such an advocate of lawless thuggery to be the highest law enforcement official in the country. The Democratic Party seems so cowed by the thought of being labeled "soft on terror" that they are rendered impotent, unable to defend even the rule of law. Let us hope that the American people wake up and rise up. We must reclaim the rights that are the foundation of our strength and freedoms- before they are gone like so many disappeared prisoners.