I respectfully hold a different perspective on results that his actions have borne out, and the direction I perceive he's headed in.

Freedom, Liberty, the reason that being an American is such a wondrous thing, cannot be preserved by depriving the American people of it.

Now, I concede that public assembly and protest has taken place in recent months, and whether or not I agree with those protests, I agree with their right to hold them- and they haven't been deprived of that right to assemble and speak. Good.

I do have a bone to pick with citizens held incommunicado without legal counsel, or with legal counsel in the absence of priveliged communications. Spying on a citizen and his lawyer is wrong.

Abuse of wiretap law is wrong. And it has happened.

Two federal judges have dealt a potentially crippling blow to a nationwide Internet child pornography crackdown, saying the FBI recklessly misled judges to get search warrants that were used in making more than 100 arrests.

Constitutional safeguards cannot be relaxed just because "the crimes are repugnant," said U.S. District Judge Denny Chin in New York as he dismissed evidence obtained against one defendant.


Chin's ruling, dated Wednesday, was released publicly Thursday. U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry in St. Louis, throwing out evidence against another defendant Thursday, said "false information was recklessly included in the search warrant application." Chin called the intrusion of privacy by the government "potentially enormous."

And this isn't the first time that the FBI and DOJ haven't minded bending the rules.

Some may see me as an idealist, but I believe that if you're sworn and charged with enforcing and defending law, you must act within the law - "no matter how repugnant the crime." Denying privacy, freedom to travel, legal counsel, and other rights we hold dear serves all Americans poorly.

You don't preserve Liberty by placing it in a safety deposit box, so that the American people cannot exercise it.

You don't curb Liberty in the name of saving lives or a false sense of security.

That kind of sentiment scares a lot of people- "What, you would rather people die?" But yes- Liberty is so important. It is what truly makes life worth living. It enables all the other benefits of being an American that we enjoy without thinking.

Some things are worth not compromising.

Mr. Ashcroft benefits from a lot of information that I do not have at my disposal. He certainly feels a lot of pressure upon him to rush to action. In his rush to action, he must not forget what unintended consequences his actions may have. I would rather see a guilty man free than an innocent man suffer the heavy hand of the state.

I cannot close this editorial without noting the greatest thing of all. Mr. Ashcroft and I, for all our differences, are actually in agreement, if the words he speaks are true:

Mr. Ashcroft described the safeguarding of civil liberties as "the single most important task we have." "The only thing worth securing, if we are seeking security, is securing freedom. And we must not abandon freedom in the pursuit of security."