Exclusive: Ashcroft Defends Patriot Act

Sept. 10 -- U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has been on a nationwide tour to promote the Patriot Act, a controversial counterterrorism law. Ashcroft sat down with ABCNEWS' Peter Jennings for an exclusive interview to discuss, in part, whether the Bush administration is sacrificing liberty for greater security.

The following is a transcript of the interview.

PETER JENNINGS: You've been in a number of places deeply associated with American history, and Federal Hall in New York today, deeply associated with the Bill of Rights. Does it make you think more deeply about this trip?

JOHN ASHCROFT: It's sobering to be where the individuals who crafted this framework of freedom did some of their very best work. And I'm one of those believers that it was a unique set of circumstances, providential in history that great minds of individuals who understood the balances that were necessarily for a society assembled the Bill of Rights, the Constitution. So, it's humbling. And obviously it causes you to think carefully about our responsibilities to both defend and sustain the, the framework of freedom.

JENNINGS: In every place that you have been on this trip you've been talking about the Patriot Act. I wonder if you felt a need to go on the road to defend it.

ASHCROFT: Well, I think there were misconceptions about it. And people need to understand what it does, and how important it is for the survival of our society. That we are taking these tools that have been available against organized crime and drugs, enterprises for a long time, we were, in the Patriot Act, making them available to the fight against terror. And so far I think it's helped for people to understand that a roving wiretap which was authorized for use against drug dealers in 1986 hadn't been available for use in the same robust way against terror, and the Patriot Act makes that ability to follow a terrorist in surveillance, even when he throw away phones and gets new ones, we're going to have to back to court to get a new order because he switches from one cell phone to another.

JENNINGS: I'd like to talk about the Patriot Act in some detail in a minute. But, in terms of your trip, you appear on many of these stops to have been talking to audiences which were already in your camp. They have been closed to the public. There has not been any real opportunity for you to interact with your critics. Do you think that's a good thing? Do you miss that opportunity?

ASHCROFT: Well, we provided a broad range of opportunities to discuss the Patriot Act. Each of our U.S. attorneys has a plan for things like town hall meetings and the like. My role was to be a part of thanking the anchor team of preventing terror, law enforcement communities. And I've been appearing with the law enforcement communities, and providing the thanks to them, and the motivation to them, and the explanation of the Patriot Act to that community.

JENNINGS: You apparently do not believe the Patriot Act has gone far enough. What do you mean?

ASHCROFT: Well, I think there are some things that we will have to consider as time goes on to improve our performance and to elevate our chance of disrupting terror. For example, there are about 330 areas in American law where you can get information from people, from the enforcement, by the enforcement agency issuing an administrative subpoena. Especially when time is critical they can get information from third parties or things like that by issuing this administrative subpoena. Three hundred and thirty categories. But not for terrorism. Now, I think, some Americans would think, of my 330 priorities for a government being able to act, preventing terrorism somehow gets up into the top 330. And I think that one of the jobs of Congress is always to look at the circumstances and say, how can we improve. Otherwise, the founders would have, a couple hundred years ago, said, these are the laws, that's all that's necessary, and that will be it. But as the terrorist evolves and changes the track of terrorism toward tragedy, inflicting tragedy on the culture, my own sense is that we'll have to look carefully about ways, on a continuing basis, of interrupting, disrupting, preventing terrorism from injuring America like it did on Sept. 11, 2001.

JENNINGS: An unlikely combination, an alliance, almost, of your best allies, and some of your most profound critics think the Patriot Act has gone too far already. How do you react with, when you see this groundswell, in many cases, of opposition to it?

ASHCROFT: Well, first of all, I don't react to it as a groundswell. If you look at the American people, 76 percent of them think we're doing it just right, or we haven't gone far enough. Pardon me, I think it's 74 percent, I don't want to exaggerate.

JENNINGS: Yeah.

ASHCROFT: So, three out of four people. Over nine out of 10 people say that there has been no infringement of their liberties at all. And they are people that are decided about it. There are some undecideds among the rest of the individuals. So, there are people, though, that question whether or not the Patriot Act has gone in a way that would interfere with liberties, or be in some way abusive of personal liberties. I don't resent at all people asking those questions. As a matter of fact, a good robust debate about freedom should be part of the ongoing character of American life. I want to provide the answers. I believe that the fact are not only stubborn things, they're our friends in this case. And some of the things that have been elevated as very scary things by those who oppose the Patriot Act are things that have been in the law for decades. The ability, for example, for, in a criminal matter, for a search to be conducted, and under court supervision, the person not told about his facility being searched, for some period of reasonable delay, that was upheld by the United States Supreme Court back in the '70s. And it only happens under careful judicial supervision. So it's safeguarded substantially. And really what happened in the Patriot Act was not that this was created, additional safeguards were place around this kind of conduct in the Patriot Act so that judicially supervised delayed notification could be used as part of the framework for law enforcement in the country.

JENNINGS: But when you, were you, sir, at all surprised to find that so many conservatives, both in the Congress, and in other parts of the country, may not have been a ground swell, I grant you, given the polls, were opposed to the Patriot Act? People you might otherwise have considered very much your allies in this regard?

ASHCROFT: I think there are some individuals who, when they learn the truth about the Patriot Act and the way that it operates, and the redundant supervision it has, I'm talking about the checks against abuse, that uh, they would change their view. Let me say this, that the things that happened under the Patriot Act have case specific judicial supervision by a federal judge. Now, an ordinary subpoena in criminal matters comes out of grand jury in the hands of a prosecutor. A judge, most of the time, never sees it. But, under the Patriot Act, every subpoena comes after a federal judge has ruled on the sufficiency of the information provided to support the subpoena, and also that it's within the appropriate, uh, guidelines relating to liberties.

JENNINGS: Does the federal judge in that case hear any opposition to the subpoena? Or only the government's point of view?

ASHCROFT:The government, the federal judge acts as an evaluator of the case made by the government there.

JENNINGS: Is anybody allowed to argue against it in front of a judge?