Ashcroft just gets more frightening ....

Here's some more tidbits on his record "When he was U.S. senator from Missouri, Ashcroft sponsored Senate Bill 486, the ethamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act. The Legislative Group claims Ashcroft's proposal "would have empowered federal, state and local law

enforcement agencies to enter your house, your office, you computer or your car without a warrant and without any obligation to inform you that a search or seizure had been conducted."





http://www.sunspot.net/content/cover/story?section=news-maryland&

pagename=story&storyid=1150540208371



Forget race -- Ashcroft's drug position is terrifying

Gregory Kane

Originally published Jan 21 2000



WE'RE ONLY 21 DAYS into the year 2001, and already Americans have gotten off

to a robust start in our favorite game: the Knee-Jerk Follies. One John

Ashcroft, opponent of abortion, affirmative action and gratuitous

gun-banning, among other things, has been nominated by President George W.

Bush to the influential post of U.S. attorney general.



Liberals reacted in knee-jerk fashion, swearing that this anti-abortion,

anti-affirmative action gun nut will be attorney general over their dead

bodies. Liberal, black, civil rights leaders got in on the act.



Ashcroft accepted an honorary degree from Bob Jones University, a college

which at the time had a ban on interracial dating and which regularly

lambasted Catholics.



He also did an interview with a magazine called Southern Partisan, in which

he called Confederate leaders "patriots." Liberal black leadership accused

Ashcroft of lacking the fawning sensitivity on racial matters some of us

colored folks have come to feel is our due.



Conservatives were equally knee-jerkish. They didn't exactly compare

Ashcroft's elevation to attorney general with the second coming of Christ,

but the suspicion is that, deep down, they had a hankering to.



They countered liberal objections by claiming that Ashcroft would enforce

the law as is; that he's well-qualified; that the nominee's torpedoing of the

confirmation of Missouri Judge Ron White, an African-American, to the federal

bench was not racially motivated but highly principled, and that Ashcroft is

not a racist.



The Senate Judiciary Committee went over all these charges. But neither

Republicans nor Democrats, the liberal media or the conservative media paid

much attention to the press releases of an organization that is nonpartisan

and has two board chairmen, one Democrat and one Republican.



The group is called Common Sense for Drug Policy. Its Legislative Group

issued several statements in the past week that paint a different picture of

Ashcroft than the one presented by Democrats or Republicans on the Senate

Judiciary Committee.



That no one brought these up proves that both Democrats and Republicans on

the committee and in the Senate know the fix is in for Ashcroft to be

confirmed and that both parties were engaged in a dog-and-pony show to

hoodwink American conservatives and liberals alike. Here, according to the

Common Sense for Drug Policy Legislative Group, are the facts on Ashcroft:



1) He favors cutting funds for drug treatment and prevention and putting

them into yet more law enforcement efforts. In other words, Ashcroft favors

the "lock 'em up" approach to the drug war - an approach whose adherents

figure that if we simply jail enough inner-city, street-level, black drug

dealers, we'll win the war on drugs.



Democrats couldn't nail Ashcroft on this, of course, since their attorney

general of the past eight years, Janet Reno, pursues precisely the same

policy. Had they brought it up, Republicans might well have countered that

Democrats couldn't honestly deny Ashcroft confirmation because the country

now has an attorney general who is Ashcroft in a skirt.



Kevin Zeese, executive director of Common Sense's Legislative Group, said

it's important that legislators scrutinize Ashcroft more closely on drug

policy.



"The attorney general is really the most powerful person when it comes to

drug policy. He generally prosecutes all the cases. The Drug Enforcement

Administration is under him."



2) When he was U.S. senator from Missouri, Ashcroft sponsored Senate Bill

486, the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act. The Legislative Group claims

Ashcroft's proposal "would have empowered federal, state and local law

enforcement agencies to enter your house, your office, your computer or your

car without a warrant and without any obligation to inform you that a search

or seizure had been conducted."



Had the law passed, Zeese said, "it would have been counter-revolutionary to

what Jefferson and Madison meant for Fourth Amendment rights." Regrettable,

but not surprising since the "war on drugs" is turning more into a war on

privacy and civil liberties every day. Most conservatives are too rigid to

admit that, but the four or five conservatives remaining in the country who

still value privacy and individual liberty had better give Ashcroft a second

look.



3) As governor of Missouri, Ashcroft flagrantly violated the state

constitution by refusing to pass money from forfeited drug assets on to

public schools. Instead, he let his state police keep the dollars, even after

the Missouri Supreme Court ruled it was a violation of that state's

constitution. That was in 1990. In 1998, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that

- because Missouri state police passed on drug asset dollars to the Drug

Enforcement Administration, which would then return some of the money to

state police - the cops and the DEA had "successfully conspired to violate

the Missouri Constitution."



That's the Ashcroft whose supporters claim he will "enforce the law as it

is." It seems like Ashcroft, who used the word "integrity" no fewer than

three times when he spoke publicly after Bush announced his nomination for

attorney general, may have all the integrity of a true Missourian.



Of the Frank and Jesse James mold.

Excerpts from Mother Jones article - THIS is why Ashcroft is against treatment and for jails. Comes right back to $$$ signs.

I encourage you to read the entire article.

http://www.motherjones.com/mother_jones/MJ00/steeltown.html



The company exhibited no such confusion, however, about how to secure its bottom line. Despite the high-profile escapes and killings in Youngstown, CCA

announced last year that it wants to add 500 beds to the private prison -- and build two more facilities nearby to incarcerate another 5,000 prisoners. If the

expansion is approved, 1 in every 50 residents of Youngstown and the surrounding two-county area would be an out-of-state inmate. The plan suits many elected

officials, who are desperate for an economic boost to a region hardened by the loss of its steel industry. But some residents are taking a closer look at what has

transpired at the for-profit prison over the past three years -- and what will happen if CCA succeeds in making their quiet corner of Ohio the private-prison capital of

the world.

Not since slavery has an entire American industry derived its profits exclusively from depriving human beings of their freedom -- not, at least, until a handful of

corporations and Wall Street investors realized they could make millions from what some critics call "dungeons for dollars." Since the 1980s, when privatization

became the rage for many government services, companies like CCA and its rival, Wackenhut Corporation, have been luring elected officials with a worry-free

solution to prison overcrowding. Claiming they can lock people up cheaper than government can, the companies build cells on speculation, then peddle the beds to

whatever local or state government needs a quick fix for its growing criminal population. "It's a heady cocktail for politicians who are trying to show they're tough on

crime and fiscally conservative at the same time," says Judith Greene, a senior justice fellow at the Open Society Institute, a foundation chaired by philanthropist

George Soros.

Over the past decade, private prisons have boomed. Corporations now control 122,900 beds for U.S. inmates, up at least eightfold since 1990. The reason is

simple: With anti-drug laws and stiffer mandatory sentences pushing the prison population above two million, and governments strapped for capital to build new cells,

for-profit prisons seem to offer plenty of cells at below- market prices. "If it could not be done cheaper than the government does it, then we wouldn't be in business

now," says Brian Gardner, warden of the CCA prison in Youngstown. "We believe in giving the taxpayer the best deal."

In fact, research indicates that governments save little or no money by contracting out their prison business. In 1996, the U.S. General Accounting Office reviewed

five studies of private prisons and found no "substantial evidence" that for-profit institutions save taxpayer dollars. A more recent report commissioned by the U.S.

attorney general notes that private prisons attempt to save money by cutting back on staffing, security, and medical care.

No company has benefited more from this private-prison boom -- or been so plagued by understaffing, high turnover, and lax security -- than CCA. The company,

which controls half of a billion-dollar industry, now operates the sixth-largest prison system in the country -- trailing only California, Texas, the U.S. Bureau of

Prisons, New York, and Florida. Founded in 1983, CCA has never wanted for business. It now manages 82 prisons with 73,000 beds in 26 states, Puerto Rico,

Great Britain, and Australia -- raking in $365 million during the first three quarters of 1999.

Yet from the very beginning -- when inmates from Texas escaped through the air-conditioner slots of a motel the company used as a makeshift penitentiary -- CCA

has engaged in cost cutting that jeopardizes the safety of prisoners, guards, and communities. In two Georgia prisons, the company's neglect of medical care and

security amounted to "borderline deliberate indifference," according to a 1999 state audit. In Colorado last year, a number of female guards left alone with hundreds

of male inmates admitted having sex with prisoners in exchange for protection. And at a South Carolina juvenile facility, children were hog-tied and beaten by an

overworked, undertrained staff, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court. "They were grabbing the kids and slamming their heads into walls, slamming them into the

floors," says Gaston Fairey, an attorney representing one of the children.

What's more, escapes from CCA prisons have been rampant. According to one survey, at least 79 inmates fled CCA facilities nationwide between 1995 and 1998

-- compared to nine escapes from California prisons, which have more than twice as many inmates. Many of the breakouts could have been prevented, a report

prepared for Attorney General Janet Reno concluded, if CCA had simply learned from its previous mistakes and "implemented preventive measures."