Attorney General Ashcroft and FBI Director Mueller Transcript
Media Availability with State and Local Law Enforcement Officials
DOJ Conference Room
October 4, 2001
[...]
ASHCROFT:
With me today are representatives of the Hispanic_American Police
Command Officers Association; the National Sheriffs' Association; the
International Brotherhood of Police Officers; the Fraternal Order of
Police; the National Association of Police Organizations; the International
Association of Police Officers; the International Association of Chiefs of
Police; the National
Association of Black Law Enforcement Officers __ Executives, pardon me; the
Police Executives' Research Forum; and the International Union of Police
Associations.
I want to thank all of these groups for helping our officials in
Washington __ the lawmakers, the members of the Congress __ understand the
needs of law enforcement in order to respond effectively to the terrorist
threat. These groups here today have worked hard to communicate their
concerns to Congress, which are in substantial measure included in the
legislative package recommended by the administration.
As attorney general, I want to thank all of you, both for what you've
done in the past in those times of national emergency, and what you are
doing in terms of helping understand the nature of our opportunities and
the need for tools.
And I want to thank you for what you will do in the months ahead to
ensure our safety and safeguard our freedom.
I'm pleased and heartened to hear that progress is being made in the
House and Senate toward finalization of legislation that responds to the
needs of law enforcement for the right tools to fight terrorism. The
process took a very important step forward last night when both the House
and Senate agreed upon legislation that will now move the process in both
houses of Congress.
I want to thank my former colleagues in the Senate and the members of
the House who have worked so hard and have exhibited such extraordinary
commitment to the cause of our nation's security. I'm gratified for the
progress that has been made, and I believe that there are a number of areas
in which we can continue to work cooperatively together to strengthen this
legislation and bring it to final passage.
First, the legislation passed by the House Judiciary Committee
sunsets important law enforcement intelligence_gathering tools on December
the 31st, 2003. No one can guarantee that terrorism will sunset in two
years. Our president has wisely counseled us as Americans that this is a
long struggle. He has cautioned us to understand that we must be
perseverant and that we must, in fact, be expecting to stay after this
objective until we complete our responsibility and task. Our laws need to
reflect the new war, a kind of responsibility and effort that we must wage.
It must provide us with tools on a continuing basis to do so.
Second, the House bill also would exclude relevant evidence from
being offered in terrorist trials. I look forward to working with both the
House and Senate to ensure that our law enforcement tools are as effective
as they can be. It would be a tragedy indeed to retreat from a capacity of
law enforcement to use evidence in the process of seeking to strengthen the
arm of law enforcement in the effort against terrorism.
From the beginning, our talks with Congress have been guided by two
principles. First, our laws governing terrorism should reflect the priority
that the American people give to the fight against terrorism.
And the American people expect us to give this fight the highest
priority.
Second, we will propose no change in the law that damages
constitutional rights and protections that Americans hold dear. Just as we
have provided law enforcement with the tools they need to fight drug
trafficking and organized crime without violating the rights and the
freedoms of Americans, we are committed to meeting the challenge of
terrorism with the same careful respect for the Constitution of the United
States and the protections that that Constitution accords to America's
citizens.
We are gratified with the progress in the House and Senate, the
progress that they are making toward providing law enforcement with
necessary additional tools to fight __ to fight terrorism. And we will
continue to work with them as they
consider this legislation finally.
I'm pleased now to respond to questions.
Q About 150 people have been arrested as terrorists, we're told. Can
you tell us whether any of those people have been arrested and are directly
related to the September 11 attacks? And have they been charged?
ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: There are about three categories of the ways in
which people have been detained. People have been detained who have
violated state or local law enforcement provisions, the laws. Many of those
groups represented here today have been a part of that.
People have been arrested because they are in possession of
information which we feel is valuable in this inquiry, and the courts have
provided for their arrest and detention on what are known as material
witness warrants.
And then other individuals basically have been arrested either in
conjunction with activities here or as a result of their association with
individuals involved here and their having violated their immigration status.
And I believe those define the categories of individuals that have
been arrested. And at this time, that's the nature of the comment that we
would make on them.
Yes, sir.
Q With respect to one of those categories, actually it was President
Bush today who said 150 terrorists associated with the al Qaeda
organization specifically are in custody, and it sounded like many of those
may well be overseas.
Do either of you have any accounting, either domestically or
overseas, in terms of people who may have this particular connection?
ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: I'm not prepared at the moment to say a specific
number for domestic detentions versus detentions overseas.
Yes, sir?
Q Attorney General, the British government says at least three of the
19 hijackers have been positively identified as associates of al Qaeda, and
that one has been identified as playing key roles in the East African
Embassy attacks and the U.S. Cole attack. Are both of those facts true, sir?
ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: I'm not in a position to verify or deny attacks
__ I mean allegations like that.
Yes?
Q General, with respect to the anti_terrorism proposals, one of the
sticking points with the Senate had to do with the sharing of intelligence
of grand jury information. And everything nearly came unglued because the
administration decided it could not live with the idea of post_judicial
scrutiny. Why is it that the FBI and the CIA object so much to having a
judge just be notified in the aftermath of turning over grand jury
information in an emergency situation?
ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: We believe that those issues have been resolved,
and that the climate for exchanging information that will be created by the
bill, which will take down some of the walls, will provide a basis for
facilitating that exchange of information. That's what we were pursuing.
We need to have a circumstance where if there aren't questions __ if
someone in a grand jury describes a situation that could threaten the
safety and security of our citizens, there aren't questions about whether
or not that can quickly be shifted from the grand jury setting either to
the Department of Defense, or to other law enforcement agencies, or to the
intelligence arena, so that we can coordinate that information with other
information. That's our objective. We believe that the bill now will provide a
basis for that kind of facilitation of information sharing.
Q Why not judicial notification afterwards, though?
ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: I believe that we've arrived at a place that will
provide the basis for getting this done well, and without recrimination. I
don't really understand the threat here.
The threat is that law enforcement officials and others involved with
the security of Americans would have information that helped them do their
job. To provide a base __ layer of bureaucracy on that unnecessarily simply
doesn't provide a benefit, and it provides an encumbrance.
Yes.
Q General Ashcroft, could you tell us what is known at this point
about the Russian plane explosion? There were earlier reports it was
accidental. Do you have any concerns or fears that it might have been
terrorist_related?
ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: Well, obviously, I don't have __ maybe it's not
obvious. But I don't have information that would provide a basis for making
any comment about that. Obviously, any time a plane __ a flight is
destroyed in flight or otherwise, the victim of that kind of situation,
it's a matter of great concern to us. But I don't have any facts which
would lead me to draw conclusions about it.
Yes, sir.
Q Just to go back to that question about numbers who have been
arrested overseas, do you share the White House's characterization that
those 150 are, indeed, terrorists?
ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: I am grateful for the cooperation of our partners
and individual __ other nations. And a number of them have obviously been
involved with us here at the Justice Department for the extent to which
they have been willing to receive from us information and cooperate with us
in detaining individuals who could be relevant not only to these particular
events of September the 11th, but to our overall objective of the
disruption of the network of terrorism. I'm not in a position to
inventory either specific cases or numeric totals, but I am grateful for
the cooperation which has been substantial and improving.
Sir.
Q For you or Director Mueller, have you found in this investigation
any evidence that points to Iraq as a part or a full sponsor of this
September 11th attack?
ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: I'm not going to be discussing evidence and
trying to describe it as related to situations like that.
STAFF: One more question, please.
Q Director Mueller, could you comment on a request that FBI received
at headquarters here for a national security search warrant of a computer
of an individual who was detained in connection with this investigation?
MR. MUELLER: Subsequent to an arrest and detention in Minnesota on
charges, there was a request made for the possibility of doing some form of
warrant. The request came back, was looked at by lawyers at the FBI, and
the determination was made that there was insufficient probable cause at
that time.
Discussions were then held about how one could improve the basis __
the probable cause, so that we had sufficient probably cause to go for __
to a court and to obtain the particular court order we needed to conduct
that search.
Q In hindsight, do you think that request should have been granted,
knowing what we do now?
MR. MUELLER: As I said, when it was looked at, there was insufficient
probable cause __ clear insufficient probable cause, and our efforts at
that time were to go and find enough facts that would support the initial
request so that we could go back to the court.
Thank you.
ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: Thanks very much.
END.
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