Slate's Dahlia Lathwick, whose Supreme Court Dispatches have been both irreverent and highly informative, now takes on Attorney General John Ashcroft. That's more than fair -- Ashcroft has made himself ultimate interpreter of the Constitution by fiat. He's eliminated the Constitutional right to legal counsel if you're arrested as long as he thinks there's some chance you may be a terrorist (remember, atheists and abortion providers are pretty close to terrorists in Ashcroft's book). He decides who can be arrested and held indefinitely without counsel or any charges pending. Lathwick points out that all the Constitutional safeguards on these issues are designed to prevent convictions in such cases, but since Ashcroft is not going for convictions -- just holding people in jail because he thinks they might commit crimes -- there's nothing to prevent it. And now that the Bush administration says it will use military tribunals to try, convict, and execute "terrorists", all these unlawful practices may not even be tested in court before the executions begin. Welcome to the Taliban.

This is apparently the opinion of President Bush, who recently signed Executive Order 13223, closing off openness in the White House for past, present, and future administrations. Even if a former president's records are in the National Archives now (starting, probably not coincidentally, with the Bush I administration), unless those records were made public at the time, no one can look at them unless they prove "need to know" and get the permission of that former president (if living) and the current president. Seems our president doesn't think the people have any business exercising oversight of their leaders. (New York Times link, registration required.)