Editorial

A government of the people, for the people, and by the people can't survive if it is shrouded in secrecy from the people.

As the 110th Congress wrapped up its first session with every member raring to get away for August recess, the Bush administration bullied a Democratically- controlled Congress into passing a law that amends the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to give the executive branch even more power to spy on Americans without a court warrant. And a spineless Congress caved.

As periods of social and political conflict confront the state there is often a corresponding period of lost liberty. In America this is a phenomenon seen during the era of Alien and Sedition Acts, the Palmer Raids, McCarthyism and CoIntelPro. Historically there appears to be a cyclical rise and fall of American liberty. Using reflective analysis many feel this cycle is responsible for the current state of the country.

The revolution inside John Ashcroft's Justice Department—an array of new crime-prevention powers embodied in the Patriot Act—has been fueled by the attorney general's ambition, intelligence, and unusually extreme beliefs about everything from the similarities between himself and Jesus to the post-9/11 role of law enforcement, to the purported demonic properties of calico cats. But as nervous sources share stories of his Missouri governorship, and former staffers and Senate allies speak out, JUDY BACHRACH discovers that Ashcroft has also sparked a growing backlash, one with surprisingly bipartisan power