John Ashcroft Quotes

We need to strengthen our analytic capacity in Washington, we need to centralize the anti-terrorism effort

What we learned on September 11 is that the unthinkable is now thinkable in the world

We are a nation called to defend freedom - a tradition that is not a grant of any government or document, but is an endowment from God.

We have to think outside the box, inside the Constitution, find ways to do things that will elevate our security, reduce the risk of the incidence of terrorist attack

I feel the best way to ensure Americans' freedom is to tighten restrictions on that freedom in any way possible. Only through wiretaps, illegal searches and seizures, unfettered government intrusion, a controlled media and a complete crackdown on free speech can we ensure the liberties of all people.

To those who scare peace loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics aid terrorists for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America's friends.

There is no priority higher than the prevention of terrorism

Just as the First and Fourth Amendment secure individual rights of speech and security respectively, the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. This view of the text comports with the all but unanimous understanding of the Founding Fathers.

The new rule says that the FBI has the right to go to public places on the same terms and conditions as other members of the public for counterterrorism purposes.

Do not allow your sorrow or your rage to become hostility toward people on the basis of their ethnicity or their religious views. That is unacceptable; it is out of bounds, and if you break the law, we will prosecute you for it.

The worst mistake a boss can make is not to say 'well done'.

If necessity is the mother of invention, it's the father of cooperation. And we're cooperating like never before.

An FBI agent ought to be able to surf the net and look for sites that instruct people how to make bombs.

The Patriot Act allows and provides a basis for an exchange of information.

To me, failure is not fatal unless you quit; getting knocked down is not embarrassing unless you allow it to keep you down.

Christianity is a faith in which God sent his Son to die for you.

Prior to September 11, we thought the world beyond our shores was one world of risk and the world in our continent was another world of risk

Unique among the nations, America recognized the source of our character as being godly and eternal, not being civic and temporal. And because we have understood that our source is eternal, America has been different. We have no king but Jesus.

In this new war, our enemy's platoons infiltrate our borders, quietly blending in with visiting tourists, students, and workers. They move unnoticed through our cities, neighborhoods, and public spaces. They wear no uniforms. Their camouflage is not forest green, but rather it is the color of common street clothing. Their tactics rely on evading recognition at the border and escaping detection within the United States. Their terrorist mission is to defeat America, destroy our values and kill innocent people.

By tearing down the wall between law enforcement and the intelligence community, we have been able to share information in a way that was virtually impossible before the Patriot Act.

Nothing remains great without a capacity to change and to accommodate the conditions of a changing world.

Doing what is right in the face of adversity is not always easy or popular. Critics may assail you, but the critics don't always realize what they don't know or don't understand, because they don't have access to all the information.

A trustee has a responsibility to guard the assets of others with a higher degree of care than he does his own.

Nothing that we have authorized conflicts with any law regarding privacy or any provision of the constitution.

People who commit crimes should be responsible for those crimes. It doesn't matter whether they're priests or ministers or atheists.

Simply put, international terrorism made international cooperation mandatory rather than elective. Collective security has become the only real security against the hydra-headed monster of international terror.

Agents need to be free to pursue investigations in ways that they haven't. There have been restraints that a reformed FBI needs to make sure we don't impose.

The FBI. is a massive culture. It's been a culture that served America well, and it's been focused on prosecution. But what we need in terms of terrorism is prevention.

The FBI has long been a part of the security for the nation's banks because bank robberies have been a priority

The goal of terror is not traditional territorial enlargement; rather the war target of the terrorist is the dismemberment of the will of the community it terrorizes.

The charges of the hysterics are revealed for what they are: castles in the air built on misrepresentation, supported by unfounded fear, held aloft by hysteria.

I don't play full court anymore. I just play half-court.

We must embrace the power of faith, but we must never confuse politics and piety. For me, may I say that it is against my religion to impose my religion.

Civilized people - Muslims, Christians and Jews - all understand that the source of freedom and human dignity is the Creator.

The liberties and freedoms which we hold dear and we recognize and cherish and respect guide the way we gather information in the United States

People want to see other people who have 'non-negotiables,' things for which they're willing to say, 'This is it' we take our stand right here.' That's a leadership quality which people respect.

Our priorities should be: recognizing the voice of God and responding to the voice of God.

[Ashcroft vowed to] spare no effort to preserve the rights of all our citizens to pledge allegiance to the American flag.

For the first time in a long time, our leaders in Washington understand what Americans of all religious backgrounds have long held to be true: through faith, all things are possible.

We must not descend to the level of those who perpetrated Tuesday's violence by targeting individuals based on their race, their religion, or their national origin. Such reports of violence and threats are in direct opposition to the very principles and laws of the United States and will not be tolerated.

How sad, that the group with the most access to the truth chose in several strategic instances to look the other way.

[The war on terrorism isn't a religious war, but] a defense of our right to make moral choices, to seek fellowship with God that is chosen and not commanded.

Frankly, the president, during the first opportunity I had to be in a Cabinet meeting, before we started the meeting, he said, Folks, before we begin this meeting, I'm going to call on General Ashcroft and ask him invite the wisdom and presence of God in what we do. And I thought to myself how ashamed I'd been that so many times in my life I had entered upon great important tasks and I had cheated myself and those that I had served of a blessing.

There is a concern that the Internet could be used to commit crimes and that advanced encryption could disguise such activity. However, we do not provide the government with phone jacks outside our homes for unlimited wiretaps. Why, then, should we grant government the Orwellian capability to listen at will and in real time to our communications across the Web?

The transmission of values from one generation to the next is the single most important task of the society. ...What am I doing to shape the values of the society?

Sometimes the act of walking in the face of the elements helps us come to grips with reality. Or it simply exhausts us to the point of seeing the futility of resisting reality and the futility of denial.

A calculated, malignant, devastating evil has arisen in our world, ... Civilization cannot ignore the wrongs that have been done. America will not tolerate their being repeated. Justice has a new mission, a new calling against an old evil.

If America is to be great in the future, it will be if we understand that our source is not civic and temporal, but our source is godly and eternal.

All of us want to have meaning in our lives and want to feel like we're doing something that makes a difference. I believe we're doing that in the Justice Department.

The Internet provides very serious challenges to our ability to keep from children the kinds of things that are destructive to them