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We're going to protect and honor the Constitution, and I don't have the authority to set it aside.... If I had the authority to set it aside, this would be a dangerous government, and I wouldn't respect it.

John Ashcroft

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John Ashcroft
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: May 9
Former Governor Of Missouri
Lawyer
Musician
Politician
Teacher
Chicago
Illinois
John David Ashcroft
Wouldn
Respect
Dangerous
Aside
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Constitution
Would
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More quotes by John Ashcroft

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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.
John Ashcroft
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The way the terrorist is trained to operate, especially the suicide terrorists, makes punishment and the threat of punishment far less valuable to those who would prevent the crime
John Ashcroft
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Our priorities should be: recognizing the voice of God and responding to the voice of God.
John Ashcroft
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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
John Ashcroft
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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.
John Ashcroft
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An FBI agent ought to be able to surf the net and look for sites that instruct people how to make bombs.
John Ashcroft
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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.
John Ashcroft
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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.
John Ashcroft
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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.
John Ashcroft
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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.
John Ashcroft
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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.
John Ashcroft
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Leaders select noble objectives and pursue them with such intensity that others join them. ... The greatest of all leaders from this perspective was Jesus Christ. ....May your choices be so powerful and magnetic that you'll draw people toward life (Duet. 30:19, ...therefore choose life.-) rather than death, blessing rather than cursing.
John Ashcroft
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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.
John Ashcroft
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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.
John Ashcroft
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There's nothing more rewarding or important than to be involved in God's work of redemption.
John Ashcroft
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People who commit crimes should be responsible for those crimes. It doesn't matter whether they're priests or ministers or atheists.
John Ashcroft
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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.
John Ashcroft
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We've got to understand that the whole nature of the way American democracy guards its freedom has been changed
John Ashcroft
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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
John Ashcroft
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If necessity is the mother of invention, it's the father of cooperation. And we're cooperating like never before.
John Ashcroft