Kerry pledges to end 'era of Ashcroft'

Senator John F. Kerry said yesterday that he would "end the era of John Ashcroft" if elected to the White House, making one of the harshest denunciations in the 2004 presidential race of efforts by the US attorney general and President Bush to prevent further terrorist attacks on American soil.

Speaking at Iowa State University, the Massachusetts Democrat accused Ashcroft and Bush of abusing the USA Patriot Act, a counterterrorism law enacted in October 2001, in ways that harmed civil liberties protections and "abused the spirit of national action after the terrorist attacks." He said the Justice Department has authorized federal agents to spy on Americans who criticize the Republican administration, to conduct searches and seize evidence without warrants, to scrutinize citizens' computer files, and to detain a significant number of Arabs and Arab-Americans without sufficient cause.

"We are a nation of laws and liberties, not of a knock in the night. So it is time to end the era of John Ashcroft," Kerry said in prepared remarks.

Kerry also said that Bush and Ashcroft had permitted the use of "police powers in secret ways and for political purposes," such as allowing intelligence agents and other federal authorities to monitor antiwar demonstrators, political rallies, and church meetings, and to help track down Democratic legislators who left Texas this year to try to block a Republican plan to redraw the state's congressional districts.

"An America that creates a secret police power which can, by its secret discretion, invade the privacy of Americans and intimidate them is a far cry from what our founders envisioned and from what we have fought to protect for 228 years," Kerry said. He also noted his experiences as a Vietnam veteran in the 1970s whose antiwar activities were monitored by the Nixon administration.

Bush administration officials have denied that they have overstepped the bounds of the Patriot Act, a charge made by all nine Democrats vying for the party's presidential nomination.

Kerry said one of his first acts as president would be to replace the Patriot Act -- which he voted for -- with a new law that kept some of the act's provisions, such as tougher penalties for terrorists, while also strengthening civil liberties protections. He said the federal government would stop indefinite detentions of US citizens, and guarantee legal and other rights for those who are held.

Patrick Healy can be reached by e-mail at phealy@globe.com.