*EPF506 10/25/2002
Text: Better Relationships Build Better Security, Ashcroft Says
(Attorney General's remarks in Hong Kong Oct. 25) (6060)

"Building relationships is the stuff of which security is made," says U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, who recently visited China and Japan to do just that.

In remarks to the American Chamber of Commerce and the Asia Society in Hong Kong October 25, Ashcroft said: "We've had to expand our effort, we've had to develop a new way of working to combat the terrorist who hates freedom."

The Attorney General said the terrorist "rejects the idea that somehow he has an agenda attractive enough to enlist the support of the world. He understands that he can only achieve his objective by extortion. And it is incumbent on those who cherish freedom to work together, for us to join forces wherever possible."

Ashcroft cited the U.S.-China counter-terrorism working group established in December 2001 as an example of international cooperation. More recently, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) opened its first office in Beijing.

Ashcroft noted that Hong Kong chaired the 13th round (2001-2002) of the international Financial Action Task Force on money laundering, which has made strides in enhancing cooperation with the United Nations and other international organizations.

"It is impossible to over-emphasize the importance of the decisive actions of the Task Force to cut off terrorist funding," Ashcroft said. In order to win the war against terror, he added, "we must identify, disrupt, and we must apprehend both the terrorists and their financial backers."

"If we can develop the right information, and we have the capacity to analyze it and interpret it so as to disrupt, delay, interrupt, and defeat terrorism before it destroys and maims the lives of our citizens, we will have been most successful," the Attorney General said.

Ashcroft emphasized that U.S. changes made to deal with terrorists will be accomplished "in the context of principles which are unchanging and immutable and are not subject to negotiation."

"Those unchanging immutable non-negotiable principles are to be found in the Constitution of the United States. We will not surrender to terrorism by altering our commitment to civil liberties," he said.

Following is a transcript of Ashcroft's remarks:

(begin text)

Remarks by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft
To the American Chamber of Commerce/Asia Society
Island Shangri-La Hotel Ballroom
October 25, 2002

ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: I appreciate that frank introduction. Thank you, Frank [Martin, President of the American Chamber of Commerce]. (Laughter.) I am tempted to say if you'll be frank, I'll be earnest, but I can't change my identity. (Laughter.)

What a pleasure is to be with you here in Hong Kong. My first visit to Hong Kong was 37 years ago. And sometime during that interval, someone has changed cities on me. Hong Kong is literally out of this world. To wake up in the morning and push a button and have the draperies part, to walk to the window and look 30 stories down, on a tennis court 30 stories up. (Laughter.)

It says something about the character of this community, says something about the value of the enterprise that is expressed here. Perhaps the greatest genius to be found, at least in commerce, is the allocation of resources: how we devote resources to the things that are most important. And we allocate resources to the things that are most productive. That's one of the reasons we're so concerned about the integrity of commercial transactions and commercial reporting in the United States. You can't have good allocation of resources if you have a bad flow of information. What is it that the computer people say: "Garbage in, garbage out." Well, we've got to make sure we have integrity coming in and productivity going out. It works that way.

This community, with a rather scarce endowment of resources, with its capacity to add value and understand the deployment of resources, has become a great addition to the resources of the world. The world is a better place because of the service to the world that has come through Hong Kong. Hong Kong has recognized the value of entrepreneurial endeavor and spirit and has allocated resources in a unique way to reward it.

So it's a pleasure to be with you this morning. I know my good friend from Missouri.... You know, I come from the middle of the United States, and it's a horizontal society. If you want to see the sky, you look up. You don't want to look up to see your friends somewhere.... But this is a vertical culture. My good friend Brent Franzel (ph), who was involved working with the State of Missouri and for those of us who represent the state of Missouri, works so closely with the Chamber here and speaks very highly of you all. Very frankly, I believe that your presence here puts a face on America in many ways, many of you do. I'm grateful for that, because the face you put on America is the face that we want the world to see.

Building relationships is the stuff of which security is made. We need to emphasize the fact of, and the aspiration for, and the achievement of security in our lives. Similarly, the purpose of my trip to Asia has been to develop the relationships that can provide a sound basis for that security with the Japanese, Chinese and of course Hong Kongers.

September 11 changed my life. It gave me a new understanding of the value of international cooperation because it opened a new chapter in terms of terrorism. It was a chapter that review the kind of terrorism to which we had not been accustomed or conditioned. The terrorists who launched the attacks against the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, on the plane that crashed in the field of Pennsylvania instead of on Pennsylvania Avenue. Or terrorists who fragmented their activities in ways that made traditional law enforcement less effective in detecting their operations.

Planning took place in one setting, perhaps Western Europe. Training had taken place earlier in Afghanistan. Funding came from another capital. Tasks, specific operational capacity was developed in the series of flight schools, in a variety of geographic locations across the United States and around the world. Regrouping and fine tuning of the operation took place in Southeast Asia. Finally, the execution of the plan in New England. This was not garden-variety crime, where an individual short on cash steals his sister-in-law's car and drives to the local convenience store, and then abandons the car at the mall parking lot, and the local sheriff can sum the entire enterprise or criminal enterprise up. This is a far-flung endeavor, fragmented in such a way so that no single jurisdiction would be able to evaluate the complete impact until the objective had been achieved, that disaster and tragedy had been imposed. And it brings to me an understanding that we need to match the fragmentation of this endeavor which made it hard to detect and hard to interrupt. We need to match that fragmentation with a kind of integration and cooperation that will allow us to piece together both the evidentiary trail left in this kind of endeavor, but more importantly piece together a capacity to prevent these acts before they transpire.

The tragedy of 3,000 lives lost is compounded in some measure by the fact that those who committed the crime designed their own extinction in the perpetration of the crime. So that traditional law enforcement objectives like prosecution were rather empty as potentials. And we found ourselves saying the threat of punishment is not an adequate deterrent. We need to be able to do more than threaten to punish those who are willing to die in the commission of the crime. We need to find the way to prevent. And just as the evidentiary trail, if you were to prosecute, went round the world, the prevention potential is to be found around the world. All of these factors provide a conclusion which is inescapable and a mandate which is necessary, and that is that we cooperate and work together to develop the information upon which we can base preventive acts to deter terrorism. This need for cooperation is very important and it occupies much of my time. It takes international cooperation, it takes international collaboration, it takes coordination and communication, if we are to assemble the facts, and if we can do so in a way that provides a basis in advance for us to disrupt and prevent.

A little over a week ago, on October 12, the bombing in Bali added just one more tragic reminder that terrorist attacks are not limited in geography to one part of the world or another. And I know that there are those here in Hong Kong who lost friends and colleagues and loved ones in the bombing. I also know that the Hong Kong Rugby team lost several of its players. I see Pat Caviness out here. Pat and I for a small time played football together at Yale. Pat went on the play for the rest of the year. I retired early, I went into the library draft at the end of my first season. I played several years of rugby later on at the University of Chicago. To think of the loss of these vital young components of this great community: Jake Young, 34 year-old American attorney working here in Hong Kong and a classmate of David Israelite, who is one of my deputy chiefs of staff who accompanied me to this meeting. The tentacles of terrorism literally reach 'round the globe and touch each of us, and should motivate us to an understanding that we must act effectively and we must change our way of responding.

One great business industrialist put it this way: "Your system is perfectly designed to give you what you are getting." If you don't like what you are getting, change what you are doing. My grandfather was a little more primitive in that but he had a saying, he said, "I've sawed this board off three times, and it's still too short."

So we've had to expand our effort, we've had to develop a new way of working to combat the terrorist who hates freedom. The terrorist rejects the idea that somehow he has an agenda attractive enough to enlist the support of the world. He understands that he can only achieve his objective by extortion. And it is incumbent on those who cherish freedom to work together, for us to join forces wherever possible.

During the last two days in Beijing, I witnessed some examples of American efforts of this type of teamwork and efforts that we have made in conjunction with our partners around the world. In December of 2001, the United States and the People's Republic of China established a counter-terrorism working group. As a direct result of the working group's effort, now we have the first ever FBI office in Beijing, it's an outpost, a legal attache to be associated with our ambassador there, that will allow the Bureau to join with other United States law enforcement agencies that are already there, like DEA, another component of the Justice Department; United States Customs, part of the Treasury Department; INS, part of the Justice Department -- to work together and collaborate and coordinate our activities and the information so that we can investigate and combat terrorism, and we can also combat other transnational international criminal endeavors.

Of course, Hong Kong has been a dedicated proponent of freedom. A long-time, strong ally of freedom-loving individuals around the globe. We've worked together with great satisfaction and substantial success in conjunction with law enforcement efforts rendered here in Hong Kong. Hong Kong has been a leader in the often overlooked but a critical aspect in the war against terror, and that is the part of that war which is to interrupt the flow of financing of terrorist organizations and organized crime.

It's an honor to be here with Clarie Lo, Hong Kong Narcotics Commissioner. Hong Kong led the 13th round of the international Financial Action Task Force on money laundering. The Financial Action Task Force is the chief multilateral, anti-money laundering organization in the world. Under that leadership, and I thank you for it, the Financial Action Task Force improved its cooperation with the international development banks, including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The Task Force has also made strides in enhancing cooperation with the United Nations and other international organizations. It is impossible to over-emphasize the importance of the decisive actions of the Task Force to cut off terrorist funding. Simply put, terrorists cannot terrorize without money, without resources. Training cost money, planning cost money, explosives cost money, plane tickets cost money. Because money enables the terrorist act, those who knowingly finance terrorist organizations are just as dangerous and just as culpable and just as responsible as those who carry out the ultimate acts of terrorist violence. So in order for us to win this war against terror, we must identify, disrupt, and we must apprehend both the terrorists and their financial backers.

Later today, I'll have the privilege of meeting with Hong Kong Chief Secretary for Administration Donald Tsang, Secretary for Security Regina Ip, and Secretary of Justice Elsie Leung. I intend to thank them, to express the appreciation of the United States of America for their continued leadership in the fight against terrorism, in the fight to curtail and disrupt terrorist financing. And of course to discuss ways that we can cooperate to improve our communication, our coordination, and collaboration in the war against terror.

The war against terror has caused us to adjust our activities. Not to abandon the idea of prosecution, but to refocus on the idea of prevention. To say that it's unacceptable to have an assault which results in the kind of carnage that we witnessed 2001 September 11. And that if we can develop the right information, and we have the capacity to analyze it and interpret it so as to disrupt, delay, interrupt, and defeat terrorism before it destroys and maims the lives of our citizens, we will have been most successful. So much of what is done in the name of justice happens as we attempt to remedy the absence of justice. For when a crime is perpetrated and we prosecute, and we punish, we have sort to restore justice. But we have to confess that it was impaired, it's a remedial effort.

When we can prevent the crime, we have actually sustained justice, and that's our objective. Our primary objective is to prevent terrorism. One of the strategies is to punish seriously those who engage in it. But since there are those who seek to deny us the capacity for punishment by extinguishing themselves in the crime, we will seek to do whatever we can in cooperation and coordination to make possible the prevention of terrorism and to sustain the security and safety of freedom-loving peoples. Terrorists have demonstrated that they respect no boundaries. If we are to win our war against them, our war to defend freedom, we will have to act with a sense of purpose and innovation, but with a deep sense of respect.

As my grandfather indicated in sawing off boards, and as I've said before, if you want to avoid the same result, you've got to change the way you do business. And over and over again, I have reiterated to the individuals who seek justice by working for it in the United States Justice Department that we've go to do things differently if we want to expect different outcomes. But we must do things differently in the context of principles which are unchanging and immutable and are not subject to negotiation. Those unchanging immutable non-negotiable principles are to be found in the Constitution of the United States. We will not surrender to terrorism by altering our commitment to civil liberties. And I have instructed the Department to do what we can to take new steps, think outside the box but never ever think outside the Constitution of the United States of America. Thank you. (Applause.)

Asia Society: Think outside the box, but never outside the Constitution. That is a great line, John. Anyway, the floor's open. Both members, whether Asia Society or AmCham, are very welcome to ask questions, but please do identify yourself first. Who will be the first?

Questions from the floor:

Q: Michael Cuervorst. Attorney General, I am the head of the Democrats here in Hong Kong, but the question really doesn't come from the partisan side. It does come from your last comment. Americans often look at the detentions, particularly the first 1100 but also in Guantanamo, as perhaps a back step away from our constitution. Could you talk about the civil liberties in terms of those arrests, detentions and people not having access to attorneys?

ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: Well, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to clarify. First of all, no person detained by the Department of Justice has been held without access to an attorney. No person. Secondly, no person had been detained by the Department of Justice who was not charged with a specific violation, either of our immigration laws or of the criminal laws of the United States. With the exception of about... I shouldn't mention the number, but it is a very small number of individuals who have been detained pursuant to court orders, where a federal judge has mandated that a person be detained in order to be available as a witness. This is called a material witness warrant. So that of the individuals that were detained and are being detained by the Department of Justice, they are all part of those three categories.

In addition, for individuals who are detained on immigration violations, we have sought to provide free legal advice for them if they choose to avail themselves of it. They all have the right to contact their attorneys. We help them get an attorney, if they don't have an attorney. And they have the right to communicate freely with their families.

We believe that people should not be detained absent charges, and don't intend to do so. Let me just take a moment for a little philosophy here. In societies that are authoritarian, prevention can be achieved with detention. We don't believe in preventive detention in the United States. No people are detained by the Justice Department who are not charged with specific violations. And if the violations are litigated and resolved and they are concluded, then the adjudicating process decides exactly what will be done.

There are people detained in the conflict who are not involved with their attorneys. And those who are detained in conflicts around the world frequently - I can't imagine that, I have never known of a situation where you had wars where people detained fighting on one side or another all called in their attorneys. But for those detained as a result of the Justice Department, they are in those categories. And thank you for the question.

Q: [George Yuen, The Better Hong Kong Foundation] Mr. Ashcroft, in your speech you never talked about Iraq and Saddam Hussein. How do you relate anti-terrorism with the ousting of Saddam Hussein, and your justification for that, please?

ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: The United States of America has clearly labeled, in accordance with its law, and the Secretary of State has labeled certain states, certain nation states as state sponsors of terrorism. That's been clear, that is an official position of the United States of America. The President of the United States, I think, has gone beyond just labeling Iraq as a state sponsor of terrorism. He has noted for the world community some very important facts. I would say that they are three in nature that I would focus on. I don't mean to say that the President has not said other things, but these are salient and important.

One, that this culture has developed weapons of mass destruction and has manufactured them. Number two, this culture of Iraq, this country, nation state, has the delivery capacity for weapons of mass destruction. And three, this nation has demonstrated its willingness on numerous occasions to deploy and use weapons of mass destruction against people. Let me add a fourth very salient point: He has pointed out that the international community, the world community has directed this nation state to abandon its capacity in this respect, and that those directions of the world have been ignored and flouted in this setting.

So yes, the nation of Iraq has been identified as associated with terrorism. But the more important thing, I think, that the President of the United States, in his leadership, in terms of security and safety for the world, has pointed out involved these other considerations that have made Iraq the subject of specific direction from the United Nations. The world community has established these conditions of disarmament, which have been ignored and flouted. The President believes that to ignore that on a continuing basis is to act improvidently and to invite peril.

Q: My question is in terms of talking about - in your first answer you were careful to differentiate the activities of the Justice Department. However, with the failure of the passage of the Homeland Security Act, how is the Justice Department working in coordination with the other departments, because clearly that was a fundamental flaw prior to September 11th. What is going on now that is going to remedy that?

ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: I think you for that question. A culture was developed in the United States that began, I suppose, to be really evident in the '70s, that I think was a culture of inhibition in terms of cooperation between agencies. The CIA and the FBI were not to talk to each other. You may remember Congressional inquiries that sought to disable the intelligence operation of the United States around the world, and there were laws put in place -- the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and other things - to regulate what had previously been a more substantially cooperative and collaborative endeavor.

Even out of the Justice Department - and this is not Administration-specific, because I went back and looked at records of the Justice Department - in the mid-'80s, in the Reagan Administration, a directive went from the Attorney General's operation in the Justice Department over to the FBI, saying that you can only investigate things on these bases, they have to be very specific leads or certain kinds of investigations, and you can't be active in any other way. Now, we learned that having this sort of segregation and this culture of inhibition in terms of exchange of information was not healthy. There are laws that, if you learned something in a grand jury proceeding, you couldn't provide that information to the defense authorities or law enforcement authorities for other purposes, other than the prosecution, and sometimes you would learn things that could be of value.

Immediately after September 11, it became very clear to us that we needed to make adjustments. So we began a substantial set of adjustments, the first of which is known as the USA Patriot Act, which began to disassemble this wall which had been erected between the CIA and the FBI and provided for an exchange of information. We now have the kind of exchange of information, so that things known to the FBI are also known to the CIA and vice versa. So they are in a far better position to make the protection.

Secondly, we reformed our organizations. The FBI, I think -- perhaps, at least, we like to think -- is probably as good as any organization anywhere in the world at developing evidence about what happened and presenting that evidence to provide the basis for prosecution. I call it sort of a forensic function, to reconstruct the crime scene and to get a conviction based on it.

We found out that investigation for purposes of prosecution wasn't enough. We needed to have anticipation for purposes of prevention. And so we have had to change the character of the organization to be more prospective in its approach. Yes, and to do it with a high regard for personal liberties. All these kinds of changes are being made.... You see, I used to be in the Senate, so I keep talking. (Laughter.) To be in the Senate, at least when I was there, people said I had one foot in my mouth and the other foot in the grave, you know, you just have to be ready to go. (Laughter.)

I directed the FBI, for instance, that they should not be so restrained in what they do. Every law enforcement officer in the United States, virtually, is unrestrained about the ability to just follow things they hear in the culture, or see. The FBI, for instance, was ineligible to look on the Internet for bomb-making sites or anthrax-making sites because of this restrictive culture of inhibition. I simply said that the FBI will be able to go where the public is able to go, on the same terms and conditions as the public. If they see and hear things, they can follow up. So they can surf the 'Net like my four-and-a-half year old grandson can surf the 'Net and look under "bombs," if they choose to, to see what is going on out there.

Very important for us to know... We've talked about the need to have a horizontal, sovereign-to-sovereign elevation of communication and cooperation and collaboration. Internally, we had to develop a capacity to have department-to-department [coordination], on a horizontal basis at the federal level. And very frankly I just would add this one final caveat: It has to be a coordination that goes down to the citizen level, through state and local law enforcement. Because in the United States of America we don't have a vast federal law enforcement network, we have thousands and thousands of state and local law enforcement individuals who we have to be integrated with and have to use and cooperate with to detect the kinds of bits and pieces of information that will help us be preventative and secure the safety of the American people.

Q: [Peter Wong, Deloitte Touche] Thank you, Mr. Ashcroft, for talking up Hong Kong. I wish some of our politicians in Hong Kong would not talk Hong Kong down. Mr. Ashcroft, my question is really one of... You are probably the chief enforcer, but do we not have to go beyond enforcement? I think all around here we believe that what was done [on September 11, 2001] was totally wrong. However, I believe those people who perpetrated those acts genuinely thought they were going to heaven. Now, how can we get people, right-thinking and some of even the wrong-thinking people, to change their mindset? Otherwise, we will still not dare to mention the name of that capital which supplies that sort of money. If people still think that is the right thing to do, how can we ever stop this altogether?

ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: There are some questions that I'm not going to be able to answer. You see, I believe in the marketplace of ideas, and I believe in the value of freedom, and that ultimately good ideas will prevail, and that people will embrace things that are virtuous, and things that work and that have integrity. And there will be mistakes made in the process, but I am not about to abandon the freedom of the marketplace of ideas because there are some misallocations of resources that pursue it.

So I'm not in a position to tell you how to change the hearts and minds of people around the world. I believe, however, that if we have an aggressive debate and a free society and culture, and freedom in societies and cultures around the world, that the opportunity for us to achieve people coming to the right decision is maximized. The risk is not eliminated, but I believe so much in freedom that this marketplace will, I think, maximize our opportunity to have people come to the right conclusions. That is why freedom is so important, and I think you understand - I don't mean to say that you wouldn't - some of the individuals have not been subjected to the marketplace of ideas. They have been held in settings where there is not the capacity for real discussion and the testing and stressing of ideas and concepts. Our job, I think, is always to make sure that we do everything possible to make it clear that we believe that in a free environment, where ideas can be challenged and stressed and tested, that will reduce the risks of people being in settings where they seek to destroy rather than build.

Q: Mr. Ashcroft, you mentioned the likelihood that America, supported by Britain and possibly by other countries, with or without the support of the United Nations, is likely to - that's over the next few months - do its best to neutralize the threat of Iraq. The same thing has been done with Afghanistan. Well, let's imagine that over these winter months in the desert, that threat is neutralized. What would be the next major thrust to do what can be done to reduce the threat to the whole world of terrorism?

ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: Let me just say that I am not sure, exactly, with the premise that you advanced -- I think you indicated that I had said there was a likelihood of something. I think I would talk primarily about the predicate values expressed by the President of the United States that indicated that we should pursue an ultimate objective that is consistent with what the United Nations has decided over time.

I think it would be improvident to try and predict that if we solve all the problems of the world now, what would be the next one. We've got our hands full, the world has its hands full. Each citizen has an opportunity to participate in responding to these challenges.

I don't do weather. (Laughter.) And I'm going to withdraw from the forecasting business before I answer your question. Thank you very much.

Questions from the press:

Q: [Francis Moriarty, RTHK] Mr. Ashcroft, how confident are you that the two men arrested today in Maryland are the people responsible for those deaths [in the Washington, D.C. area]? Secondly, what specifically would you like from Hong Kong while you are here in the fight against terrorism?

ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: Let me just indicate that the tragedies in the United States of America related to the sniping have been very distressing. I have during the entire time of my trip to Asia been in constant contact with folks at home to monitor progress in working effectively to curtail this threat to the security of people in the Washington, D.C., area. I want to say how pleased I am with the justice community, and when I say "justice community," I don't mean the Justice Department. Of course the Justice Department, the FBI, the authorities, hundreds of FBI agents and the technical capacity of the Department and the like were involved, but with local authorities as well. I am delighted with their work, their professionalism. Chief Moose has run the task force extremely well and nobly, and it demonstrates the capacity for cooperation that is necessary for us to resolve issues well.

I don't make comments on specific cases or the evidence on specific cases, and as a result would not make a comment on the evidence in specific cases.

Q: The second question on what you wanted from Hong Kong?

ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: I was going to do one question per person, but maybe someone else will ask that, and I will tell you if we don't get the question.

Q: As you know, the Hong Kong SAR government has proposed an anti-subversion legislation which has been a major concern to the public of Hong Kong, especially with the press as well, fearing that the press freedom is going to be threatened. Is that going to be an issue that you will discuss with Hong Kong officials during the meetings later on during the day?

ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: First of all, Hong Kong has been traditionally a leader in Asia for respecting the liberty and freedom of individuals, and providing an understanding of the value of entrepreneurialism and the capacity of individuals to express themselves and conduct themselves freely. I know there is an on-going debate. I think it is a healthy debate. I expect that it will, in the end, reinforce the kind of values for which Hong Kong is known and understood around the world. Obviously it is not a debate in which I will be involved. But this community has a heritage which well equips it to respect its understanding of the values that have made this community strong.

Q: A few days ago the United States declared Jamaah Islamiya a terrorist organization. However, there is a lot of evidence that the group is not in fact a group, but a disparate bunch of people. How will this declaration change the fight against terrorism in Southeast Asia?

ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: Obviously the designation of an entity as a terrorist organization has legal implications. It has implications regarding funding that is provided to organizations, and consequences to those who would participate in the organization by funding the organization, as well as other things. All of those will attend a designation. Our designation in settings like that is a process that responds to the facts and circumstances that we believe have been developed. It is on that basis that designation was made.

Q: There have been some recent declines of the rule of law in China, and a lot of the officials are citing the U.S. as an example of its handling after 9/11, the searches and legal system, as an example of how China should clamp down on terrorist activities and subversive activities. Would you like to make a comment on that?

ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: First of all, we have not abandoned the rule of the law in one iota or respect. We have respected the Constitution. We have changed certain laws as necessary, primarily to make our previous capacity to do investigation and surveillance under the analog systems a capacity that could work under digital systems. There were some anomalies in the law. I earlier described the fact that we needed some additional authority to cooperate with information we do receive between agencies. I think it would be a total mischaracterization to suggest that we had in any way abandoned the rule of law. All of the things that we are doing are pursuant to specific authority and subject to review by the court system.

Q: [Russell Barling, South China Morning Post] Mr. Ashcroft, I'm wondering if you could address what role you see CSI and CTPAT and initiatives such as that playing in the fight against global terrorism? How important are they, particularly here in Southeast Asia where a vast majority of the imports to the United States come from?

ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: The Container Security Initiative is obviously an important issue that would allow a country to be more confident about what comes into its jurisdiction, into its borders. I think this is an issue that gives us a greater capacity to validate the integrity of the lading process, of the loading process, of the import-export business. I see it as an important item, and we are grateful for the leadership of those jurisdictions that have decided to participate and be a part of it.

MODERATOR: Ladies and gentleman, I'm sorry, that's all we have time for this morning. We've got to get on because we are running late.

ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: We'll be talking with the authorities here in Hong Kong about our cooperation, not just in counter-terrorism efforts, but in the transnational criminal activities that have been the basis for our work together in the past: money laundering, narcotics, the nexus between narcotics and terrorism. It's those kinds of conversations that will occupy our time and discussion this morning. Thank you.

(end text)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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