U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales reiterated his support for a domestic wiretapping program to fight terrorism during a visit Monday with The Denver Post editorial board.
“We’ve done a lot to make America safer, but it’s not safe,” Gonzales said when asked about the need for warrantless eavesdropping. “Fundamentally, the world is different today. My 14-year-old son will grow up in a different world than I grew up in. It’s much more likely there will be a terrorist attack in this country. I never worried about a terrorist attack as a boy.”
Gonzales said the Bush administration would not be deterred by the Democratic takeover in Congress but that he hoped new congressional leaders would be as willing to avoid a confrontation on national security as he is.
“I’m not going to prejudge,” Gonzales said of the possibility of trying to convince the new Congress. “We are going to work as hard as we can to avoid the kind of crisis you referred to.”
Gonzales said the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism efforts since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have improved intelligence gathering, especially between nations.
“The unsung story of this is our relationships with our foreign partners,” Gonzales said. “The level of cooperation is outstanding, and it’s made a big difference now that we are able to analyze plots. We have to be right 100 percent of the time; they (terrorists) only have to be right one time.”
Gonzales also spoke about the issues with security at the Supermax prison in Florence and said he considered the problems “a priority.”
He acknowledged that more staffing and security measures, such as increased monitoring of the perimeter of the prison, are necessary.
A recent report on prison security at Supermax showed that inmates were communicating with each other and with outsiders by telephone without those conversations being screened.
Gonzales said that in the past month, seven new employees, including guards, were hired to ease staffing concerns. He said part of the problems with security have to do with a lack of Arabic translators, an issue he says plagues all levels of government.
While the prison may not have Arabic translators on hand to monitor live inmate phone conversations, the calls are taped and reviewed later, Gonzales said.
“It’s intolerable to have dangerous people in our prisons communicating with each other,” he said.
Staff writer Felisa Cardona can be reached at 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com.
