Erwin Chemerinsky, Duke Law School:

"It is hard to imagine a more conservative or more repressive attorney general than John Ashcroft. The Ashcroft Justice Department took the unprecedented position that the government could hold human beings, including American citizens, forever as enemy combatants without judicial review. Ashcroft rescinded regulations limiting surveillance of peaceful religious and other groups. The Ashcroft Justice Department subpoenaed medical records of women who had abortions. Ashcroft created a unit in the Justice Department to bring obscenity prosecutions against adult films. Perhaps Ashcroft will be most remembered for ordering that the statues in the halls of the Justice Department be covered because they were nude forms. Ashcroft was every bit as conservative as his opponents feared." [November 10, 2004; Duke News has more]