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.

There is a concern that the Internet could be used to commit crimes and that advanced encryption could disguise such activity. However, we do not provide the government with phone jacks outside our homes for unlimited wiretaps. Why, then, should we grant government the Orwellian capability to listen at will and in real time to our communications across the Web?

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.

[Ashcroft vowed to] spare no effort to preserve the rights of all our citizens to pledge allegiance to the American flag.

Frankly, the president, during the first opportunity I had to be in a Cabinet meeting, before we started the meeting, he said, Folks, before we begin this meeting, I'm going to call on General Ashcroft and ask him invite the wisdom and presence of God in what we do. And I thought to myself how ashamed I'd been that so many times in my life I had entered upon great important tasks and I had cheated myself and those that I had served of a blessing.

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.

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.