Most Attorneys General embody only the first half of what their title promises, but not John Ashcroft. Last week he announced a sweeping "wartime reorganization and mobilization" of his law-enforcement troops, converting the Department of Justice into something more like a Department of Antiterrorism. Fewer FBI agents will fight local crimes and the drug war; they will walk the al-Qaeda beat instead. Hundreds of crime fighters at headquarters will be transferred to field offices on America's "front lines." And 10% of the budget--$2.5 billion--will be redirected to counterterrorism.
The creaky, lumbering contraption that is the American criminal-justice system could use some...
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