President Bush has nominated federal judge and former prosecutor Michael Chertoff to head the Department of Homeland Security. Chertoff was working under John Ashcroft in the Justice Department after Sept. 11 and led the government’s move to jail hundreds of Muslim and Arab men without pressing charges by using the “material witness” statute. He was also a chief architect of the USA Patriot Act. In a statement the American Civil Liberties Union said, “We are troubled that his public record suggests he sees the Bill of Rights as an obstacle to national security.”

Chertoff has however criticized some of the Bush administration’s post Sept. 11 policies. Last year he published a piece in the Weekly Standard criticizing the policy of indefinitely jailing people as “enemy combatants” without giving them access to the courts. President Bush’s selection of Chertoff comes after former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik withdrew his name from consideration.

The White House expects Chertoff to be easily confirmed. In 2003 Chertoff was confirmed to a federal judgeship by an 88-1 Senate vote. The lone dissenting vote came from Senator Hillary Clinton. Chertoff clashed with the Clintons a decade ago when he served as counsel to a special Republican-led congressional panel that investigated the so-called Whitewater real estate scandal.