As of today, April 23, the Senate confirmed that Loretta E. Lynch will our new Attorney General. Lynch is the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York and was confirmed with a 56-43 vote. She is the first African-American woman to hold the position of Attorney General. While her confirmation took longer than probably some would hope it shows some hope for the future in the Justice Department. One issue that she wants to take on is that of the police. One of her advisers stated:
She really thinks the communities and the police officers have more in common than they realize.Lynch has a strong relationship with many police groups who feel that they have unfairly criticized in high-profile cases that involve the death of African-Americans at their hands.
Ms. Lynch is concerned that morale in police departments has declined and that officers are being unfairly tarnished by episodes that do not reflect all of policing, several aides and friends said.It sounds as if there will be rapid and highly public changes but that is not Lynch's goal. While she wants there to be changes she will make them on a "subtle but significant internal changes." She would like to make changes inside the Justice Department office, especially in terms of cyber-security cases, very much like the office restructuring done after Sept. 11 attacks.
In the immediate future she might be called on to support another task, the renewing of a section Patriot Act which expires in June of this year which she is a supporter of. This particular section allows the National Security Agency to acquire phone records from American citizens without a warrant or any evidence of law breaking.
While Lynch has not made any promises to what she will do has Attorney General, she did promise to do one thing... to strengthen the relationship between Congress and the Department of Justice.
Ms. Lynch told aides that she wanted a better relationship with Congress and planned to meet with lawmakers regularly. Just as with police groups, Ms. Lynch told aides, a lot can be accomplished with a simple change in tone.Hopefully with a new Attorney General there will be a better justice system in America and less violence and crime in our streets.
Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/as-attorney-general-loretta-lynch-plans-to-shift-tone-for-justice-dept.html?ref=politics
For information about her Senate Confirmation:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/politics/loretta-lynch-attorney-general-vote.html?ref=politics
2 comments:
I think your blog post is very interesting. It seems that the new Attorney General has good ideas to contribute that are necessary for addressing the current issues in our justice system. At the same time, only time will tell how cooperative Congress will be with her and that the process of bettering the relationship between police and the community, will be long-term.
I believe that she is fit for the job. Hopefully there will be changes within police departments and she can convince the hurt population of america that police are here to protect. I really hope she holds up on making the relationship between congress and the department of justice stronger.
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