Of course John Ashcroft and the Taliban have nothing in common, except for their view of art. And Mr. Ashcroft, unlike the Taliban, realizes that tastes may change. Thus it is that he simply covered the offending statues in the Great Hall of the Justice Department's headquarters whereas the Taliban destroyed the two giant Buddhas that offended them.

The statutes that Mr. Ashcroft had covered have been in the building since it was built in the 1930s. One is a female statue called the Spirit of Justice. It is 10 feet in height, has its arms raised and a toga draped over its body but, and here's the problem, one breast is completely exposed. Most males, and Mr. Ashcroft are no exception, know how distracting that can be. Indeed, few males upon being confronted with an unadorned female breast, are put in mind of the Spirit of Justice.

The other offending statute is a man with a cloth covering his mid section called the Majesty of Law. Although there is nothing distracting about a seminude male statue, Mr. Ashcroft is sensitive to covering a female statue and not treating a male statue in the same room in the same way. Hence, they are both covered.

As distressing as this may seem, Mr. Ashcroft is a whole lot better than his counterparts in the Taliban. They were offended by the two giant buddhas that were constructed even longer ago than the 1930s and simply shot them down with canons. I, for one, prefer to have Mr. Ashcroft making artistic decisions for me. At least he hasn't yet destroyed that which he dislikes. He has, however, sent his agents out to at least two places to check the quality of the art work to see if something should be done about it-what isn't clear.

At 10:30 a.m. on Nov. 7, two men wearing suits and carrying leather portfolios came to the front door of the avant-garde Art Car Museum, in Houston, Texas. They were met by Donna Huanca, a docent at the museum. When she told them the museum didn't open until 11 a.m.they pulled out badges that identified them as FBI agents. They were not, it turned out looking for unencumbered or exposed breasts. They said they had reports of anti-American activity going on in the museum and wanted to check it out. The museum was running a show called "Secret Wars" which contained many antiwar statements that were commissioned before Sept. 11.

Ms. Huanca said she tried to explain to them what the meaning of the art was and its importance at such a critical time in the life of the country. They were not interested. They were pointing out things they thought were negative in the exhibit. One exhibit was a mock surveillance camera pointed to the door of the museum and they wanted to know whether their visit was being recorded. As they were leaving, they asked Ms. Huanca where she went to school and whether her parents knew she was working in that sort of a place. They also wanted to know who funded the museum and how many visitors it had. They did not insist that anything be torn down. They were simply checking out the museum as any good FBI agent working for John Ashcroft should do.

When asked about the visit, Robert Dogium, a spokesman for the FBI in Houston, said the visit was a routine follow-up on a call "from someone who said there was some material or artwork that was of a threatening nature to the President. Mr. Dogium said: "While the work there was not their cup of tea, it was not considered of a threatening nature to anybody or terrorism or anything." He failed to observe that the conduct of his agents might be considered threatening by the few people left who worry about those sorts of things. People like A.J. Brown.

A.J. Brown is a freshman at Durham Tech in North Carolina. She has a scholarship from the ACLU to help with her college expenses. On Oct. 26 at 5 p.m. there was a knock on her door. When she opened it, she was greeted by two men who identified themselves as agents from the Raleigh branch of the Secret Service. They told her they had a report that she had un-American material in her apartment. They said they had heard she had an anti-American poster. It turned out the poster they were looking for was a poster of people being hanged and it referred to the number of people executed while George W. Bush was governor of Texas. As they were winding up their interview, she said they asked: "Do you have any pro-Taliban stuff in your apartment, any posters, any maps?" She replied that she did not and used an expletive to give them her opinion of the Taliban.

A Justice Department spokesperson, Shane Hix, said that it was cheaper to buy curtains for $8000 than it was to rent them every time there was a formal occasion that required that the statues in the Justice Department be covered. That's not all he said. He said that Mr. Ashcroft was not involved in the decision to buy the drapes. He was probably not involved in the decision to check out the Art Car Museum or Ms. Brown's apartment. All he did was set the tone. His flunkies take care of the rest. Some comfort.

Christopher R. Brauchli is a Boulder, Colorado lawyer and writes a weekly column for the Knight Ridder news service.

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