The Truth about 'the Wall'

The Washington Post ^ | April 18, 2004 | Jamie S. Gorelick

[Piranha]

The commission investigating the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has a critical dual mission to fulfill -- to help our nation understand how the worst assault on our homeland since Pearl Harbor could have occurred and to outline reforms to prevent new acts of terrorism.

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At last week's hearing, Attorney General John Ashcroft, facing criticism, asserted that "the single greatest structural cause for September 11 was the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents" and that I built that wall through a March 1995 memo. This is simply not true.

First, I did not invent the "wall," which is not a wall but a set of procedures implementing a 1978 statute (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA) and federal court decisions interpreting it. In a nutshell, that law, as the courts read it, said intelligence investigators could conduct electronic surveillance in the United States against foreign targets under a more lenient standard than is required in ordinary criminal cases, but only if the "primary purpose" of the surveillance were foreign intelligence rather than a criminal prosecution.

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...the memo I wrote in March 1995 ... permits freer coordination between intelligence and criminal investigators than was subsequently permitted by the 1995 guidelines or the 2001 Thompson memo. My memo directed agents on both sides to share information -- and, in particular, directed one agent to work on both the criminal and intelligence investigations -- to ensure the flow of information "over the wall."

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The Patriot Act...says that electronic surveillance can be conducted in the United States against foreign threats as long as a "significant purpose" -- rather than the "primary purpose" -- is to obtain foreign intelligence.

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I intend -- with my brethren on the commission -- to finish the job.

[elbucko]

And then the Supreme Court ruled that Gorelick's rule, was unnecessary. They overturned it. So THIS woman is MORE responsible than ANYBODY for 9/11 going undetected.

Agreed. She IS the "Smoking Gun".

[ScaniaBoy]

" If she wrote the wall it was at the behest of the
Clintons. The question is why did the Clintons want this?"

Check out this thread: my post #106

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1119113/posts

but also this thread

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1120560/posts

post #5

The plot thickens...

ScaniaBoy

[Beau Schott]

The Gorelick Rosetta Stone
			Bump Gorelick's Wall was not just a monument to political correctness and lawyer-think run amok, it was a strategic keystone of the Clinton Administration's wholesale auction of America's security, sovereignty and economy. Jim Quinn made this the centerpiece of some spectacular commentary Thursday. Go to the link below... choose your preferred download format (MP3, WinAmp, etc.) for the Thursday program, then fast forward through the first 47 minutes. Quinn did a fabulous job! http://archives.warroom.com/archives.php