Posted on 05/10/2006 6:43:06 PM PDT by Libloather
Security Issue Kills Domestic Spying Probe
By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer
12 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter.
The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, or OPR, sent a fax to Rep. Maurice Hinchey (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., on Wednesday saying they were closing their inquiry because without clearance their lawyers cannot examine Justice lawyers' role in the program.
"We have been unable to make any meaningful progress in our investigation because OPR has been denied security clearances for access to information about the NSA program," OPR counsel H. Marshall Jarrett wrote to Hinchey. Hinchey's office shared the letter with The Associated Press.
Jarrett wrote that beginning in January, his office has made a series of requests for the necessary clearances. Those requests were denied Tuesday.
"Without these clearances, we cannot investigate this matter and therefore have closed our investigation," wrote Jarrett.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the terrorist surveillance program "has been subject to extensive oversight both in the executive branch and in Congress from the time of its inception."
Roehrkasse noted the OPR's mission is not to investigate possible wrongdoing in other agencies, but to determine if Justice Department lawyers violated any ethical rules. He declined to comment when asked if the end of the inquiry meant the agency believed its lawyers had handled the wiretapping matter ethically.
Hinchey is one of many House Democrats who have been highly critical of the domestic eavesdropping program first revealed in December. He said lawmakers would push to find out who at the NSA denied the Justice Department lawyers security clearance.
"This administration thinks they can just violate any law they want, and they've created a culture of fear to try to get away with that. It's up to us to stand up to them," said Hinchey.
In February, the OPR announced it would examine the conduct of its own agency's lawyers in the program, though they were not authorized to investigate NSA activities.
Bush's decision to authorize the largest U.S. spy agency to monitor people inside the United States, without warrants, generated a host of questions about the program's legal justification.
The administration has vehemently defended the eavesdropping, saying the NSA's activities were narrowly targeted to intercept international calls and e-mails of Americans and others inside the U.S. with suspected ties to the al-Qaida terror network.
Separately, the Justice Department sought last month to dismiss a federal lawsuit accusing the telephone company AT&T of colluding with the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program.
The lawsuit, brought by an Internet privacy group, does not name the government as a defendant, but the Department of Justice has sought to quash the lawsuit, saying it threatens to expose government and military secrets.
Just think - the *Crintons are lawyers...
Oh, that's a shame.
How much do you want to bet they did deep background on the lawyers and found more than half were dupe/spies
"Deep background?" Surely you jest!
I'd be willing to bet that most of the "candidates" didn't get past the National Agency Check (NAC) before their treasonous, scumbag, pasts came to light.
I am very, very concerned about creating an Orwellian Big Brother state, but despite the way the media have tried to characterize "domestic spying" it seems to me from what I've read about it (a lot) that this is one of those cases where it's a matter of looking at suspects. The police "check out" innocent people all the time in their investigations, and that's just the way it is--not everyone who is a suspect is guilty, but you have to look at innocent people until you find the guilty ones.
Too many leaks come out of the DOJ and the NSA knows it.
"Just think - the *Crintons are lawyers..."
It's much worse than that. Close to 100% of Congressional folk are lawyers. Some with an R after their name, some with a D.
It's really a computerized foreign surveillance program - whereby a MACHINE is listening for key words from terrorists calling into the USA, and people in the USA WHO ARE CALLING TERRORISTS. It's not about Aunt Josephine's apple pie recipe, or what church somebody attends, or Uncle Bill's conversations about going fishing. Former President Clinton's Echelon program - WAS A DOMESTIC SPYING PROGRAM - the NSA PROGRAM IS NOT!! This is just the typical "projection technique" - whereby the dems are accusing the repubs of doing something which the DEMS WERE REALLY DOING. Everytime somebody says "domestic spying" we need to be correcting them and giving them the truth. I am confident that during Hayden's hearings - THE TRUTH WILL COME OUT. And .. I agree with Rush that the WH WANTS THESE HEARINGS - SO THE PUBLIC CAN HEAR THE TRUTH. Has anybody heard that the dems are so frightened of these hearings, they are talking about having "closed-door" hearings - BECAUSE THEY DON'T WANT THE PUBLIC TO KNOW THE TRUTH and ruin their "domestic spying" spin. If they have closed meetings, all we'll hear are the LEAKS THE DEMS WANT THE PUBLIC TO KNOW.
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