[Infowarrior] - DOJ Drops Wiretap Investigation

[Richard Forno]

DOJ Drops Wiretap Investigation
http://www.wired.com/news/wireservice/1,70879-0.html

Associated Press 09:30 AM May, 11, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the
warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency
refused to grant Justice Department lawyers security clearance.

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, or OPR, sent
a fax Wednesday to Democratic Rep. Maurice Hinchey of New York saying it was
closing its inquiry because without clearance it could not examine
department 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," Jarrett wrote.

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," Hinchey said.

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.