NSA Stymies Justice Dept. Spying Probe
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
05/11/06 -- -WASHINGTON (AP)
-- 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, 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.
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