AP reported a few weeks ago that Justice Department lawyers were denied security clearances necessary to investigate legal findings authorizing domestic warrantless wiretaps. At the time, the common assumption was that the clearances were denied by the National Security Agency. Now, perhaps not so much.

National Jourrnal reporters Murray Waas and Shane Harris say it’s “not clear who denied the OPR investigators the necessary security clearances, but Gonzales has reiterated in recent days that sharing too many details about the surveillance program could diminish its usefulness in locating terrorists, and he indicated that giving [Justice Department Office of Professional Responsibility] investigators access to the program could jeopardize it.”

Investigators were looking into whether Justice Department officials acted properly in granting authorization for the program to the NSA and, according to Shane and Waas, were seeking access only to “documents such as internal Justice Department communications and legal opinions,” not “secrets that are the sole domain of other agencies.”

In other words, Justice’s OPR neither wanted nor requested access to details of the program; they just wanted to look at the internal paper trail . They weren’t investigating the NSA, they were investigating Gonzales and others involved in authorizing the program.

Generally speaking, the agency that classifies documents has the authority to grant clearances for access to them. These documents predate the NSA program, so they wouldn’t have been classified by the NSA. Gonzales shut down the investigation, and not from fear that his OPR attorneys would send details of the program to their terrorist buddies.

We are so screwed. Go read the rest of the Waas story to see how determinedly, and how club-footedly, the Justice Department is dancing around the question of who killed the investigation.

Bookmark and Share

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Ask backflip blinklist BlogBookmark Bloglines BlogMarks Blogsvine BuddyMarks BUMPzee! CiteULike co.mments Connotea del.icio.us

Digg diigo DotNetKicks DropJack dzone Facebook Fark Faves Feed Me Links Friendsite folkd.com Furl Google

Hugg Jamespot Jeqq Kaboodle kirtsy linkaGoGo LinkedIn LinksMarker Ma.gnolia Mister Wong Mixx MySpace MyWeb

Netvouz Newsvine oneview OnlyWire PlugIM Propeller Reddit Rojo Segnalo Shoutwire Simpy Slashdot Sphere

Sphinn Spurl Squidoo StumbleUpon Technorati ThisNext Twitter Webride Windows Live Worlds Movies Yahoo!

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML: 

 If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

More »

Powered by Bookmarkify™