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| Bush Barred Probe Of Eavesdrop Plan | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jul 18 2006, 10:31 PM (274 Views) | |
| abuturab82 | Jul 18 2006, 10:31 PM Post #1 |
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Bush barred probe of eavesdrop plan By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY WASHINGTON — President Bush personally blocked a Justice Department ethics probe of the government's warrantless anti-terror eavesdropping program, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales disclosed to Congress on Tuesday. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Bush refused to grant security clearances to the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), which had sought last spring to determine whether department lawyers who reviewed the classified program had acted properly. The office acts as the department's watchdog for ethical behavior. Lacking access to the program, the office closed its investigation in April. It announced the end of its probe in May. Although Bush barred Justice Department ethics investigators from looking into how the program was developed and implemented, other department officials received clearance to track down leaks that led to the revelation of the program by The New York Times in December. Gonzales disclosed Bush's role, which had not been publicly known, in response to a question from committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who was holding a hearing on numerous Justice programs. Since the revelation of the eavesdropping program, which bypasses court approval for monitoring calls, Congress and the White House have argued over the president's authority to start it without lawmakers' authorization. Specter has criticized the White House for overstepping its authority. "Many other lawyers in the Department of Justice had clearance," Specter asked Gonzales. "Why not OPR?" Gonzales responded: "The president of the United States makes decisions about who is ultimately given access." Gonzales did not give Bush's reason for blocking the ethics probe. White House spokesman Tony Snow said the program was being reviewed by others, and Bush believed "you need to keep the number of people exposed to it tight for reasons of national security, and that's what he did." Gonzales, Snow said, was one of the government officials who reviewed the program every 45 days. The eavesdropping program allows the National Security Agency to monitor telephone calls and e-mails of individuals with suspected ties to terrorists in which one caller is in the USA and the other overseas. It was begun shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Specter and others in Congress have questioned the program's legality and want a court review of it. The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requires warrants from a special court for intelligence-related eavesdropping inside the USA. Bush has defended the program, saying a congressional resolution passed shortly after 9/11 gave him power in wartime to protect the nation. Specter said last week he and the White House reached a deal to allow the court created by the surveillance act to rule on whether the program is constitutional. Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond Law School, said the administration and Congress are arguing over the "separation of powers and checks and balances ... unilateral executive authority, military tribunals, enemy combatant designations, Guantanamo Bay." The existence of the eavesdropping program has angered Democrats, civil libertarians and some Republicans, such as Specter. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., who requested the Justice Department investigation, said he and other lawmakers would ask Bush to allow the probe to go forward. "We can't have a president acting in a dictatorial fashion," Hinchey said. Republicans such as Sen. John Cornyn of Texas have countered that the program is legal and vital to combat terrorism. Contributing: John Diamond, wire reports http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/20...htm?POE=NEWISVA |
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9:18 AM Jul 11