"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 inquiry headed by 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 2006, 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.
Hinchey is one of many House Democrats who have been highly critical of the domestic eavesdropping program first revealed in December."
Ok, ask yourself a question. Who in the hell is going to give a bunch of DOJ lawyers security clearances to probe, when all through the NSA story and the Plame Game, whenever a story was written in the MSM it was based on lawyers "close to the investigation", who leaked out the information.
Sorry, simply can't trust these dolts to keep a secret.
Yet this isn't anything new. Again, FDR and past presidents felt the same way towards not only lawyers but members of congress who then - just as now - can't seem to keep secrets to themselves.
A little history from the link above:
"AFTER CHOOSING TO AUTHORIZE SURVEILLANCE, President Roosevelt faced angry legislators (similar to Senator Specter and others today) who called for disclosure of the surveillance program's details in order to inform the legislative debate. FDR decided that Congress was not entitled to, and could not be trusted with, such information. He thus refused to comply.
Attorney General Jackson spelled this out in an April 30, 1941 letter to Rep. Carl Vinson, Chairman of the House Committee on Naval Affairs. Jackson reviewed the history of presidential refusals to disclose national security information, beginning with President Washington's 1796 refusal to disclose the details of treaty negotiations. Jackson warned that to provide such information to Congress would enable congressional personnel to leak details to the public, thereby tipping off targets and embarrassing informants. He said that disclosure would "prejudice the national defense and be of aid and comfort to the very subversive elements against which you wish to protect the country." And despite the fact that Congress was attempting to pass legislation pertaining to that very program, Jackson concluded that information regarding the surveillance "can be of little, if any, value in connection with the framing of legislation or the performance of any other constitutional duty of the Congress."
Jackson recognized that the president and Congress face different responsibilities, making agreement between the two branches difficult on such weighty, heated, time-sensitive issues. The Constitution gives the president the responsibility to act quickly and decisively to defend the national security. Congress, freed from such responsibility, could indulge other preoccupations. At one point, Jackson wrote Rep. John Coffee that "I am confident that if you and any of the other liberals in Congress sat in my seat and were held to some degree of responsibility for the perpetration of acts of sabotage and espionage in this country you would feel differently about the wire tapping bill."
Heh....Congress - just can't trust 'em!
Fact is that Rockefeller, Durbin, Leaky Leahy, take your pick.....the list is long of blabber-mouthed members of Congress. The fact of the matter is that the President has the authority, the right and the moral reponsibility to protect this country - that has been the history of our country.
UPDATE: I'll begin a new post soon on this so-called story of NSA collecting phone numbers which isn't news at all - see here. Fact is that this 'data mining' of phone numbers has been going for many years under different President. A bit disingenious of USA Today to report it as if it was something that happened under the Bush Administration. In fact, it's hit and run.
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