DoJ concedes can release internal warrantless surveillance records Mar. 3

[Roland99]

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20060213/index.htm

Washington, D.C., February 13, 2006 - Under pressure from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the Justice Department on February 10 conceded in federal court that it could begin releasing as early as March 3 the internal legal memos relied on by the Bush administration in setting up the controversial National Security Agency warrantless wiretapping program.

The National Security Archive, along with the American Civil Liberties Union ("ACLU"), this week joined the Electronic Privacy Information Center in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Justice seeking to compel the immediate disclosure of the internal legal justifications for the surveillance program. The filing this week by the Archive and the ACLU was consolidated with a suit filed on January 19, 2006, by the Electronic Privacy Information Center ("EPIC") that requested the federal court in Washington to issue a preliminary injunction requiring the release of relevant documents within 20 days-which Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. considered at a formal hearing today.

The response of the news media to the revelation that the National Security Agency ("NSA") has engaged in warrantless domestic surveillance was immediate and dramatic, as was the response of Congress which just this week held the first hearing examining the legality of the program. News reporting and Administration statements over the last six weeks have disclosed that NSA began warrantless eavesdropping prior to receiving formal approval from President Bush; that the operation involves cooperation from American telecommunication companies, which allowed the agency to tap "directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries"; that the information gathered was turned over to other agencies, including the Defense Intelligence Agency; and that some purely domestic communications (which both originated and terminated in the United States) were accidentally intercepted.

The Archive's General Counsel Meredith Fuchs commented, "There are real secrets and convenient secrets. It may be convenient for the NSA to run this program in secret, but that policy debate, and consideration of the legality of the program, should be open."

Wonder if they'll end up like the Abu Ghraib photos?

[mom cat]

1. Great fetch ... Thanks K&R

[Roland99]

2. I wonder if they can appeal to their own concession?

Anything to delay matters.

[mom cat]

4. With Gonzales as AG, anything is possible!

[Roland99]

5. Yeah. Anything they don't like is deemed "quaint"

[Mnemosyne]

3. .

[lovuian]

6. Great article!!!

Freedom of Information act... Now we know why we have that one...

[pat_k]

7. Thank You Scott Armstrong!! (founder National Security Archive)

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/anniversary/index.htm

SCOTT ARMSTRONG conceived of the idea for the National Security Archive while working at the Washington Post in 1985 and became the founding director of the organization. He is now an investigative journalist and executive director of the Information Trust, a nonprofit organization devoted to facilitating freedom of expression in the U.S. and abroad. He is the co-author with Bob Woodward of The Brethren, and assisted Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward as a researcher/writer on The Final Days. He is a member of the National FOIA Hall of Fame and recipient of the ALA's James Madison Award.