Glenn Greenwald, on the new State Secrets rule

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Yesterday it was reported that, "The White House will announce a new policy today requiring career prosecutors and the attorney general to approve any requests to keep information hidden only if its release would significantly harm "national defense or foreign relations.""

Glenn Greenwald reacts: ""Checks and balances" in Washington: approvals from Executive branch officials are required for the Executive Branch to assert power."

http://twitter.com/glenngreenwald/status/4315993578

[ProSense]

1. Greenwald is a fool! The Justice Department operates as the Judicial Branch, not the Executive.

The new policy requires agencies, including the intelligence community and the military, to convince the attorney general and a team of Justice Department lawyers that the release of sensitive information would present significant harm to "national defense or foreign relations." In the past, the claim that state secrets were at risk could be invoked with the approval of one official and by meeting a lower standard of proof that disclosure would be harmful.

link

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2. That is false

It is listed as part of the executive branch: http://www.usa.gov/Agencies/Federal/Executive.shtml

[ProSense]

3. No it isn't. The U.S. Attorneys Office falls under the Justice Department.

It operates independent of the President.

Executive Office for United States Attorneys

The Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA) was created on April 6, 1953, by AG Order No. 8-53 to provide for close liaison between the Department of Justice (DOJ) in Washington, D.C., and the 93 United States Attorneys located throughout the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Marianas Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U. S. Virgin Islands.

The Judiciary Act of 1789, ch. 20, sec. 35, 1 Stat. 73, 92-93 (1789) created the Office of the Attorney General. Originally a one-person part-time position, the Attorney General was to be "learned in the law" with the duty "to prosecute and conduct all suits in the Supreme Court in which the United States shall be concerned, and to give his advice and opinion upon questions of law when required by the President of the United States, or when requested by the heads of any of the departments, touching any matters that may concern their departments." The workload quickly became too much for one person, necessitating the hiring of several assistants for the Attorney General. With an increasing amount of work to be done, private attorneys were retained to work on cases.

In 1870, after the post-Civil War increase in the amount of litigation involving the United States necessitated the very expensive retention of a large number of private attorneys to handle the workload, a concerned Congress passed the Act to Establish the Department of Justice, ch. 150, 16 Stat. 162 (1870) setting it up as "an executive department of the government of the United States" with the Attorney General as its head. Officially coming into existence on July 1, 1870, the Department of Justice, pursuant to the 1870 Act, was to handle the legal business of the United States. The Act gave the Department control over all criminal prosecutions and civil suits in which the United States had an interest. In addition, the Act gave the Attorney General and the Department control over federal law enforcement. To assist the Attorney General, the 1870 Act created the Office of the Solicitor General.

The 1870 Act is the foundation upon which the Department of Justice still rests. However, the structure of the Department of Justice has changed over the years, with the addition of the Deputy Attorneys General and the formation of the Divisions. Unchanged is the steadily increasing workload of the Department. It has become the world's largest law office and the central agency for enforcement of federal laws.

link

I suspect that Greenwald would argue that the U.S. Attorney and other Judicial Branch appointments by the President aren't independent.

[WeDidIt]

4. Greenwald seems to only consider the Bush Admin abomination that they called

the Justice Department.

[ProSense]

5. Seriously, for someone who spent the entire Bush years slamming the politicizing of the DOJ

he's certainly being obtuse by now implying that it isn't independent.

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6. The Department of Justice is part of the executive branch

You seem to think that because "Justice (as in Justice Department aka Department of Justice)" sounds a lot like "judicial," then it must be part of the judicial branch. But it's not. It's part of the executive.

And doesn't it seem odd to you that the attorney general is not mentioned in the official Judicial Branch website, but is mentioned in the executive as I noted earlier with a link?

Perhaps you can find it. Because I can't. http://www.whitehouse.gov/our_government/judicial_branch/

Also look at this NY Times article quoting the words of a federal judge:

"''I tell you with great sadness that I feel I was led astray last December by the executive branch of our government through its Department of Justice, by its Federal Bureau of Investigation and by its United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico, who held office at that time.''"

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/14/us/nuclear-scientist-set-free-after-plea-in-secrets-case-judge-attacks-us-conduct.html