Dog Bites Man, Yawn. Isn't the News When They Don't Lie to Congress?

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Dog Bites Man, Yawn. Isn't the News When They Don't Lie to Congress?
Submitted by davidswanson on Sun, 2007-09-30 05:02. Congress

Iraq Wiretap Delay Not Quite as Presented
By Dan Eggen, Washington Post

Lag is attributed to internal disputes and time to reach Gonzales, not FISA constraints.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told Congress last week that a May wiretap that targeted Iraqi insurgents was delayed for 12 hours by attempts to comply with onerous surveillance laws, which slowed an effort to locate three U.S. soldiers who had been captured south of Baghdad.

But new details released this week portray a more complicated picture of the delay, which actually lasted about 9 1/2 hours and was caused primarily by legal wrangling between the Justice Department and intelligence officials over whether authorities had probable cause to begin the surveillance.

Justice officials also spent nearly two hours trying to reach then-Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to authorize the emergency wiretap. He was in Texas appearing before a gathering of U.S. attorneys.

Earlier, the DNI's attorney had determined that legal requirements for surveillance had been met, but Justice lawyers and intelligence officials spent four hours debating that issue and obtaining more evidence, according to officials and a summary of events provided to the House intelligence committee Thursday. Justice officials say the lengthy deliberations were necessary to ensure that the surveillance was legal.

The delay in obtaining a wiretap in the Iraqi case has been a central argument in the debate over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which had been interpreted to require warrants for foreign telephone calls passing through U.S. exchanges. Congress stripped that requirement under temporary legislation approved last month that amended FISA.

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