Warrantless-surveillance probe re-opened
p2pnet news | Politics:- With disgraced self-proclaimed US Top Cop Alberto Gonzales gone, America’s new attorney general, Michael Mukasey, has reignited the investigation into the role played by department lawyers in the Bush administration’s warrantless-surveillance program.
Authorized by president George W. Bush in 2001, it allowed the National Security Agency to spy on communications between the US and overseas without court oversight when one of those being ‘ investigated’ was believed to have had links to al-Qaida.
The Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) investigation was abandoned in July 2006 when president Bush refused to give security clearances to the OPR attorneys attempting to conduct the investigation, say documents and congressional testimony, according to the Seattle Times, which goes on:
“H. Marshall Jarrett, OPR’s chief counsel, wrote Tuesday that attorneys in his office were proceeding with their investigation.”
The administration hopes Mukasey’s arrival, “will mark a fresh start after the troubled and politically charged tenure of Gonzales,” says the Los Angeles Times.
Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the investigation would focus on whether Or not department lawyers involved in the program, “complied with their ethical obligations of providing competent legal advice to their client and of adhering to their duty of candor to the court”.
Mukasey is the Bush administration’s thid AG and as Associated Press sums it up, he has 14 months to, “turn around the beleaguered Justice Department”.
“A retired U.S. District chief judge from New York, Mukasey’s own nomination briefly snagged after he refused to say whether he believes a harsh interrogation tactic known as waterboarding is a form of torture,” says the story, adding:
“The Senate narrowly confirmed him last week, 53-40. Critics noted that marked the slimmest confirmation margin for an attorney general in more than 50 years.”
Also See:
Seattle Times, – Justice to resume probe of warrantless wiretaps, November 14, 2007
Los Angeles Times – Justice wiretap probe restarted, November 14, 2007
Associated Press – New Attorney General Set to Take Oath, November 14, 2007
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November 14th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
The bushy crowd is just playing games with us. They have no intention to abbid by the constitution nor to defend it.
With a pack of corrupted incompetent such as these let send them home.
We can deal with the terrorists ourselves constitutionaly, democratically and of course without torture or rendition.
We have some good guys at the CIA and in other secret services to do just that.