Related
posting
13
February 2006
Department of Justice concedes it
can begin to release internal warrantless surveillance records on
March 3
In
the news
"Legal
Rationale for Spy Program Questioned"
By Pete
Yost
Associated Press (via Washington Post)
March 9, 2006
"Private
groups seek access to spying documents"
By
Pete Yost
Associated Press (via MSNBC)
February 10, 2006
|
Justice
Department e-mail on wiretapping
program released through FOIA
Former
official describes legal defenses as "weak" and "slightly
after-the-fact,"
Guesses they reflected "VP's philosophy… best defense
is a good offense."
For
more information contact:
Thomas Blanton or Kristin Adair
202/994-7000
Washington,
D.C., March 9, 2006 - The Justice Department
official who oversaw national security matters from 2000 to 2003
e-mailed his former colleagues after revelation of the controversial
warrantless wiretapping program in December 2005 that the Department's
justifications for the program were "weak" and had a "slightly
after-the-fact quality" to them, and surmised that this reflected
"the VP's philosophy that the best defense is a good offense,"
according to documents released through
a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the
Electronic Privacy Information Center and joined by the ACLU and
the National Security Archive.
David Kris, the former associate deputy attorney general who now
serves as chief ethics and compliance officer at Time Warner, e-mailed
Justice Department official Courtney Elwood on 20 December 2005
his own analysis of the controversy, writing that "claims that
FISA [the wiretapping statute] simply requires too much paperwork
or the bothersome marshaling of arguments seem relatively weak justifications
for resorting to Article II power in violation of the statute."
The subject line of the e-mail was "If you can't show me yours."
On 22 December, after reading the Department's talking points as
forwarded by Elwood, Kris
commented that the Department's approach "maybe…
reflects the VP's [Vice President Cheney] philosophy that the best
defense is a good offense (I don't expect you to comment on that
:-))."
On 19 January 2006, Kris
wrote Elwood that the Department's white paper was
"professional and thorough and well written" but that
"I kind of doubt it's going to bring me around on the statutory
arguments."
The Kris e-mails were the only substantive new
documents released by the Justice Department yesterday
in response to the March 8 deadline ordered by U.S. District Court
Judge Henry Kennedy in the FOIA lawsuit brought by EPIC together
with the ACLU and the Archive, seeking the internal legal justifications
used by the government to carry out the wiretapping program. In
three separate letters to the plaintiffs, Justice claimed it had
fully searched the records of the Office of the Attorney General
and had made a "full grant" of the FOIA requests, yet
most of the released material consisted of the previously released
white paper and transcripts of public appearances by the Attorney
General. Justice produced not a single record relating to any of
the 30-odd reauthorizations of the wiretapping program that President
Bush has publicly stated took place in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005.
Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) admitted in its response
that in the two-and-a-half months since the FOIA requests were filed,
OLC had only completed its search of its unclassified files. "The
unclassified files are exactly the place where the wiretapping memos
are least likely to exist," commented Thomas Blanton, director
of the National Security Archive. "This is a case of looking
for your car keys under the street lamp even if that's a block away
from where you lost them."
Documents
released by the Justice Department - March 8, 2006
Note: The following documents are in PDF format.
You will need to download and install the free Adobe
Acrobat Reader to view.
Office of Information and Privacy (OIP) Release 1
Letter
Accompanying White Paper from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
to Senator Bill Frist, January 19, 2006
Justice
Department White Paper, Legal Authorities Supporting the Activities
of the NSA Described by the President, January 19, 2006
E-Mail,
Justice Department Office of Public Affairs (Elwood, Courtney),
Transcripts of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Morning
Shows 12.19.05, December 19, 2005
Transcript
of Attorney General Interview on CNN's "American Morning"
with Soledad O'Brien
Transcript
of Attorney General Interview on Fox News' "Fox and Friends"
with Steve Doocy
OIP Release 2
E-mail
from Matthew T McDonald (EOP) to Monica Goodling, In Case You
Missed It: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on CNN's "Larry
King Live," January 17, 2006
Justice
Department press release,
Transcript of Conference Call with Steven G. Bradbury on Release
of Detailed Legal Analysis of the NSA Activities Described by the
President, Dept. of Justice, January
19, 2006
E-Mail,
USDOJ Office of Public Affairs (Goodling, Monica), Corrected:
Transcript of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and Homeland
Security Secretary Michael Chertoff Press Briefing Need for Senate
to Reauthorize the USA Patriot Act, December 21, 2005
E-Mail,
USDOJ Office of Public Affairs (Goodling, Monica), Transcript
of Remarks by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales at the 'Innocence
Lost' Initiative Press Conference, December 16, 2005
E-Mail
from Kris, David (Timewarner.com) to Elwood, Courtney (USDOJ), RE:
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: President Had Legal Authority to OK Taps,
December 21, 2005
Justice
Department, Legal Authority for the Recently Disclosed NSA Activities,
Undated
E-Mail
from Kris, David (Timewarner.com) to Elwood, Courtney (USDOJ), RE:
NSA Talkers, December 22, 2005
E-Mail
from Kris, David (Timewarner.com) to Elwood, Courtney (USDOJ), If
You Can't Show Me Yours…, with attachment, NSA Program
Questions, December 20, 2005
E-Mail
from Kris, David (Timewarner.com) to Elwood, Courtney (USDOJ) -
RE: NSA, January 19, 2006
Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) Release 1
Letter
from William E. Moschella, Assistant Attorney General to Senators
Roberts, Rockefeller, Hoekstra and Harman, December 22, 2005
Memo,
Legal Authority for the Recently Disclosed NSA Activities,
[undated and unsigned]
"Americans
Deserve No Less," Robert McCallum, USA Today, January
16, 2006
Justice
Department press release,Transcript of Conference Call with
Steven G. Bradbury on Release of Detailed Legal Analysis of the
NSA Activities Described by the President, January 19, 2006
OLC Release 2
Justice
Department White Paper, Legal Authorities Supporting the Activities
of the NSA Described by the President, January 19, 2006 |