President Bush Blocks NSA Wireless Tapping Probe

scubamage writes "By denying security clearance to federal attorneys from the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) seeking to gather evidence in the NSA illegal surveillance scandal, President Bush has effectively blocked the Justice Department's investigation into the matter of who exactly authorized the illegal actions to take place. The president is apparently able to strictly control who does and does not have security clearance to examine documents regarding the program, citing that giving more people access would endanger national security. His denial is the first of its kind in American history. To quote the article, 'Since its creation some 31 years ago, OPR has conducted many highly sensitive investigations involving Executive Branch programs and has obtained access to information classified at the highest levels,' chief lawyer H. Marshall Jarrett wrote in a memorandum released Tuesday. 'In all those years, OPR has never been prevented from initiating or pursuing an investigation.'"

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Bush asserting same powers as Adolf?

[transporter_ii]

URL: http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/81616- crisis-0

In effect, Bush is asserting the same powers seized by Adolf Hitler in 1933. His Federalist Society apologists and Department of Justice appointees claim that President Bush has the same power to interpret the Constitution as the Supreme Court. An Alito Court is likely to agree with this false claim.

Bush Justice Department official and Berkeley law professor John Yoo argues that no law can restrict the President in his role as Commander In Chief. Thus, once the president is at war - even a vague, open-ended "war on terror" - Bush's Justice Department says the president is free to undertake any action in pursuit of war, including the torture of children and the indefinite detention of American citizens.

In a further bid this week to tighten their grip upon the United States, military leaders have announced that their nation's judges no longer have oversight over their actions, and as we can read as reported by the Reuters News Service in their article titled "US Says Gov't, Not Courts, Should Judge Spy Secrets," and which says:

"The United States government, not any court, is the best judge of whether to keep programs such as its controversial effort to eavesdrop on citizens a secret, an assistant attorney general said on Wednesday. Peter Keisler, an assistant attorney general, and other U. S. officials made the claim in the latest filing to a lawsuit alleging that telecommunications firm AT&T illegally allowed the government to monitor phone conversations and e-mail communications.

"In cases such as this one, where the national security of the United States is implicated, it is well established that the executive branch is best positioned to judge the potential effects of disclosure of sensitive information on the nation's security, they wrote in a filing on Wednesday evening."