White House Memos on Wiretapping Sought

White House Memos on Wiretapping Sought
http://www.truthout.org/110208A
A judge wants to review documents that provide legal basis for the
post-9/11 warrantless wiretapping program to analyze the Justice
Department assertion that the memos are protected and classified.

Washington - A judge has ordered the Justice Department to
produce
White House memos that provide the legal basis for the Bush
administration's post-Sept. 11 warrantless wiretapping program.


U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy Jr. signed an order Friday
requiring the department to produce the memos by the White House
legal
counsel's office by Nov. 17. He said he would review the memos to
determine whether any information could be released publicly without
violating attorney-client privilege or jeopardizing national
security.


Kennedy issued his order in response to lawsuits by civil
liberties groups in 2005 after news reports disclosed the wiretapping
program.


The department argued that the memos were protected attorney-
client communications and contained classified information.


But Kennedy said that the attorney-client argument was "too
vague"
and that he would have to look at the documents to determine whether
that argument was valid and also to see whether there was information
that could be released without endangering national security.


Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said Saturday that the
department was reviewing the opinion and would "respond appropriately
in court."


Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush authorized the
National Security Agency to spy on calls between people in the U.S.
and suspected terrorists abroad without obtaining court warrants. The
administration said that it needed to act more quickly than the court
could and that the president had inherent authority under the
Constitution to order warrantless domestic spying.


After the program was challenged in court, Bush last year put it
under the supervision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court,
established in 1978 after the domestic spying scandals of the 1970s.


"We think just as a common-sense matter the legal theories for
the
president's wiretap programs cannot be classified and should be
available to the public," said Marc Rotenberg, president of the
Electronic Privacy Information Center, one of the groups seeking the
memos.


"It's an important decision because up to this point the judge
has
relied on the government's assertion that it has done everything
properly under the law and that it has disclosed everything it needs
to disclose," Rotenberg