Investigating Secret Programs

Tell me, does anyone actually think that the Judiciary committee and all the people screeching for an investigation of the NSA wiretapping program have any clue about security, never mind secrecy?

President Bush personally blocked a Justice Department investigation of the anti-terror eavesdropping program that intercepts Americans' international calls and e-mails, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday.

Bush refused to grant security clearances for department investigators who were looking into the role Justice lawyers played in crafting the program, under which the National Security Agency listens in on telephone calls and reads e-mail without court approval, Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Without access to the sensitive program, the department's Office of Professional Responsibility closed its investigation in April.

And

Later, at the White House, spokesman Tony Snow said the eavesdropping program is reviewed every 45 days by senior officials, including Gonzales. The president did not consider the Justice unit that functions as a legal ethics watchdog to be the "proper venue," Snow said.

"What he was saying is that in the case of a highly classified program, you need to keep the number of people exposed to it tight for reasons of national security, and that's what he did," Snow said.

Yet, according to OPR chief Marshall Jarrett, "a large team" of prosecutors and FBI agents were granted security clearances to pursue an investigation into leaks of information that resulted in the program's disclosure in December. Justice Department inspector general Glenn A. Fine and two of his aides were among other department officials who were granted clearances, Jarrett said in an April memo explaining the end of his probe. That memo was released by the Justice Department Tuesday.

That last bit, using the FBI investigation of leaks as an example, completely distorts the situation. First the OPR was tasked with investigating the program itself. That would mean that they would have access to the fine details of the program. The FBI on the other hand would be locked into that "need-to-know" scenario, where they would only be allowed access to information related to who would have the ability to leak the information. Those limitations are huge.

I still fail to see why Specter continues his tirade on this topic. The Intelligence committees of both houses have been briefed and the President has supposedly agreed to a review of the program before the FISA court. Any other investigations are just a waste of time and money, but that never has stopped the politicians before.