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Justice Department Responds With Secrecy To Increased ScrutinyJustice Department Responds With Secrecy To Increased Scrutiny

By David Badertscher, PLL

Source: Crime & Justice News

"Justice Department lawyers and investigators have

come under more scrutiny after the Sept. 11 attacks

than at perhaps any time since Watergate, reports the

Los Angeles Times. Questions have been raised

about the administration's strategies for going after

terrorism suspects and about whether politics was

allowed to taint the department's core mission to

provide equal justice under the law. But the internal

unit that polices the lawyers' conduct has been

operating under a growing shroud of secrecy, shutting

down what were once regular, public disclosures

about its activities.

The Office of Professional Responsibility is taking on

some of the weightiest issues in government --

examining the role Justice's lawyers played in

formulating administration interrogation policies for

suspected terrorists and in endorsing a National

Security Agency program of warrantless electronic

surveillance. The ethics watchdog has exonerated

department lawyers in at least two high-profile

terrorism-related investigations. According to a

redacted copy of a confidential OPR report obtained by

The Times, the office found that department lawyers

had not engaged in misconduct in connection with the

controversial practice of using special warrants to

round up and incarcerate men after Sept. 11 who were

considered witnesses to crimes. Human rights

groups said the technique was a way to illegally

detain dozens of Muslims."

Los Angeles Times - http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=0016gOyz-llJNLDOUcA_QwyKnQXATvsZFNZohOh20J0SukzPYdyVBjuTpeauMSOrOPrglW4fUy-UYQvBftnuWnQeRzh5Q02RENw2RMvejb7VM_6nOEjZSCPDC0C8YZfTvcJZp81P7PMltJ0u6UiOExgCMnjbg8Xkl_c0a2GOOXuYpYmQ0nznt5y2Z_4OLMoVcERzxrQzx1rCsU=

Full post as published by New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library on July 07, 2008 (boomark / email).