More scrutiny, secrecy at Justice Department
The Office of Professional Responsibility, which monitors lawyers' conduct, has taken on weighty issues since 9/11, yet it has stopped issuing regular public reports.
By Richard B. Schmitt
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 6, 2008
WASHINGTON — Justice Department lawyers and investigators have come under more scrutiny after the Sept. 11 attacks than at perhaps any time since Watergate. 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 historically has attracted little attention because of its focus on the department's everyday civil and criminal matters. Now, however, it 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.
It has been thrown the task of deciding whether department lawyers engaged in selective prosecution of Democratic political figures. It also is looking into lawyers' involvement in a decision four years ago to deport a Canadian citizen to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured. That case has emerged as one of the most infamous examples of a policy known as rendition, in which suspected terrorists are transferred to other nations for interrogation.
(Continued here.)
By Richard B. Schmitt
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 6, 2008
WASHINGTON — Justice Department lawyers and investigators have come under more scrutiny after the Sept. 11 attacks than at perhaps any time since Watergate. 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 historically has attracted little attention because of its focus on the department's everyday civil and criminal matters. Now, however, it 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.
It has been thrown the task of deciding whether department lawyers engaged in selective prosecution of Democratic political figures. It also is looking into lawyers' involvement in a decision four years ago to deport a Canadian citizen to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured. That case has emerged as one of the most infamous examples of a policy known as rendition, in which suspected terrorists are transferred to other nations for interrogation.
(Continued here.)
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