Two items from UPI's security and terrorism service this morning. The week ahead in homeland and national security is posted at http://homeland-hack.blogspot.com/
And the story "Dems using nomination leverage on NSA probe" -- a shorter version of which appears on A4 of this morning's Washington Times -- is posted here http://www.upi.com/inc/view.php?StoryID=20060806-055206-7562r. The text is also pasted below. If you would like more information about UPI's Security and Terrorism service, or to stop receiving these alerts, please get in touch. Shaun Waterman Dems using nomination leverage on NSA probe By SHAUN WATERMAN UPI Homeland and National Security Editor WASHINGTON, Aug. 7 (UPI) -- Three Democratic senators have said they will block the confirmation of a senior Justice Department official until the administration agrees to let an investigation into its program of warrantless wiretapping go ahead. Sens. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., Russell Feingold, D-Wisc., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., wrote last week to President Bush saying they believe it would be "inappropriate" to confirm Steven Bradbury until the "investigation is completed and Mr. Bradbury is cleared of any wrongdoing." Bradbury was nominated in January to take over the department's Office of Legal Counsel, the section that provides binding legal advice to the White House and other federal agencies; drafts the attorney general's legal opinions; and adjudicates legal disputes between government departments. But he has been running the office in an acting capacity since last summer, and under his leadership it has mounted an aggressive campaign to defend the legality and constitutionality of President Bush's program of warrantless wiretaps on calls into and out of the United States by people believed connected with al-Qaida or other terror groups. The Office of Legal Counsel, for instance, produced the so-called January 19 White Paper, a document setting out the administration's case that warrantless surveillance of international electronic communications like telephone calls, e-mails and faxes -- even when one end of the conversation was in the United States -- was legal under the president's inherent powers as commander-in-chief and Congress' 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force in the U.S. war on terror. The office was also one of those asked to provide information and documents to an internal Justice Department investigation into the wiretapping program. The three senators, all senior members of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, say this indicates that the office was a target of the investigation, which was probing whether any department lawyers had engaged in misconduct when they authorized the program. "Since (the probe) was investigating whether (the Office of Legal Counsel) engaged in misconduct while Mr. Bradbury was acting head, we believe it inappropriate to confirm Mr. Bradbury at this time," they write. The Senate rules allow a single senator to effectively block any nomination from getting to the floor. Such a maneuver, known as a hold, can be exercised anonymously, but it has become increasingly common for frustrated Democrats to use the technique as a lever to try to force the administration to cooperate with their oversight requests. Last year, for instance, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., put holds on several nominations, including that of Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher, in an effort to force disclosure of documents relating to administration policy on detention and interrogation. Fisher was eventually given a recess appointment. Durbin, Feingold and Kennedy write that they will block the nomination until the "investigation is completed and Mr. Bradbury is cleared of any wrongdoing." Justice Department Spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said Sunday it was "unfair" to say that Bradbury was a target of the investigation because "the (wiretapping) program began in 2001 before he was even a government employee." He added it was "surprising and unfortunate" that the senators had chosen to block the nomination. The letter sets the stage for a direct confrontation with President Bush because the investigation run by the department's Office of Professional Responsibility was closed earlier this year after its investigators were not granted the security clearances they needed to review documents and conduct interviews about the program. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told a Senate hearing that decisions about who was granted clearance to review the program were made by the president personally. The Office of Professional Responsibility was created in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Its Web site says its job is to "ensure that Department of Justice attorneys continue to perform their duties in accordance with the high professional standards expected" of them. The man leading its investigation into the wiretapping, H. Marshall Jarrett, complained that large numbers of other department staff -- investigating the leak of information about the program, and representing the government in civil litigation about it -- had all been granted clearances. "Since its creation some 31 years ago," he wrote in the memo closing the investigation, the Office of Professional Responsibility "has conducted many highly sensitive investigations involving executive branch programs and has obtained access to information classified at the highest levels. In all those years, (the office) has never been prevented from initiating or pursuing an investigation." 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