Jackson Free Press

A federal judge ordered the Bush administration on Thursday to release documents about its warrantless surveillance program or spell out what it is withholding, a setback to efforts to keep the program under wraps.

At the same time, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said he had worked out an agreement with the White House to consider legislation and provide more information to Congress on the eavesdropping program. The panel's top Democrat, who has requested a full-scale investigation, immediately objected to what he called an abdication of the committee's responsibilities.

U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy ruled that a private group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, will suffer irreparable harm if the documents it has been seeking since December are not processed promptly under the Freedom of Information Act. He gave the Justice Department 20 days to respond to the group's request.

"President Bush has invited meaningful debate about the wireless surveillance program," Kennedy said. "That can only occur if DOJ processes its FOIA requests in a timely fashion and releases the information sought."

Justice Department spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said the department has been "extremely forthcoming" with information and "will continue to meet its obligations under FOIA."
On Capitol Hill, lawmakers also have been seeking more information about Bush's program that allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop - without court warrants - on Americans whose international calls and e-mails it believed might be linked to al-Qaida.

Previous Commentsshow

I just love it when judges use an elected official's excuses against them: "President Bush has invited meaningful debate about the wireless surveillance program," Kennedy said. "That can only occur if DOJ processes its FOIA requests in a timely fashion and releases the information sought." Reminds me of Melton losing the Meridian lawsuit with the judge saying, after all, he did tell the court he was acting as a "journalist" when he leaked the false memo—thus, why should the public have to pay for his trangressions? Gotta love smart(-a$$?) judges. ;-D

DonnaLadd

Feb 16 2006

As a five-year-old may say, "This is getting interestinger and interestinger."

LatashaWillis

Feb 17 2006