Justice Department to Show Secret Memos to Intelligence Committees

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Justice Department to Show Secret Memos to Intelligence Committees

Posted May 1, 2008, 06:09 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

The Justice Department has agreed to show lawmakers copies of Justice Department secret memos justifying harsh interrogation techniques in national security cases.

Members of the House and Senate intelligence committees will be able to see the opinions, but they won’t be allowed to keep paper or electronic copies, the Washington Post reports.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the move was an "extraordinary accommodation" to help committee members understand the legal reasoning in the documents, written by the Office of Legal Counsel.

The department was still considering whether it would release the opinions to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the New York Times reports. The decision was announced at a hearing by a Judiciary Committee subcommittee yesterday on secrecy.

During the hearing, a Justice Department official, John Elwood, disclosed that the administration believed the president could ignore or modify existing executive orders without disclosing the new interpretation.

At the hearing, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said the administration was promoting a “sinister trend” of “secret law.”

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Posted by michael h - 2 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 16 hours, 39 minutes ago

Secret executive orders, a source of law that may be known only by the President and a few top advisors? This is better than double secret probation, maybe the next secret exec. order will require Fed. Gov. vehicles to drive on the left side of interstate highways. See http://michaeljamesh.blogspot.com/2008/05/hidden-joys-of-secret-law.html

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