From The New York Times, 11/24/06:

Senate Democrats Revive Demand for Classified Data

From The New York Times, 11/24/06:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/24/washington/24documents.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Senate Democrats Revive Demand for Classified Data

From The New York Times, 11/24/06:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/24/washington/24documents.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Senate Democrats Revive Demand for Classified Data

By DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON --

Seeking information about detention of terrorism suspects, abuse of
detainees and government secrecy, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary
Committee are reviving dozens of demands for classified documents that
until now have been rebuffed or ignored by the Justice Department and
other agencies.

"I expect real answers, or we’ll have testimony under oath until we
get them," Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, who will head the
committee beginning in January, said in an interview this week.

"We’re entitled to know these answers, and in many instances we don’t
get them because people are hiding their mistakes. And that’s no
excuse."

Mr. Leahy, who has said little about his plans for the committee,
expressed hope for greater cooperation from the Bush administration,
which he described as having been "obsessively secretive."

His aides have identified more than 65 requests he has made to the
Justice Department or other agencies in recent years that have been
rejected or permitted to languish without reply.

Now that they are about to control Congress, what he and other
Democrats regard as a record of unresponsiveness has energized their
renewal of longstanding requests for information about some of the
administration’s most hidden and fiercely debated operations.

In addition, other such requests by committee members deal with
subjects like voter fraud, immigration and background inquiries on
Supreme Court nominees.

With little more than two weeks gone since the elections that gave his
party a majority in both houses, Mr. Leahy has already begun pressing
the Justice Department for greater openness.

In a letter last Friday, he asked Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales
to release two documents whose existence the Central Intelligence
Agency, in response to a suit by the American Civil Liberties Union,
recently acknowledged for the first time.

Although their details are not known, the documents appear to have
provided a legal basis for the agency’s detention and harsh
interrogation of high-level terrorism suspects.

One document is a directive, signed by President Bush shortly after
the September 2001 attacks, that granted the C.I.A. authority to set
up detention centers outside the United States and outlined allowable
interrogation procedures.

The second is a memorandum, written by the Office of Legal Counsel at
the Justice Department in 2002, that is thought to have given the
C.I.A. specific legal advice about interrogation methods that would
not violate a federal statute on torture.

With Democrats in control, it will be harder for executive branch
agencies to sidestep requests for documents.

Behind each request will be the possibility of Democrats’ voting to
issue subpoenas that would compel documents or testimony, although
Senate aides said they hoped to avoid conflict.

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About time we had some checks and balances.