The Justice Department on Monday subpoenaed a New York Times reporter to testify in a controversial leak case against an ex-CIA officer who was one of the journalist’s sources in a book on the agency’s Iran operations.
Prosecutors said in a court filing to compel testimony from James Risen that they anticipate the reporter will attempt to quash the subpoena. Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., who is handling the case, quashed a subpoena issued to the reporter in November. Risen has said that he has declined to testify and never provided prosecutors with information in the case involving Jeffrey Sterling.
The DOJ lawyers said federal law does not afford Risen a special privilege that would allow him to withhold testimony. They said his testimony would be pertinent to a jury.
“Mr. Risen is an eyewitness to those crimes,” the prosecutors wrote in their court filing. “Mr. Risen’s testimony, like that of any other citizen in his situation, should therefore be admitted to permit the jury to carry out its truth-seeking function.”
Joel Kurtzberg, an attorney for Risen, told National Public Radio that his client intends to fight the subpoena.
DOJ spokeswoman Laura Sweeney told NPR that the Department attempts to “strike the proper balance between the public’s interest in the free dissemination of information and effective law enforcement.” The Attorney General must sign off on subpoenas issued to journalists.
“We make every reasonable effort to attempt to obtain information from alternatives sources before even considering a subpoena to a member of the press, and only seek information essential to directly establishing innocence or guilt,” Sweeney told NPR.
Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer of the DOJ Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride of the Eastern District of Virginia and Trial Attorney Timothy J. Kelly, in addition to Senior Litigation Counsels James L. Trump and William M. Welch II, the former Public Integrity Section chief who supervised the bungled prosecution of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), submitted the court filing.
Attorney General Eric Holder ultimately dismissed the case against Stevens in 2009.
A preliminary draft of a DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility report on the allegations that prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence from the Stevens defense concluded that two Assistant U.S. Attorneys engaged in misconduct. But Welch was cleared of the misconduct allegations.
Risen is not the first New York Times journalist to receive a subpoena from the DOJ involving a CIA matter. In the 2000s, prosecutors tried to get then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller to testify in the leak case involving CIA operative Valerie Plame.
A bill that would extend expiring provisions of the Patriot Act for four years cleared a major hurdle in the Senate Monday, moving closer to the president’s desk.
The Senate voted 74-8 to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to the bill introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), bringing an up-or-down vote on the legislation closer to fruition. Approval of the cloture motion required the support of 60 senators.
Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Mark Begich (D-Alaska), Dean Heller (R-Nev.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) voted against the motion.
The bill would extend until June 1, 2015, the “roving wiretaps” power and “business records” authority, which makes it easier for federal authorities to get tangible evidence — such as library records — as part of an investigation. The legislation also would give a four-year extension to the “lone wolf” power, initially authorized under a 2004 law, which allows probes of suspected terrorists not tied to a specific organization or nation.
The three authorities are set to expire Friday.
Reid and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) reached a deal on the extensions proposed in the bill Thursday. The Reid bill balances extension measures approved by the House and Senate Judiciary committees.
The bill approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee would extend the three expiring provisions until Dec. 31, 2013. The legislation also would set up a sunset for national security letters, which are administrative subpoenas that the FBI uses to obtain evidence without a court order.
The committee endorsed the bill in March. But the legislation didn’t garner much support from panel Republicans with only Sen. Mike Lee of Utah voting in favor of reporting the bill out of committee.
The panel announced that Leahy on Monday would introduce an amendment to the Reid bill that would set up a Dec. 31, 2013, sunset for national security letters. Paul is a cosponsor of the amendment.
The bill approved by the House Judiciary Committee would extend the “roving wiretaps” and “business records” powers until Dec. 31, 2017. The “lone wolf” authority would receive a permanent extension.
The panel voted 22–13, mostly along party lines, to report the bill out May 12.
The three authorities are currently allowed under a 90-day extension that Congress approved in February.
The House tried to pass legislation in February that would have extended the powers until December. That bill was considered under House procedures that required a two-thirds majority to pass the bill. But House Democrats and conservative Republicans joined together and the bill was not approved.
Thirteen suspected mobsters in Philadelphia were charged with the Department of Justice on Monday with illegal gambling, loan-sharking, witness-tampering and other illegal acts long associated with organized crime.
The 13 include Philadelphia crime boss Joseph Ligambi, underboss Joseph Massimino and nine other mob members and associates who were arrested Monday morning by FBI agents and local law enforcement officers, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer, head of the DOJ’s Criminal Division, said at a Philadelphia news conference. The remaining two defendants are already in prison.
The action announced Monday, which Breuer described as one of the largest such moves in a decade, follows the arrests of dozens of suspected mobsters across the Northeast during the winter.
“The life of a traditional ‘mobster’ has been dramatized in the movies and on TV,” Breuer said. ” But there is nothing entertaining about violence in our communities. There is nothing endearing about lives spent pursuing criminal activity. And there is no excuse or honor in favoring allegiance to a crime family over the rule of law.”
The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Zane David Memeger, said the indictment on which the latest charges is based illustrated the “systematic manner in which the organized crime family has sustained itself,” according to an account on The Philadelphia Inquirer website.
Breuer acknowledged that the Philadelphia mob “has shown a remarkable ability to reorganize and reinvigorate itself, even as its members were sent to prison.” But the mob’s pursuers are not discouraged, Breuer said: “We are not going away.”
The Department of Justice moved on Monday to stop H&R Block from acquiring TaxACT, asserting that allowing the merger would lessen competition in the tax-preparation industry and harm millions of Americans.
“We are blocking this transaction because the proposed merger would substantially lessen competition in the tax preparation software market, resulting in higher prices, lower quality and reduced innovation,” Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney, in charge of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, told reporters just after the DOJ filed an antitrust suit in U.S. District Court in Washington.
“Between 35 and 40 million taxpayers use software products to prepare and file their federal and state income taxes,” Varney said. “Three companies account for 90 percent of all sales of consumer tax software products. Combining H&R Block and TaxACT would destroy the head-to-head competition between these two companies, leaving only one other major competitor. That is not enough competition in this valuable industry.”
“TaxACT is an aggressive competitor in the market, and is feared by both H&R Block and the only other leading provider of these products, Intuit,” Varney said.
H&R Block announced in October that it intended to buy 2SS Holdings Inc., developer of the TaxACT tax-preparation program, for $287.5 million.
Revisiting a sad chapter in American history, Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal has issued a “confession of error” on behalf of his office, acknowledging that it failed terribly in connection with the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
In a statement issued on Friday and timed to coincide with Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month, which is May, Katyal said the Solicitor General’s office had played major roles in advancing the cause of civil rights. But, unhappily, the office committed a major mistake — or worse — in the anti-Japanese hysteria that swept the United States after Pearl Harbor, Katyal said.
“Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States uprooted more than 100,000 people of Japanese descent, most of them American citizens, and confined them in internment camps,” Katyal noted. ” The Solicitor General was largely responsible for the defense of those policies.”
The Solicitor General from November 1941 to September 1945 was Charles Fahy, who later became a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Evidence that surfaced decades later indicated that Fahy concealed evidence that undermined a key rationale for the internment: that many Japanese-Americans posed a security threat. Those few Japanese-Americans who were dangerous had been identified as such early on, Katyal noted. Moreover, intelligence analysts at the time discredited suggestions that Japanese-Americans were using radio transmitters to communicate with Japanese submarines off the Pacific Coast.
“And to make matters worse, he relied on gross generalizations about Japanese Americans, such as that they were disloyal and motivated by ‘racial solidarity,’” Katyal said of his long-ago predecessor, whom he did not name.
When the cases of Gordon Hirabayashi and Fred Korematsu, which attacked the constitutionality of the internments, reached the U.S. Supreme Court, Fahy did not tell the the justices about the evidence “despite warnings from Department of Justice attorneys that failing to alert the Court “’might approximate the suppression of evidence,’” Katyal noted.
In 1944, the Supreme Court ruled against Hirabayashi and Korematsu, 6-3, in a decision that has come to be seen as a low point for the tribunal. In 1984, as Korematsu was seeking to clear his name, U.S. Judge Marilyn Patel of the Northern District of California noted that critical evidence had apparently been “knowingly concealed from the courts,” as The Blog of Legal Times recalled.
Charles Fahy, who was a naval aviator in World War I and was awarded a Navy Cross, died in 1979, before his defense of the internment program had been discredited. And it must be said that he was not the only public official whose otherwise distinguished career was marred by the internment episode.
As Attorney General of California, Earl Warren forcefully advocated internment of Japanese-Americans. But FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover opposed it, not so much on constitutional grounds but because he said his agents had already rounded up the dangerous people.
Kathy Hochul, wife of Buffalo U.S Attorney William Hochul, may be poised to pull an upset Tuesday and win a U.S. House seat to fill the term of former Rep. Chris Lee.
Polls conducted in the upstate 26th District of New York showed Hochul with a lead over Republican Jane Corwin and Tea Party candidate Jack Davis.
The Sienna College survey of likely voters released Saturday found 42 percent preferred Hochul and 38 percent were for Corwin, while 12 percent supported Davis, CBS News reported.
The election is needed as Lee resigned Feb. 9 after it was revealed that he had been exchanging emails with a woman on Craiglist who had placed a personal ad. Lee, who is married, lied about his age and occupation and sent the woman a shirtless photo of himself.
President Barack Obama nominated William Hochul as U.S. Attorney and Kathy Hocuhl’s victory over a Republican might be viewed as particularly ironic. A 2008 Department of Justice Inspector General report found the Bush administration declined to promote William Hochul, an experienced counter-terrorism prosecutor, because of his wife’s affiliation with the Democratic Party. Under the direction of then-DOJ White House liaison Monica Goodling, a less experienced Republican was promoted over Hochul, who prosecuted the “Lackawanna Six” on charges of providing material support to al-Qaeda. The IG report didn’t name Hochul directly but called his case “the most troubling example” of politics-based hiring decision that the office had reviewed.
Kathy Hochul currently is the Erie County clerk, the the highest ranking female elected official in the county. Previously, she served as first deputy county clerk. She also has worked as in-house counsel to a major corporation engaged in homeland security, private practice in Washington, D.C., and legal counsel and legislative assistant to Sen. Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) and Rep. John LaFalce (D-N.Y.). Kathy Hochul also established her own practice in Washington, D.C.
Both parties are watching the special election with great interest as they try to hone their messages heading into the 2012 election. Hochul has hammered Republicans on their position on Medicare and she appears to have gained some political traction from the issue.
Unlike some New Jersey politicians who have been snagged by federal prosecutors, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has a high regard for those who staff the offices of the United States Attorney in the Garden State.
After all, the Republican served as New Jersey’s U.S. Attorney from 2002 through 2008. In October, he said he enjoyed serving as U.S. Attorney more than he enjoyed being governor.
The Asbury Park Press reported Sunday that Christie has taken his admiration for prosecutors several steps further by appointing more than two dozen former prosecutors to administration jobs or the state Superior Court. Nearly 20 of them had worked for Christie directly, the newspaper reported.
In a state fighting its image as a haven for corruption, the number of former prosecutors working for the governor reinforces an image that the administration is intent on fighting white-collar crime, said Brigid Harrison, a political scientist at Montclair State University. “The most obvious advantage is that there is a public perception that prosecutors are squeaky clean. And in a state with a reputation for corruption like New Jersey has, that offers voters and Gov. Christie a certain degree of credibility and legitimacy that comes automatically,” Harrison said.
But Seton Hall University political scientist Matthew Hale said prosecutors often are inflexible in negotiations, which can inhibit government operations.
Christie showed his prefernce for prosecutors at the start of his campaign when he chose former federal prosecutor Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno as his ruinning mate.
Other prosecutors in the Cabinet include Lori Grifa, former prosecutors in New York City, at the Department of Community Affairs; Lee Solomon, who was in charge of southern New Jersey for Christie when he was prosecutor, at the Board of Public Utilities; and Paula Dow, a former Essex County prosecutor, as attorney general.
The newspaper reported that the governor’s office is filled with former Christie colleagues: chief counsel Jeffrey Chiesa, deputy chief counsel Kevin O’Dowd, appointments counsel Michele Brown and Authorities Unit director Deborah Gramiccioni. In addition, there’s also Philip Degnan, the new State Commission of Investigation executive director; Homeland Security Director Charles McKenna; Schools Development Authority Director Marc Larkins; and Division of Consumer Affairs Director Thomas Calcagni. John Weingart, a Rutgers University political scientist told the newspaper that it is logical for a first-term governor to choose people he knows well.
“If you don’t like the people, you can say they’re cronies. If you do, you can say they’re trusted associates,” Weingart said. “But it’s a difficult task for a chief executive to pick the right people for these jobs, particularly in a governor’s first term, when he’s learning a lot as he goes. To bring in people he feels he has worked with and trusts, or feels there is a common language with, makes sense.”
Christie has been under pressure by some national Republicans to seek his party’s presidential nomination, but he has said he is not interested.
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Attorney General Eric Holder
Remarks at University of Virginia Law School Commencement
Charlottesville, Va. ~ Sunday, May 22, 2011
Thank you, Chris Martin. It is an honor to stand with you, and to join Dean Paul Mahoney and the UVA law school faculty – and so many proud parents, friends, and family members – in congratulating you and your classmates.
I’d like to take a moment to recognize the Student Bar Association Graduation Chairs – Lauren Prieb, Melanie Smith, and Carolyn Greco – as well as Dean Kevin Donovan and Dean Steve Hopson, for everything that they have done to make this ceremony so special. I also want to thank the Class of 2011 for inviting me to share in this moment – as we celebrate the many achievements, and contributions, that have distinguished your time here in Charlottesville. And I’d like to give a special hello to my friend and former colleague, Professor Bob Sayler, who I’m sure will be grading this speech.
Already, today’s graduates have accomplished something that no class in history has done before – you’ve survived three whole years with Dean Mahoney. You’ve also made it through many of the same rites of passage that have become familiar to Virginia Law School students for decades. You’ve raised tens of thousands of dollars for local charities by winning – and losing – countless softball games. You’ve practiced your oral argument skills by debating whether fly balls that hit the tree in Copeley Field are fair or foul. You’ve written lyrics and choreographed dance moves for your famous Libel Show – and some of you have worked, unsuccessfully, to keep your performances off You Tube.
These are just a few of the many experiences that you will carry with you. And, today, as you reflect on the last three years – and as you say good-bye to Feb Club parties and Thursday afternoon drinks in Spies Garden, to friends you’ve come to rely on, and to professors you will never forget – I’d like to invite each of you to take a moment to appreciate what – for you – makes this law school such a remarkable place.
Maybe it’s the famously collegial atmosphere – that culture of community and camaraderie that is seen, and felt, across the North Grounds. And you undoubtedly have been enriched by the academic rigors that come with attending one of the top law schools in the country. According to the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings, UVA is up one place from last year, thanks – I can only assume – to the Class of 2011.
Or maybe you’re drawn to the history of this place, and the people – from Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe, to FBI Director Robert Mueller and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano – who have helped to establish and to extend UVA Law School’s rich tradition of public service.
Today, alumni of this law school are serving across government, and – I’m proud to say – at every level of our nation’s Department of Justice. The list of these alumni includes some of my most trusted advisors – including my former Chief of Staff, Kevin Ohlson, as well as my former Deputy Chief of Staff, Jim Garland – who have provided critical leadership for my office, and for the entire Department.
Our network of United States Attorneys also includes three UVA Law graduates: Tim Heaphy – who serves here in Charlottesville, and who I’m glad could be with us today – as well as Neil MacBride, of Virginia’s Eastern District, and Zane Memeger, from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Before they were leading these critical offices – and advancing some of the most important prosecutions in the country – the three of them were roommates in a house on Cleveland Avenue. Like many of you, they had not yet discovered just how well UVA had prepared them – not only to join our nation’s legal community, but to lead it.
This afternoon, as you join the ranks of this University’s alumni – you, too, will begin to define your own place in history. Not only do you have an extraordinary opportunity, you now have an essential obligation – to serve the cause of equal justice, to stand up always for the rule of law, and to use your talents and training to protect the most vulnerable among us.
Right now, you are among the most qualified people in this country to give, to lead, and to serve. Armed with an outstanding legal education, you will fan out across the country and all over the world, ready – and well equipped – to affect meaningful change wherever you choose to make your home, and however you decide to make your mark.
This is the moment that you have been working toward and waiting for. It’s the result of a commitment that each of you made – three distant years ago – when you started law school; and a choice that you ratified with the decision to stick with your studies in spite of the economic turmoil that gripped this country throughout your time here, and the clouded job outlook you once thought was secure. Make no mistake: you will face similar tough choices throughout your lives and careers. And each time you must ask yourselves, “Will I accept – and be satisfied with – things as they are? Or will I keep faith in my vision for a better world? Will I work to bring about the progress I hope to see for myself, and for others?”
The answers may seem obvious right now – but these are not rhetorical questions. And, as you officially begin your journey of service in the law, no outcome is preordained.
It was not inevitable that our founding documents would protect our rights to free speech and religious worship, or that, ultimately, slavery would be abolished, or that voting rights would one day extend to women and to people of color. These achievements did not happen by chance. And they did not come easily.
These righteous changes were brought about by the generations of leaders and – in many cases, lawyers – who devoted their lives and careers to our nation’s long – and still ongoing – fight for justice and equality; and by the millions, throughout our nation’s history, who – and I quote – “saw wrong and tried to right it; saw suffering and tried to heal it; saw war and tried to stop it.”
Those famous words were spoken more than 30 years ago, by one distinguished graduate of this law school about another. In 1968, Senator Ted Kennedy used these words to eulogize his late brother, Robert Kennedy – a leader who still stands as one of our nation’s champions of human rights and equal justice.
Exactly sixty years ago, Robert Kennedy sat where you do now – eagerly waiting to receive his UVA Law School diploma. But the truth is that he was lucky to be here at all. When Robert Kennedy was accepted to this University, he was warned that he would have to “greatly improve his academic performance” in order to remain enrolled. During his time here, he was never known for speaking up in class, but had a habit of propping his feet up during lectures. And I’m told that one landlord nearly evicted him for scuffing up hardwood floors with his football cleats.
Robert Kennedy hardly started off as a model law student. But, during his third year here in Charlottesville, he found – and seized upon – a cause that ignited his passion, and propelled him into action.
As a 3L, he became president of the Student Legal Forum – an organization that works to bring notable speakers, and national leaders, to address the law school community. In the spring of 1951, Robert Kennedy decided to invite Dr. Ralph Bunche to the Law School. Dr. Bunche was a Nobel Peace Prize winner, a distinguished diplomat who helped establish the United Nations – and an African American. At that time, not a single black student had enrolled in the J.D. program, or in UVA’s undergraduate college.
This University, for all intents and purposes, was still segregated – as were public meeting halls across Virginia, not only by longstanding custom, but also by the force of law. For Dr. Bunche – a passionate opponent of segregation – this was simply unacceptable.
He decided that he would accept Robert Kennedy’s invitation – but only on the condition that he be allowed to speak before a fully integrated audience. So, Robert Kennedy faced a choice – one which would prove to be a defining moment – and an auspicious beginning – for his legal career.
Now, he easily could have avoided controversy, and politely explained to Dr. Bunche that such a thing would be impossible – that it was well beyond his power or control – and that, regrettably, the invitation would have to be withdrawn. He could have bent to custom – and to state law – and moved on to the next distinguished name on his list of potential speakers.
That course of action might have been consistent with the easygoing, feet-up-on-the-table image that the young Bobby Kennedy maintained among his classmates and professors. But that is not the Robert Kennedy we know from history – the brave, outspoken man who fought to integrate the University of Alabama; who helped to calm a city, and to heal a nation, in the wake of Dr. King’s assassination; the man who stood up to the Mob; spoke out against apartheid, and traveled to the poorest corners of this country to shine a light on the needs of – and this nation’s obligations to – America’s most vulnerable citizens.
Before he became known for his courage and compassion, his dedication to principle, and his stubborn determination to do what is right – Robert Kennedy exhibited the first flashes of these traits right here, at the University of Virginia, as he worked to bring Dr. Bunche to Charlottesville and to meet his conditions.
First, he went to the Student Council – asking them to pass a resolution to allow an integrated audience for the event, if not a sweeping change in University policy. Many privately told him they agreed with the resolution, but couldn’t support it. As one member of the Council explained, “I’ve got to go home to Alabama later… I’m for it, but I can’t put my name to it.”
Ultimately, the resolution failed.
Next, he turned to the faculty – and some professors suggested that the Legal Forum skirt the rules by declaring that a section of the audience would be for African Americans only, but then allowing people to sit wherever they liked. This might have been an easy way to avoid controversy and to declare a kind of victory – but Robert Kennedy wasn’t satisfied. He rejected the idea immediately.
This wasn’t merely about seating arrangements in Cabell Hall, he said – this was about overturning an unjust policy.
So, Robert Kennedy went to Colgate Darden, the University President at that time. President Darden did not favor segregation, but he was not yet ready to oppose the status quo – at least, not until a group of law students – led by Robert Kennedy– helped to change his mind.
In the end, Robert Kennedy and some likeminded classmates – as well as several professors – convinced President Darden that, based on a recent Supreme Court decision integrating a law school in Texas, any educational event – at any law school in the country – must be desegregated.
When, at long last, Dr. Bunche arrived at Cabell Hall – it was filled to capacity. And, for the first time in history, nearly a third of the seats were taken by African Americans.
Sixty years later, I believe that Robert Kennedy would be proud to see this diverse, and extremely talented, group of graduates. These 372 JDs and 21 LLMs are accomplished men and women who represent nearly every state – and more than a dozen foreign countries.
You’ve worked and studied all over the world – and have already made an impact through your volunteer activities and clinical service. From the Peace Corps to the United States armed forces – from the CIA and the U.S. Marshals Service to the World Bank – you’ve represented this country and this University with distinction, and have helped to enrich communities across, and beyond, these grounds. You’ve used your legal training to assist vulnerable tenants, children, seniors, patients, and victims – as well as struggling nonprofits and community organizations. You’ve taught everything from elementary school, to piano lessons, to sailing classes – and have shown off your considerable skills on the rugby pitch, on the stage, and even on Jeopardy!
In fact, well before your arrival here, this class had already accomplished a great deal. And the truth is that each of you very likely could be making a good living – without ever setting foot in a law school classroom, wrestling with torts or contracts, or subjecting yourselves to long hours of study with very little sleep.
And yet – here you are.
Three years ago, you chose to submit yourselves to the rigors of a top legal education, at one of the world’s most prestigious law schools – without any guarantees about where this path might lead you. You made a critical choice – just as generations of UVA Law students have before you: to serve the cause of justice, and to dedicate yourselves to the principles that made our nation great and, surely, will guide our future progress.
As of today, you are no longer just students of the law. You are now stewards of our justice system. And I expect a great deal from each of you, especially Danya Atiyeh and Melanie Stuart – the two graduates who will soon be coming to the Department of Justice, to work for me.
But whatever path you take, and however you decide to apply your considerable knowledge and skills, I can think of no more exciting time to be entering the legal profession than in this new decade of the 21st century. Yes, there are complex problems to solve, unprecedented threats to address, and novel legal questions to answer. But you all have the potential – as well as the power that a UVA law degree affords – to confront today’s most pressing challenges, to improve your own circumstances, to assist and protect others, and to lead our nation – and our world – toward a new era of prosperity, healing, and opportunity.
As you pursue your own passions – and work to fulfill your collective responsibilities – I hope, in the spirit of Robert Kennedy – your famous predecessor, and mine – that you will dare greatly; that you will question what is accepted and change what is objectionable; that you will root out injustice in all its forms; and that you always will remember the truth of his enduring words: “The future is not a gift. It is an achievement.”
As you work to shape this future, and to strengthen our nation’s record of progress, I have no doubt that you will extend this law school’s long tradition of service – whether through private practice, government, or other public interest work. And, as you make your way forward, know that we have faith in you. We are proud of you. And we are counting on you all.
The America that you are building for your children depends on the strength of the commitment you make to that which is best about our nation.
Always remember that positive change is possible – not by accident or chance – but whenever good people are willing to band together, and to work together, to improve the lives of others.
As graduates of the University of Virginia Law School this is your inheritance – and it is now your duty.
Congratulations, Class of 2011, and good luck.
A nonprofit digital rights group is demanding to see a Justice Department memorandum that it says lets the FBI obtain records of international telephone calls placed in the United States without a subpoena or other legal apparatus.
In its suit filed Thursday, The Electronic Frontier Foundation insists that the DOJ turn over the Office of Legal Counsel opinion, first requested by McClatchy Newspapers through the Freedom of Information Act. The DOJ told McClatchy it couldn’t release the memorandum because of national security concerns.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation said the DOJ informed it that it wouldn’t hand over the opinion requested by the organization through FOIA on Feb. 15.
The group appealed the decision with the DOJ Office of Information Policy on March 9. The organization said the DOJ acknowledged, but has yet to respond to the appeal. FOIA requires a response in 20 business days.
The DOJ Inspector General last year issued a report on how the FBI circumvented requirements of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and internal guidelines to obtain phone records.
The FBI got phone records using requests through post-it notes, e-mails, telephone calls and by what the FBI called “sneak peeks” — all informal methods that the Inspector General deemed inappropriate.
The OLC opinion requested by The Electronic Frontier Foundation is mentioned in the Inspector General report, according to the organization. The report says “the OLC agreed with the FBI that under certain circumstances (word or words redacted) allows the FBI to ask for and obtain these records on a voluntary basis from the providers, without legal process or a qualifying emergency,” according to McClatchy.
“Even officials within the Justice Department itself are concerned that the FBI’s secret legal theory jeopardizes privacy and government accountability, especially considering the FBI’s demonstrated history of abusing surveillance law,” said Kevin Bankston, The Electronic Frontier Foundation senior staff attorney, said in a statement. “Secret law has no place in our democracy. Congress can’t even consider closing this dangerous surveillance loophole until we understand the FBI’s legal argument, yet the Department of Justice is still hiding it from Congress and the public.”
