Conyers to Justice Dept: No more stonewalling on domestic spying
 Top Judiciary Committee Democrats in the House of Representatives called on the Justice Department to end what they described as "stonewalling" over the Bush administration's efforts to push on with the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping programs.
Referring to the testimony of ex-Deputy Attorney General James Comey on Tuesday, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) worried in a statement sent to RAW STORY that it "raises serious questions about the NSA program and the White House's heavy-handed determination to continue it."
"This Committee's oversight authority extends to the legality of the program and we refuse to take the Department's stonewalling lightly," he added. "It seems that attempts to ignore Congressional authority have become all too familiar at the Department but the days of the Administration's 'oversight free' reign are over. We will demand accountability from Mr. Gonzales and the Administration."
The statement accompanied a letter, sent by Conyers and Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), in which they expressed concern that the administration was engaging in illegal activities with its domestic spying program.
Comey's details on the March 2004 incident, they wrote, "raise extremely disturbing questions about just what wiretapping or other activity was being conducted by the administration that its own Justice Department lawyers concluded had no proper legal basis."
Additionally, the refusal of the Justice Department to turn over key information about its assessment of the wiretapping program violates "applicable legal requirements and precedents, and threatens to effectively eliminate meaningful Judiciary Committee oversight and legislative activity concerning this crucial issue," the two Democratic Congress members wrote.
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