Justice Department Criticized on Spying Statements

Sens Mark Udall (D-CO) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) accused the Justice Department of seeking to “ignore or justify” statements it made to the Supreme Court about warrantless surveillance by the National Security Agency, contributing to what they called a “culture of misinformation” by the executive branch.

In a letter to Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., the senators maintained that the Justice Department was not being forthright about what they portrayed as factual misrepresentations to the Supreme Court in 2012. The case involved a challenge to the constitutionality of a law permitting warrantless NSA surveillance. The senators’ message was a response to a letter that the Justice Department sent them in December defending its conduct in the surveillance case, Clapper v. Amnesty International, in part because certain aspects of NSA spying had been classified at the time. The department’s letter had not been public, but Udall’s office provided it to The New York Times on May 13. Together, the letters added to a growing public record of some of the legal frictions that have followed the increased scrutiny of NSA surveillance practices set off by the leaks from the former contractor Edward J. Snowden.