>>>>“And the memorandum of which I spoke, which was crafted in 1995, specifically indicated that it was based on an understanding at that time that held the law would not countenance certain exchanges. I believe it was a mistaken impression of the law which was later corrected by the rulings of the FISA court of appeals.>>>>
The Bush people took down the wall before Ashcroft testified. Do we know when?
>>>>But if you look through the history of what happened just in the cases surrounding 9/11, time after time you find individuals being advised by their superiors that they could not or should not be involved in activity because such involvement would breach the wall.”>>>>
They also knew all about Able Danger before Ashcroft testified.
That Shaffer got the go-ahead to do the recent interviews tells me the administration is going after this. Wonder if Bush's statement of displeasure over that part of Ashcroft's testimony had more to do with timing than with substance...
Pinz
Was Sandy Berger trying to plant evidence in the archives to show that Bush was told about what Clinton really knew about al Qaeda?
Essentially the Patriot Act (fall 2001) overrode "the wall" -- although changing culture and individual/group behaviors in large bureaucracies is far more difficult than simply passing a law or announcing new policies.
See this link for a good discussion of how many informal barriers can also exist - it wasn't just one wall but many walls, and countless forms of discouragement to intel analysts who might have something useful to contribute:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1467315/posts
I think the anonymous intel insider at this link gives one of the best explanations I've seen of how (1) it wasn't just one 'wall' but numerous walls and discouragements; (2) while the problems certainly pre-dated the Clintonlites, in the '90s the problems and barriers were made much worse; (3) various walls always exist inside and among intel agencies, both for security and to protect civil liberties; but (4) the Clintonlites raised the walls higher and appointed bureaucrats who were (generally) much more concerned with protecting the Clintons politically than with doing the best job on intel.