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Actually, I wasn't being careful when I suggested that Lawton's role involved internal FBI co-ordination. Her most significant role was as Chief Counsel for OIPR, which was the key office deciding how the primary intelligence agencies, FBI, CIA, NSA and the DIA, would interact with DOJ's law enforcement.

I think we are being seriously smoked here. Lawton did allow substantial interaction between these other intelligence agencies and law enforcement, according to my Post #616. This was clamped down on by Scruggs, and reinforced by Gorelick's memo two years later.

By accepting the position that it was Gorelick's memo that initiated this Wall, we open ourselves to the counter argument that no it wasn't Gorelick's wall, as this Wall existed all along, prior to 1995, and dating all the way back to the United States v. Troung Dinh Hung case in the late 1970's.

But with the passage of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) the office of OIPR was established to funnel requests for search warrants for the purpose of foreign intelligence to a sitting secret judicial panel. This met the requirements of the 4th Amendment, while allowing the intelligence agencies and law enforcement to co-operate on overlapping cases. It was under Reno, starting with Struggs, that this was changed to the Wall.

See further Testimony - United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary - The USA PATRIOT Act In Practice: Shedding Light on the FISA Process. - September 10, 2002 - Mr. Kenneth C. Bass, III . Bass was the first Chief Counsel for OIPR, and Lawton the second. Bass and Lawton did not have in place a wall that would have kept 9/11 (or Chinagate) hidden. Rather they had in place a legal and constitutional means to facilitate such investigations and co-ordination.

Clinton, Reno, Struggs and subsequently Gorelick did replace a means of co-ordination between the primary intelligence agencies and law enforcement with a Wall that funneled information from both sides up through an office now controlled by a political appointee (as the head of OIPR became after 2003), turning what had been an affective and legal means of co-ordination into an affective but illegal means of cover-up.

Do not fall for the claim that the Wall was there for the 15 years prior to Gorelick's memo. It was there for about two years prior.

Do not fall for the claim that the Wall was there for the 15 years prior to Gorelick's memo. It was there for about two years prior.

Responding to myself here - bad form no doubt.

As an example of the danger of falling for this claim, notice the following story, where O'Reilly was sandbagged by this claim.

In essence, FISA defined a wall -- and a door. In Alice in Wonderland fashion, Clinton changed the door so that entering from either side led to Clinton's political appointees, rather than to the other side.

From " Media Matters "; by Paul Waldman and Jamison:

Able? Not so much. Danger? You bet.
The strange conspiracy theory that is the Able Danger story continues to befuddle journalists and the public alike. On August 24, The New York Times told us that Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott had come forward to back up the claim by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer that military intelligence unit Able Danger identified lead 9-11 hijacker Mohammed Atta prior to the September 11, 2001, attacks. But in fact, Phillpott turns out to be the source for Shaffer's claim in the first place.
Not that that would stop Fox News from getting breathless. On Fox News' Fox News Live, anchor Jon Scott reported that Phillpott "has come forward to back up claims" that Atta was identified in early 2000, while national correspondent Catherine Herridge asked: "If the documents [proving Atta was identified] are never found, will we reach a point when enough people have gone public to say it happened that perhaps the documents may ultimately not be that significant?" Who needs documents?
But somehow or other, this must all be Bill Clinton's fault, right? Of course, or nearly so. According to Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, it's all former deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration Jamie Gorelick's fault, because O'Reilly claims (falsely) that Gorelick's "involvement in building a symbolic wall between U.S. intelligence agencies and those investigating criminal activity" aided in creating "mass confusion among the agencies that are supposed to protect us" before the 9-11 terrorist attacks. That confusion, he suggested, was responsible for the purported failure on the part of Department of Defense officials to pass on to the FBI military intelligence purportedly identifying Atta.
If O'Reilly was looking for support from former Republican senator and 9-11 Commission member Slade Gorton when he had him on his show on August 22, he got a rude surprise. Gorton gave O'Reilly a scolding about his criticism of Gorelick. "We agree on a number of things," Gorton said. "I'm no defender of Janet Reno as an attorney general. But what I'm telling you is that the wall was created by laws sponsored by the Church Committee back in the 1970s. And they went all the way through until after 9-11 was over. And that nothing Jamie Gorelick wrote had the slightest impact on the Department of Defense or its willingness or ability to share intelligence information with other intelligence agencies." Chastened, O'Reilly could only respond, "All right. We'll let the audience decide, Senator."

The coverup of the coverup continues.

I will agree that agencies such as the NSA, DIA, CIA & FBI were not as hindered prior to "The Wall". However, the Military Services themselves WERE very much hindered in investigating US Persons - especially domestic, but also foreign!

This was more due to the military infiltration of subversive student organisations in the 60's and early 70's than it was FISA & Co.

FISA and all subsequent legislation & EO's merely reinforced the already existing barrier bewteen the military and the civilian departments.

I grant that NSA & DIA are technically "military", but they are separate from, say US Army Counterintelligence. This is my point. AD was a truely military operation (apparently with some contractor involvment). The DoD lawyers, rightly or wrongly concluded that ATTA & Co. were "US Persons" and this alone was sufficient to shut down AD and cause all records to be destroyed. The Chinese aspect just adds another twist to the whole bloody mess. AD *might* have been able to get away with the investigation *if* prior approval had been obtained from the AG. However, the hurdles involved in getting approval for such were very high, and, most likely, if approved, the operation would have been conducted by NSA / the FBI - according to the powers that be, the military itself investigating "US Persons" is just not kosher.