James A. Baker (government attorney)

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For the former U.S. Secretary of State and adviser to Republican Presidents, see James Baker.

For other uses, see Jim Baker.

James A. Baker is an attorney with the United States Department of Justice, presently the Counsel for the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review.

Baker is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, and received a J.D. and M.A. from the University of Michigan. He joined the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice as a federal prosecutor during the Clinton administration. In 1996 he joined OIPR and in 1998 was promoted to Deputy Counsel for Intelligence Operations. From May 2001 he served as Acting Counsel, and in January 2002 was appointed Counsel permanently.

This government agency handles all Justice Department requests for surveillance authorizations under the terms of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, advises the Attorney General and all major intelligence-gathering agencies on legal issues relating to national security and surveillance, and, according to the agency website, "coordinates" the views of the intelligence community regarding intelligence legislation. Baker has often testified before Congress on behalf of Clinton and Bush administration intelligence policies, including defending the USA PATRIOT Act before the House Judiciary Committee [1][2].

In 2004, according to the Washington Post, Baker was responsible for the discovery that "the government's failure to share information" regarding the NSA electronic surveillance program had "rendered useless a federal screening system" insisted upon by the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to prevent "tainted information" -- in U.S. case law, fruit of the poisonous tree -- from being used before the court. Baker was reported to have informed presiding federal judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the FISC, whose complaints to the DOJ led to the temporary suspension of the NSA program.^[1]