Calling it instead "the Reno wall," Van Auken insisted that its primary impact was limited to the investigation into so-called 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui, where investigators were prevented from searching Moussaoui's computer until after the 9/11 attacks.

Van Auken offered no comment on reports that the Gorelick restrictions bottled up critical intelligence on 9/11 conspirators Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, whose hijacked planes destroyed the World Trade Center.

But Rep. Curt Weldon, who revealed earlier this week that military intelligence had identified Atta and al-Shehhi as terrorist threats operating inside the U.S. two years before the attacks, blamed the Clinton Justice Department's "wall."

"There was no reason not to share this information with the FBI," he complained in a radio interview Wednesday night, "except that the firewalls that existed back then were so severe that they wouldn't let these agencies talk to one another."

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