wars of attrition (msnbc? that's a little unusual!)

[coderman]

On 3/6/06, coderman <coderman at gmail.com> wrote:
> hey, at least the cypherpunks aren't mentioned! *grin*

sorry, my humor is lacking; this list is a few hundred KSLOC from
being any kind of threat. KE KE KE...


>  Bush declares war on freedom of the press
> March 6, 2006 07:44 AM / The Rant .

looks like this hit msnbc??

favorite quotes:
"""
... the Justice Department is aggressively trying to identify the
sources for two explosive news stories: the existence of secret
Central Intelligence Agency prisons in eastern Europe, and the
National Security Agency's domestic surveillance programme...

"When you have more and more information being classified, and more
and more secrets being kept, the only way reporters can get
information is when internal whistleblowers provide it. And that
drives this administration crazy," says Lucy Dalglish, executive
director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

In the first four years of the administration, the volume of
classified documents barred from public distribution nearly doubled to
close to 16m annually. Over the same time, declassification of
documents has slowed to a trickle.
"""

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http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11700805/

White House steps up effort to halt flow of secrets
By Edward Alden in Washington
Financial Times
Updated: 9:12 p.m. ET March 6, 2006

The administration of President George W. Bush is mounting an
unprecedented effort to crack down on leaks of government secrets,
even as it is vastly expanding the range of information deemed too
sensitive to share with the public.

That twin effort has raised fears that the White House may succeed in
shutting off the flow of such information by threatening to jail those
who leak secrets and those who receive them.

The issue has come to a head in the government's efforts to prosecute
two pro-Israeli lobbyists for receiving classified information from a
Pentagon official. Larry Franklin, the official, was sentenced to 12
years in prison in January, and the lobbyists  Steven Rosen and Keith
Weissman of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee  are to go
on trial next month.

Many see the case, which relies on a novel interpretation of a
90-year-old espionage law, as a test of whether the administration can
exercise new powers to shut off leaks that have been severely
embarrassing to the White House. In particular, the Justice Department
is aggressively trying to identify the sources for two explosive news
stories: the existence of secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons
in eastern Europe, and the National Security Agency's domestic
surveillance programme.

The Washington Post reported at the weekend that dozens of officials
from both agencies had been questioned recently by the FBI in the leak
investigations.

"When you have more and more information being classified, and more
and more secrets being kept, the only way reporters can get
information is when internal whistleblowers provide it. And that
drives this administration crazy," says Lucy Dalglish, executive
director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Since the September 11 attacks, the administration has vastly expanded
the range of information deemed secret, ranging from the serious 
such as the NSA spying programme  to the seemingly trivial. It has
begun withholding, for instance, the names and telephone numbers of
many government officials, making it more difficult for reporters and
others to track down knowledgeable sources.

In the first four years of the administration, the volume of
classified documents barred from public distribution nearly doubled to
close to 16m annually. Over the same time, declassification of
documents has slowed to a trickle.

Porter Goss, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, warned in a
Senate hearing last month that leaks had caused "severe damage" to his
agency. "It is my aim and it is my hope that we will witness a grand
jury investigation, with reporters present, being asked to reveal who
is leaking this information," he said.

That threat is the main reason the prosecution of Mr Rosen and Mr
Weissman has caused such concern. The two are accused of discussing
with Mr Franklin a classified draft memorandum regarding US policy
towards Iran. In a court memorandum filed in support of the lobbyists,
a former Justice Department official, Viet Dinh  chief architect of
the Patriot Act  argued that the prosecution would have a chilling
effect on debate over national security issues.

"Until now, no administration has attempted to address what it may
perceive as annoying or premature 'leaks' by criminalising the receipt
and use of unsolicited oral information obtained as part of the
lobbying or reporting process," he wrote.

The government's effort, he said, would in effect "create some type of
official secrets act through the prosecution of a test case against
two individuals who were engaged in a practice that defines foreign
policy lobbying  the sharing of information  in which lobbyists and
members of the press engage every day."

The US has long resisted adopting a British-style Official Secrets
Act. But support for the idea is growing. In 2000, President Bill
Clinton vetoed legislation passed by the Republican Congress that
would have criminalised unauthorised leaks of classified information,
though even that bill would not have made the receipt of such
information a crime. The Republican chairmen of both the Senate and
House intelligence committees have said recently they might make
another effort to pass such legislation.

Critics say the obsession with leaks is absurd because top White House
officials have been at the forefront of leaking the most sensitive
classified information. For instance, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the
former chief of staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney who faces perjury
charges in the Valerie Plame case, has said in his defence that Mr
Cheney authorised him to discuss with some reporters the CIA's
classified 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's weapons
programmes in the run-up to the Iraq war. Newspaper stories based on
the false claims in the NIE that Iraq possessed chemical and
biological weapons, and was developing nuclear arms, helped build US
public support for invading Iraq.

In a television interview last month, Mr Cheney said he had the power
to declassify such information, citing an executive order signed by
the president. This is precisely why the system for classifying
secrets is open to abuse, according to Thomas Blanton, director of the
National Security Archive, which presses for declassification of
information. "The fact is that most of the leaks that take place are
coming from very high-ranking officials, up to and including the
president."

The crackdown on leaks, he said, was a result of White House anger
that mid-level officials were "in open revolt" against policies. "The
top officials can't tell the real secrets from the embarrassments, and
they are reacting to the embarrassments," he said. "It destroys the
credibility we need to maintain the real secrets."
Copyright The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved.
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