Terrorists rife in the State Dept.The FBI is on it:)
Matthew X
profrv at nex.net.au
Sat Aug 31 03:29:03 PDT 2002
Senators to give FBI records on contacts with media
By The Associated Press
08.30.02
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WASHINGTON Most members of a Senate committee investigating the Sept. 11
attacks have agreed to provide the FBI with details of their contacts with
reporters as part of an investigation into leaks of classified information.
Contacted yesterday by the Associated Press, the offices of 13 of the 17
Senate Intelligence Committee members said they were complying with the FBI
request. No office said it wasn't. In the other four offices, information
wasn't available because the senator was traveling.
The FBI is trying to determine who leaked details of conversations
intercepted by the National Security Agency that were discussed June 18 at
the House and Senate intelligence committees' closed-door inquiry.
Details of the Arabic intercepts on Sept. 10 the day before the September
2001 terror attacks were initially broadcast by CNN the day after the
closed hearing. The committees had requested the FBI investigation.
Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., the committee's chairman, has instructed his staff
to compile the material requested, his spokesman, Paul Anderson, said.
Anderson said Graham supported the FBI investigation because the leak of
classified information violated the law. The FBI also could examine whether
the leaks may have come from outside Congress, he said. An internal
investigation might not be able to do so.
Graham "has said that he has nothing to hide," Anderson said.
But Paul McMasters, First Amendment ombudsman for the Freedom Forum's First
Amendment Center, said the FBI investigation could go beyond the leaks and
uncover unrelated communications between lawmakers and journalists.
"That's where this problem comes in," he said.
Caesar Andrews, president of the Associated Press Managing Editors, said
the request for information about press contacts "creates a mood of fear
and dread among those people who should be helping to put the U.S. efforts
in context."
"I think it's more the climate that's created when there's a sense of
overly aggressive efforts to clamp down on information," said Andrews,
editor of Gannett News Service.
"Obviously it's an issue that ultimately has a chilling effect on the flow
of information from official sources to the public," said Douglas Clifton,
editor of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and chairman of the American
Society of Newspaper Editors' Freedom of Information Committee.
The FBI investigation comes as the Justice Department seeks to block public
disclosure by Congress of the results of its investigation of Zacarias
Moussaoui, the only person charged in the United States in connection with
the Sept. 11 attacks.
In court papers unsealed yesterday in Alexandria, Va., prosecutors said
they didn't object to plans by the House and Senate intelligence committees
to disclose what the government knows about the planning and execution of
the attacks or what was known about two of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers who
met with al-Qaida operatives in Malaysia in January 2000, shortly before
they came to the United States.
But the government said planned hearings next month into the FBI's
investigation of Moussaoui while he was in custody before the attacks could
jeopardize his trial, now set for January. Lawyers for the committees said
the hearings would not delve into Moussaoui's guilt or innocence.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema refused for the time being to interfere
with the hearings. But she asked prosecutors to propose new rules for
handling sensitive material from the Moussaoui case that might be made
public during congressional hearings.
In connection with the FBI's investigation of leaks, the Justice Department
sent a letter to the Senate counsel's office Aug. 7 requesting that members
of the Senate committee and their press staff submit telephone logs, memos,
visitor sign-in sheets and other material showing communications with the
news media between noon June 18 and 3:15 p.m. June 19, when CNN broadcast
details of the intercepts.
The letter also called for calendars, appointment books and e-mails for the
senators and their press staff during that period. No similar request was
made of House Intelligence Committee members.
Some lawmakers, including the panel's top Republican, Sen. Richard Shelby
of Alabama, have said the FBI investigation of the committees breached the
separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches
particularly while the committee was examining intelligence shortcomings at
the FBI and other agencies.
Sen. Richard Durbin, R-Ill., told the Chicago Sun-Times this week that in
requesting personal schedules, the FBI was "trying to put a damper on our
activities and I think they will be successful." He was unavailable for
comment yesterday.
Related
Is the press guilty of treason?
Ombudsman Many regard robust exercise of First Amendment rights by either
the press or the people as a dangerous problem in the fight against
terrorism. 08.08.02
Rumsfeld urges crackdown on leaks to press
Defense secretary writes memo a week after The New York Times reports on
classified document outlining aspects of 'concept' for U.S. war against
Iraq. 07.17.02
Reporter: State Department demanded source of classified leak
National Review's Joel Mowbray says officials detained him briefly, wanted
to know how he obtained secret papers on U.S. visa program in Saudi Arabia.
07.16.02
http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=16846
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