Leaks/Secrecy News - October 2007 to March 2008

Leaks/Secrecy News

October 2007 to March 2008

The CIA leak probe cost $2.58 million, the Government Accountability Office disclosed Monday, wrapping up an investigation that ensnared Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff for perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI. The office of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald spent the money over a 45-month span that saw the indictment, trial and conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. The investigation also touched on other officials in the State Department and the White House, including presidential political adviser Karl Rove, who leaked the CIA identity of Valerie Plame……(AP, 31 Mar 08)

Feds to Appeal Ruling in AIPAC Case

Yet another delay is expected in the trial of two former pro-Israel lobbyists accused of disclosing U.S. secrets after prosecutors told a judge Friday they plan to appeal a critical ruling on how classified information will be introduced at trial. The ruling issued this week by U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III is sealed, but a lawyer for one defendant portrayed prosecutors' decision to appeal as the latest in a series of setbacks to the government's case. Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, former lobbyists with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, were accused in 2005 of illegally disclosing sensitive national defense information. Their trial originally was set for 2006 but will now have to be rescheduled an eighth time _ the latest date had been set for next month……(AP, 21 Mar 08)

Discovery of discarded Canadian military blueprints under investigation

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day says he is waiting for details on how the blueprints for the Canadian Armed Forces new counter-terrorism building to be based in Trenton, Ont., ended up in a garbage can in downtown Ottawa………The trashed blueprints, stamped with Department of National Defence markings, show everything from the location of the security fence to the floor plan of the new home of the Canadian Joint Incident Response Unit at CFB Trenton…..(Canwest News Service, 20 Mar 08)

Elite military unit's blueprints for new HQ found in trash can

Plans showing the layout of a new building for a Canadian Forces counter-terrorism unit based in Trenton, Ont., have been found in a pile of garbage on Bank Street. The 26 blueprints, stamped with Department of National Defence markings, show everything from the location of the security fence to the floor plan of the new home of the Canadian Joint Incident Response Unit at CFB Trenton. The unit is the military's main responder to a terrorist attack using a weapon of mass destruction……(Ottawa Citizen, 20 Mar 08)

Whistleblowing Is Not Industrial Espionage: The Unjust Ironies of the Gerald Eastman Case

The case of a longtime Boeing quality assurance technician, Gerald Eastman, highlights this. Moreover, Boeing often hypocritically engages in the same kind of activity for which Eastman was busted and is now facing a jury trial over. However, Eastman sought to expose issues of the public interest and safety, whereas has Boeing repeatedly simply sought unfair and illegal advantages over its corporate rivals, which ultimately costs the taxpayer and the consumer. Eastman, after trying to raise concerns about the integrity of Boeing quality assurance system, first through his Boeing quality assurance managers, then through internal chains of command in the company, next through the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), finally decided he had no other choice. He decided to bring his concerns to the press. After a series of articles that did raise questions about Boeing's activities, including the possibility that Boeing had improperly used classified taxpayer-funded R&D in its commercial aircraft, Eastman was identified by Boeing's relentless and powerful security team after they received an anonymous tip about Eastman. Eastman was caught with thousands of Boeing documents with proprietary markings on them. Perhaps some of these were truly sensitive documents, however at many major companies, almost every document is marked proprietary whether it contains a trade secret (still a very poorly defined term) or not…..(POGO, 18 Mar 08)

Key New Witnesses Sign On For Defense in Aipac Case

The prosecution of two pro-Israel lobbyists charged with obtaining and distributing classified information is looking shakier after two former American ambassadors to Israel and two officials who once oversaw security classification policy for the federal government agreed to testify for the defense. A former executive editor of the New York Times, Max Frankel, and the State Department's top intelligence official from 2001 to 2003, Carl Ford Jr., are also among the expert witnesses identified on Friday in court filings by lawyers for the former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman. The two classification experts on the defense witness list, Steven Garfinkel and J. William Leonard, headed the federal government's Information Security Oversight Office from 1980 through last year……(New York Sun, 17 Mar 08)

Lessons in Jihad as secret terror manual translated by MI5 is made public by America

The amazing series of events that led to an Al Qaeda terrorist manual becoming freely available on the internet can be revealed today. Only last week a terror suspect was jailed in Britain for having a copy of it and told that its possession was a “serious criminal offence”. But the deadly document, described as a Declaration of Jihad, is a public record in the US – after being translated from Arabic and typed up for MI5, passed to the American authorities and then declassified by the Department of Justice. The manual includes advice on planning kidnappings, bombings, assassinations and torture…….(Daily Mail, 15 Mar 08)

Amazing MI5 security leak leaves us open to terror

DETAILED top-secret plans of MI5's fortress HQ have been sensationally handed to News of the World. The lost 66-page dossier of floor layouts—once used by trusted CONTRACTORS at the high-security Central London base—would be gold dust to terrorists. The plans were given to us by a worried member of the public, who got them from a friend who worked at the building and never handed them back. Our source said: "It's shocking that such high-level paperwork is out of MI5's control. These are many possibilities once a terrorist has detailed information like this." …..(News of the World, 16 Mar 08)

Wikileaks Publishes FBI VoIP Surveillance Docs

The folks on wikileaks have published a new interesting and shocking report: FBI Electronic Surveillance Needs for Carrier-Grade Voice over Packet (CGVoP) Service. The 88 paged document, which is part of the CALEA Implementation Plan was published in January 2003 and describes in detail all needs for surveillance of phone calls made via data services like the internet……(Slashdot, 15 Mar 08)

Media Shield Law Remains in Doubt

As federal judges order more reporters to disclose their confidential sources, news organizations are pinning their hopes on congressional passage of a media shield bill the Bush administration opposes as a threat to national security. The legislation being considered in the Senate offers only modest shelter for reporters wanting to protect the identity of confidential sources. In many cases, it would leave the fate of journalists _ and their sources _ to the discretion of judges who increasingly have been willing to jail or fine them…….(AP, 16 Mar 08)

FBI Asked to Probe E-Mail Controversy

…Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is basing its request on a White House document describing an effort to recover a week's worth of missing e-mail in 2003 from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. The missing e-mail was from a week around the time the Justice Department had begun a criminal investigation into whom in the Bush administration leaked Plame's CIA identity to reporters.

White House technicians eventually retrieved e-mail from the missing week, but it is unclear whether all the e-mail from Cheney's office that week has been found..….(AP, 12 Mar 08)

Who leaked the details of a CIA-Mossad plot against Iran?

…The New York Times reporter for national security and intelligence affairs. About three months ago, a federal grand jury issued a subpoena against him, ordering Risen to give evidence in court. A heavy blackout has been imposed on the affair, with the only hint being that it has to do with sensitive matters of "national security." But conversations with several sources who are familiar with the affair indicate that Risen has been asked to testify as part of an investigation aimed at revealing who leaked apparently confidential information about the planning of secret Central Intelligence Agency and Mossad missions concerning Iran's nuclear program….(Haaretz, 6 Mar 08)

Press Defends Illegal Leaking – Again

The US media seems to think that their job description includes deciding what information is and is not legal to leak and print- never mind that we elect Presidents, Senators and Representatives to do this, not members of the scribbling class. This arrogance and complete lack of care for their fellow Americans was famously demonstrated in the NSA and SWIFT banking exposes by the New York Times resident anti-Americans, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau…..(NewsBusters, 6 Mar 08)

Officials Lean Toward Keeping Next Iraq Assessment Secret

A new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq is scheduled to be completed this month, according to U.S. intelligence officials. But leaders of the intelligence community have not decided whether to make its key judgments public, a step that caused an uproar when key judgments in an NIE about Iran were released in November. ……(Washington Post, 7 Mar 08)

February 2008

Did Prosecutor Get All White House Mail?

…Even though White House computer technicians hunted high and low, an entire week's worth of e-mail from Cheney's office was missing. The week was Sept. 30, 2003, to Oct. 6, 2003, the opening days of the Justice Department's probe into whether anyone at the White House leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. That episode was part of the picture that unfolded Tuesday on Capitol Hill…..(AP, 27 Feb 08)

Mystery Deepens Over WMD Documents

How the classified military documents from Iraq, which named the coordinates of where the Army suspected weapons of mass destruction to be hidden, ended up in an Arabic translator's apartment on Hoyt Street in Brooklyn, is clear. Not likely to be known anytime soon is what, if anything, the army contractor did with the documents. The U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn, which is prosecuting the case, appears to have little direct evidence that Noureddine Malki passed information on to the insurgency, either during his time in Iraq in 2003 and 2004, or upon his return to America in 2005. But it has raised the possibility that he may have done so…Malki has pleaded guilty to charges of unauthorized possession of national defense information. He is likely to be sentenced this spring. Prosecutors are seeking a 10-year sentence…..(New York Sun, 7 Feb 08)

U.S. ARMY TRANSLATOR PLEADS GUILTY TO UNAUTHORIZED POSSESSION OF CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS CONCERNING IRAQI INSURGENCY

A U.S. Army contract translator pleaded guilty today in federal court in Brooklyn to illegally possessing national defense documents. The defendant, whose true name and identity remains unknown, was indicted on March 30, 2006, following an investigation by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (“JTTF”). Previously, in November 2005, the defendant was indicted for using a false identity to procure his United States citizenship and to gain access to classified military materials, and he pleaded guilty to those charges on Dec. 20, 2005…..(DOJ Press Release, 14 Feb 07)

Prosecutor Sought for White House Probe

…In a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said the White House also may have violated two federal record-keeping laws, including the Federal Records Act, which carries criminal sanctions for unlawful destruction…..(AP, 4 Feb 08)

Grand Jury Subpoenas Times Reporter Over Book Sources

A federal grand jury in Alexandria has issued a subpoena seeking information about the confidential sources of a newspaper journalist who wrote in a 2006 book about alleged CIA efforts to infiltrate Iran's nuclear program. The Jan. 24 subpoena ordered the reporter, James Risen of the New York Times, to appear before the grand jury next Thursday…..(Washington Post, 2 Feb 08)

Times Reporter Subpoenaed Over Source for Book

…The subpoena was delivered last week to the New York law firm that is representing the reporter, James Risen, and ordered him to appear before a grand jury in Alexandria, Va., on Feb. 7. Mr. Risen’s lawyer, David N. Kelley, who was the United States attorney in Manhattan early in the Bush administration, said in an interview that the subpoena sought the source of information for a specific chapter of the book “State of War.”…..(New York Times, 1 Feb 08)

January 2008

Intelligence leaks endanger lives, committee says

…The intelligence and security committee said that leaks to the press - such as those relating to an alleged plot to kidnap a British serviceman last year - were "very worrying' and they had "damaged' the capabilities of MI5 and MI6. In its annual report, the committee said the intelligence services should liaise with the media more effectively to prevent the publication of damaging stories……(Guardian, 29 Jan 08)

Syria charges ex-MP with national security offences

Syrian authorities charged former MP Riad Seif with a series of national security offences Tuesday, the 11th dissident to be charged over an opposition meeting last month, a human rights watchdog said. Seif, who was detained on Monday, was charged with "harming the image of the state", "stoking ethnic and sectarian division", "disseminating false information", and "belonging to a secret organization seeking to alter the social and economic base of the state,"….(AFP, 29 Jan 08)

Belgium’s Interim Government Reveals NATO Secret

…Belgium’s interim Minister of Defense, the Christian-Democrat Pieter De Crem, revealed a NATO top secret which his predecessor, an anti-American Socialist, had managed to keep: i.e. where the (American) nuclear weapons in Belgium are located. During a visit with journalists to the Belgian military base of Kleine Brogel, just south of the Dutch border, Mr. De Crem told Belgian radio that there is "nuclear capacity" at the base….(Brussels Journal, 24 Jan 08)

'Erased' personal data on agency tapes can be retrieved, company says

Personal and sensitive government data -- including employees' personal data -- on magnetic tapes that federal agencies erase and later sell can be retrieved using simple technology, according to an investigation conducted by a storage tape manufacturer……(Gov Exec, 23 Jan 08)

Judge: NYC Can't Use Secret Arguments

The city must disclose its arguments about why documents on police surveillance of protesters before the 2004 Republican National Convention should be kept confidential, a judge ruled Tuesday…"Permitting the submission of secret argument is antithetical to our adversary system of justice," Francis wrote, ruling that a revised statement by Cohen must be submitted publicly……(AP, 23 Jan 08)

White House Has No Comprehensive E-Mail Archive

…President Bush's White House early on scrapped a custom archiving system that the Clinton administration had adopted under a federal court order. From 2001 to 2003, the Bush White House also recorded over computer backup tapes that provided a last line of defense for preserving e-mails, even though a similar practice landed the Clinton administration in legal trouble…..(Washington Post, 22 Jan 08)

Prosecutors Start Probe of Spy Chief

Prosecutors launched an investigation into the head of the nation's spy agency Monday over allegations he intentionally leaked classified documents covering discussions he had with his North Korean counterpart to local media on the eve of the presidential election last month. The probe come as Kim Man-bok, director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), admitted responsibility for leaking excerpts of his talk with Kim Yang-gon, one of key aides of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, during a secret trip to Pyongyang on Dec. 18……(Korea Times, 21 Jan 08)

White House Missing CIA, Iraq E-Mails

Apparent gaps in White House e-mail archives coincide with dates in late 2003 and early 2004 when the administration was struggling to deal with the CIA leak investigation and the possibility of a congressional probe into Iraq intelligence failures. The gaps _ 473 days over a period of 20 months _ are cited in a chart prepared by White House computer technicians and shared in September with the House Reform and Government Oversight Committee, which has been looking into reports of missing e-mail……(AP, 19 Jan 08)

Foreign Office accused of hounding informant

The Foreign Office was accused of hounding a whistleblower yesterday after a civil servant was cleared of leaking confidential documents relating to the government's policy on radical Islam, including its knowledge of the US policy of "extraordinary rendition" of terrorist suspects.

Derek Pasquill was facing six counts of breaching the Officials Secrets Act for allegedly passing on information about rendition and the government's contacts with extremist Muslim groups to the Observer newspaper and the New Statesman magazine….(Financial Times, 10 Jan 08)

Whistle-blower cleared over Islamist leaks

…The case against Derek Pasquill collapsed at the Old Bailey after the disclosure that senior figures in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office thought that the leaks may have been in the public interest. Lawyers for the Crown told the court that in the light of those disclosures the prosecution could not continue. Mr Pasquill, 49, a civil servant at the FCO, said his acquittal meant that his decision to leak the documents to a journalist had been the right thing to do…..(Times Online, 10 Jan 08)

Civil servant who leaked rendition secrets goes free

…The case against Derek Pasquill, who faced jail for passing secret papers to journalists, collapsed as it was becoming increasingly clear that it could have caused the government severe political embarrassment. The leaked documents related to the US practice of secretly transporting terror suspects to places where they risked being tortured, and UK government policy towards Muslim groups. Pasquill, 48, an official in the FCO's Engaging with the Islamic World Group, was arrested two years ago, but only charged last September with leaks to the Observer and New Statesman magazine.....(Guardian, 10 Jan 08)

Panel Urges More Openness, Less Secrecy

The government is lagging far behind in declassifying its secrets and the problem is getting worse as agencies create billions more electronic records containing classified information. In a report released Wednesday, a joint presidential-congressional advisory group urged greater openness, a sore subject for a White House roundly criticized for secrecy……(AP, 9 Jan 08)

Pasquill Official Secrets case dismissed

The case against a Foreign Office civil servant accused of leaking documents to the New Statesman and the Observer about government policy on rendition and on radical Islam has been dropped. Derek Pasquill, 48, had faced six charges under the Official Secrets Act over allegations he had passed documents about government contacts with some extremist Islamic groups. His actions had also enabled exposure of British acquiescence in the secret and illegal "rendition" by the US of terrorist suspects in a New Statesman exclusive by political editor Martin Bright Rendition – the cover-up….(New Statesman, 9 Jan 08)

December 2007

CIA Seeks Investigation Of Ex-Officer's Claims

…In interviews last week with The Washington Post and other news organizations, former CIA officer John Kiriakou discussed details of the capture of Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein alleging that he resisted cooperating with interrogators until he was subjected to waterboarding, which makes a captive believe he is being drowned…..(Washington Post, 21 Dec 07)

Japan finds leaks in military security

…Sumitaka Matsuuchi, a lieutenant commander in the Maritime Self-Defense Force, was apprehended last week for allegedly violating the Secrets Protection Law, which is based on the Japan-U.S. Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement signed in 1954. He has reportedly admitted to leaking confidential information, including secret data on the U.S. Aegis missile defense system. The Aegis system aboard military ships is the core defense against ballistic missile attacks. Japan operates five Aegis-equipped ships, while the U.S. Navy dispatched five similar ships around Japan following the North Korean missile tests last year. According to police reports the Chinese woman, who is the wife of a Japanese second-class petty naval officer, was investigated in January this year on suspicion of violating the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law....(UPI, 17 Dec 07)

Source says Iraq IG searched e-mails to find press leaks

Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen and his aides reviewed employee e-mails in May to see if someone in the office was leaking damaging information to the media….(Congress Daily, 14 Dec 07)

Japanese navy officer arrested for leaking secret data: police

Japanese police said Thursday they had arrested a senior navy officer over a leak of secret data on the high-tech Aegis combat system, seen as a top line of defense against a possible attack by North Korea. The government called for increased efforts to protect sensitive data after the arrest of the 34-year-old lieutenant commander in Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force……(AFP, 13 Dec 07)

Libby Decides To Drop Appeal

…The statement also touched on the legal Catch-22 that Libby has found himself in: President Bush commuted Libby's 30-month prison sentence this summer but left in place his conviction in the CIA leak case. That means that even if Libby were to have won his appeal, he might still face a new trial that could result in prison time…..(Washington Post, 11 Dec 07)

Libby Dropping Appeal In CIA Leak Case

…Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was convicted of perjury and obstruction for lying about his conversations with reporters about outed CIA operative Valerie Plame. "We remain firmly convinced of Mr. Libby's innocence," attorney Theodore Wells said. "However, the realities were, that after five years of government service by Mr. Libby and several years of defending against this case, the burden on Mr. Libby and his young family of continuing to pursue his complete vindication are too great to ask them to bear."….(AP, 10 Dec 07)

Hearing on former spy's bail plea deferred

A city court Monday adjourned till Jan 4 the hearing on the anticipatory bail plea of former Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) officer Major General (retd) V.K. Singh, who is facing the charge of leaking official secrets in a book published this year…..(IANS, 10 Dec 07)

French search journalist’s home over Qaeda article

…The investigation relates to an article published in Le Monde in April entitled Sept 11, 2001 – The French knew a lot about it, in which Dasquie cited reports by the DGSE foreign intelligence service dating back to 2000 and 2001. Dasquie, an independent journalist, is accused of possessing classified defense documents and divulging classified files and information…..(Gulf-Times, 10 Dec 07)

French police raid journalist's home over article

French authorities have raided the home of a journalist and placed him under official investigation for publishing a document on al-Qaeda that was classified a defense secret… The investigation relates to an article published in Le Monde in April entitled "Sept. 11, 2001 - The French knew a lot about it", in which Dasquie cited reports by the DGSE foreign intelligence service dating back to 2000 and 2001…..(Alarabiya, 7 Dec 07)

AIPAC judge sets April 29 date

An April 29 trial date was set in the classified information case against two former AIPAC staffers… Ellis' office confirmed the date, at least the fifth such date since Steve Rosen, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's foreign policy chief, and Keith Weissman, its Iran analyst, were indicted in August 2005….(JTA, 6 Dec 07)

Now Online, a Guide to Detainee Treatment

As the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments this week on the rights of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the public is getting another peek at how detainees have been treated there. A leaked copy of a March 2004 manual of Gitmo's "Standard Operating Procedures" for Camp Delta was published yesterday by the Web site Wikileaks.org…..(Washington Post, 4 Dec 07)

Secrets Case Eyes Jurors' Religion

…At a hearing last month, Judge Thomas Ellis III asked lawyers for the defense and the prosecution to submit legal briefs on whether it would be proper for either side to remove jurors with "obvious" Jewish or Arab names. "In other words, can the government strike someone just because his name ends in stein, or whatever, or can the defense strike somebody because his name is Mohammed?" Judge Ellis asked…The defendants, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, are former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The pair, who have pleaded not guilty, are charged with relaying classified information to journalists and foreign diplomats, including Israeli officials…..(New York Sun, 4 Dec 07)

Secrecy Cited on Abramoff Records

Secret Service concerns about the release of documents related to White House visits by now-imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff prevent their production in a civil lawsuit, the Justice Department argues in a new court filing.

The Bush administration agreed last year to produce all responsive records about the visits "without redactions or claims of exemption," according to a court order…..(AP, 2 Dec 07)

November 2007

Former Aide Blames Bush for Leak Deceit

…In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were "not involved" in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame. "There was one problem. It was not true," McClellan writes….(AP, 21 Nov 07)

Guantanamo operating manual posted on Internet

The U.S. military's operating manual for the Guantanamo prison camp has been posted on the Internet, providing a glimpse of the broad rules and tiniest minutia for detaining suspected terrorists. The 238-page manual, "Standard Operating Procedures for Camp Delta," is dated March 27, 2003…..(Reuters, 14 Nov 07)

US: Leaked Gitmo Manual Out of Date

An operations manual for the U.S. prison at Guantanamo that was mysteriously posted on the Internet is out of date but still should not have been released to the public…..(AP, 14 Nov 07)

Armitage Says He Was Foolish in CIA Leak

…At least three one-time administration officials in addition to Armitage discussed Plame's CIA status with reporters. They are former White House political adviser Karl Rove, Vice President Dick Cheney's ex-chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and former presidential press secretary Ari Fleischer. Armitage and Rove were the sources for a 2003 newspaper column by commentator Robert Novak that disclosed Plame's CIA employment……(AP, 11 Nov 07)

A Story of Surveillance

…He said the NSA built a special room to receive data streamed through an AT&T Internet room containing "peering links," or major connections to other telecom providers. The largest of the links delivered 2.5 gigabits of data -- the equivalent of one-quarter of the Encyclopedia Britannica's text -- per second, said Klein, whose documents and eyewitness account form the basis of one of the first lawsuits filed against the telecom giants after the government's warrantless-surveillance program was reported in the New York Times in December 2005…..(Washington Post, 7 Nov 07)

Data and Intelligence

Government Computer News has a couple of telling stories going. Both involve government collaboration with private vendors to develop new ways of using personal information and intelligence…..(Washington Post Blog, 7 Nov 07)

Ex-Worker at AT&T Fights Immunity Bill

When Mark Klein, then an AT&T technician in San Francisco, stumbled on a secret room apparently reserved for the National Security Agency inside an AT&T switching center, he hardly expected to be caught up in a national debate over the proper balance between American civil liberties and national security…..(New York Times, 7 Nov 07)

AIPAC trial judge lets defense subpoena Rice and Hadley

…Rosen and Weissman had asked to subpoena the officials, with whom they held meetings, saying, "The testimony of these persons will negate the government's contention that the information defendants obtained and disclosed was NDI [National Defense Information] by showing that this information was neither closely held by the U.S. government, nor were the disclosures of this information damaging to the U.S."…..(Haaretz, 5 Nov 07)

Defense May Seek U.S. Testimony in Secrets Case

…The judge, T. S. Ellis III of Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va., agreed with defense lawyers that Ms. Rice, Mr. Hadley and several other government officials could be subpoenaed because they might help the defendants demonstrate that they were engaged in traditional “back channel” lobbying — not in espionage — in their contacts with the government over Middle East policy…The defendants, Stephen J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, former lobbyists for the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC…..(New York Times, 3 Nov 07)

Rice, Others Told to Testify in AIPAC Case

…The opinion by U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III in Alexandria directed that subpoenas be issued to officials who include Rice, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, former high-level Department of Defense officials Paul D. Wolfowitz and Douglas J. Feith, and Richard L. Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state. Their testimony has been sought by attorneys for Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, who are accused of conspiring to obtain classified information and pass it to members of the media and the Israeli government……(Washington Post, 3 Nov 07)

October 2007

Spies Do a Huge Volume of Work in Invisible Ink

…The National Security Archive at George Washington University, a prolific requester of declassified documents, has sometimes managed to obtain a complete page by requesting it from two agencies. The first redactor decides the top half of the page is too dangerous for release; the second redactor decides to delete the bottom half….(New York Times, 28 Oct 07)

CIA censors hide much in Valerie Plame's book

……Around 15% of the book's text has been redacted, blacked-out sections which the publisher, Simon and Schuster, has left intact to make a point."….(National Post, 25 Oct 07)

Former Spy's Memoir Contains a Paradox

…….Instead, she paints herself as a naïve, whining victim of circumstance married to an angry, obstreperous egotist who volunteered to involve himself in a vicious battle between the White House and the CIA over how President Bush came to make untrue statements in a State of the Union speech……(New York Sun, 25 Oct 07)

Valerie Plame Wilson: No Ordinary Spy

In Her First Interview, Former CIA Officer Speaks To Katie Couric…….(CBS 60 Minutes, 21 Oct 07)

Her Identity Revealed, Her Story Expurgated

…….Once that career was destroyed, she wrote this account of her experiences as a means of both supporting herself and settling scores. She was contractually obligated to submit a draft of the book to the Central Intelligence Agency’s Publications Review Board. That draft came back heavily expurgated. She was then expected to rewrite her book so that it made sense despite many deletions. But Ms. Wilson and her publisher, Simon & Schuster, contend that much of the censored information is in the public domain — and that the suppression of information is itself part of Ms. Wilson’s story. So “Fair Game” has been published with the censor’s marks visible as blacked-out words, lines, paragraphs or pages. . ……(New York Times, 22 Oct 07)

Ex-CIA spy's account unveiled

Senate Republicans "obscenely twisted" facts and testimony from other CIA officers to falsely accuse Valerie Plame Wilson of sending her husband on a fact-finding trip to Africa that produced strong criticism of the Bush administration's basis for attacking Iraq, Plame Wilson told USA TODAY…..(USA Today, 22 Oct 07)

In Memoir, Ex-Spy Tells Her Side of CIA Leak Case

In a new memoir, former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson recounts her shock as she watched then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, appearing before the United Nations on the eve of war, deliver what she knew to be a flawed portrait of the intelligence on Iraq. "It was a powerful presentation," she wrote, "but I knew key parts of it were wrong." …(Washington Post, 20 Oct 07)

Psst ... Keep This to Yourself

The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 on the United States have raised concerns about the security implications of federally funded research. That has led several agencies to categorize some of the research as "sensitive but unclassified" (SBU). Many academics have protested the trend, which puts scientists in the uncomfortable position of not being able to publish their findings or involve foreign nationals in the project. Today, in an apparent concession to the government, a National Research Council (NRC) panel issued a report acknowledging that the SBU designation may indeed be appropriate for some rare projects. But the panel has urged the government to use this classification sparingly and to spell out the criteria for its use….(Science Now, 18 Oct 07)

A Citizen First, A Journalist Second

………One sector has, however, behaved miserably: the American media. They have disclosed, published, and broadcast to the world national security secrets from NSA surveillance programs to Treasury Department funds-tracking programs and they have outed allies who helped us hold high-value terrorist detainees such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed……..(National Review/CBS News, 18 Oct 07)

Plame Wilson: President Didn't Keep Word

Valerie Plame Wilson chides President Bush for not firing anyone for the leaking of her covert CIA identity, which caused a national scandal and an investigation resulting in a perjury and obstruction of justice conviction against Vice President Richard Cheney's chief of staff. She also tells Katie Couric that she has learned of the damage that the leaking of her identity caused agents of the clandestine service and it is serious.……(CBS 60 Minutes, 18 Oct 07)