HavenWorks.com/secrets/archive/2007

A-Z

!Search

News by Date

NewsStand

_Global_

_US_

A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z

- Secrets Archive
Secret News, 2007 Secret News History Archives

Use "Ctrl F" [control F] to FIND what you're looking for.
"Right Click" - "Open in New Window." to avoid reloading this page.
2007 Secret News History Archives


	ARCHIVES NEWS Secret News History Archives Secrets Archives 2006 Secret Archives 2005 Secret Archives 2004 Secret Archives 2003 Secret Archives 2002 Secret Archives 2001 Secret Archives

2007 Secrets Archive:

20071226

Secret - Torture - Terrorism - Government - Detainee - Intelligence - Law - Virginia - Christmas - "Senate meets briefly to block Bush." ... "The House was quiet as a mouse the day after Christmas. But across the Capitol, the [Democratic controlled] Senate was operating in an unusually efficient manner in its ongoing power struggle with [Republican] President Bush." ... "A nine-second session gaveled in and out by [Virginia Democratic Senator] Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va.[Democratic-Virginia], prevented Bush from appointing as an assistant attorney general a nominee roundly rejected by majority Democrats. Without the pro forma session, the Senate would be technically adjourned, allowing the president to install officials without Senate confirmation." ... "Democrats wanted to block one such recess appointment in particular: Steven Bradbury, acting chief of the Justice Department's Office of Legislative Counsel. Bush nominated Bradbury for the job and asked the Senate to remove the "acting" in his title." ... "Democrats would have none of it, complaining Bradbury had signed two secret memos in 2005 saying it was OK for the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] to use harsh interrogation techniques — some call it torture — on terrorism detainees." -By Laurie Kellman -AP via -Yahoo

20071224

Secret - Dick Cheney - David Addington - Government - Archives - Law - Politics - "Challenging Cheney: A National Archives official reveals what the veep wanted to keep classified--and how he tried to challenge the rules." ... "J. William Leonard learned the hard way the perils of questioning [Republican] Vice President Dick Cheney. The veteran National Archives official challenged claims by the Office of Vice President (OVP) to be exempt from federal rules governing classified information. His efforts touched off a firestorm—and a counter-strike by Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington, who tried to wipe out Leonard's job." ... "Now, Leonard is quitting as director of the Archives' Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO)—the unit that monitors the handling of government secrets. He tells NEWSWEEK that his fight with Cheney's office was a "contributing" factor in his decision to retire after 34 years of government service." ... "Leonard-described by National Archivist Allen Weinstein as "the gold standard of information specialists in the federal government"-spoke to NEWSWEEK's Michael Isikoff." ... "[Newsweek:] So how did matters escalate?" ... "[J William Leonard:] The challenge arose last year when the Chicago Tribune was looking at [ISOO's annual report] and saw the asterisk [reporting that it contained no information from OVP] and decided to follow up. And that's when the spokesperson from the OVP made public this idea that because they have both legislative and executive functions, that requirement doesn't apply to them.…They were saying the basic rules didn't apply to them. I thought that was a rather remarkable position. So I wrote my letter to the Attorney General [asking for a ruling that Cheney's office had to comply.] Then it was shortly after that there were [email] recommendations [from OVP to a National Security Council task force] to change the executive order that would effectively abolish [my] office." ... "[Newsweek:] Who wrote the emails?" ... "[J William Leonard:] It was David Addington." (1, 2, 3) -By Michael Isikoff -Newsweek

20071220

Secret - Intelligence - War - Criminal - Videotapes - Censorship - Politics - Military - Terrorism - Texas - "Subpoena of CIA officials threatened: Justice Dept. [department] action in tape destruction probe angers House panel chairman, who expects testimony from two top intelligence agency officials." ... "The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, chafing at the Justice Department's handling of a probe into missing CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] interrogation tapes, threatened Wednesday to subpoena two top CIA officials to jump-start the panel's own investigation." ... "The department, which is conducting a criminal inquiry with the CIA inspector general into revelations that a CIA official destroyed videotapes of two terrorism suspects being interrogated in 2005, asked the panel last week to defer its inquiry." ... "Committee Chairman [Texas Democratic Representative] Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) has called a hearing for Jan. 16. He said he expected testimony from both acting CIA general counsel John Rizzo and Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., the former head of the agency's operations branch, who authorized destroying the tapes." -By Richard B. Schmitt -LAtimes

20071219

Secret - Alberto R Gonzales - David S Addington - Dick Cheney - Harriet E Miers - Torture - War - Crimes - Tapes - Censorship - Law - Politics - Military - Government - Intelligence - Terrorism - History - US - Iraq - "Bush Lawyers Discussed Fate of C.I.A.Tapes." ... "At least four top [Republican President Bush] White House lawyers took part in discussions with the Central Intelligence Agency between 2003 and 2005 about whether to destroy videotapes showing the secret interrogations of two operatives from Al Qaeda, according to current and former administration and intelligence officials." ... "The accounts indicate that the involvement of White House officials in the discussions before the destruction of the tapes in November 2005 was more extensive than [Republican President] Bush administration officials have acknowledged." ... "Those who took part, the officials said, included Alberto R. Gonzales, who served as White House counsel until early 2005; David S. Addington, who was the counsel to [Republican] Vice President Dick Cheney and is now his chief of staff; John B. Bellinger III, who until January 2005 was the senior lawyer at the National Security Council; and Harriet E. Miers, who succeeded Mr. Gonzales as White House counsel." ... "It was previously reported that some administration officials had advised against destroying the tapes, but the emerging picture of White House involvement is more complex. In interviews, several administration and intelligence officials provided conflicting accounts as to whether anyone at the White House expressed support for the idea that the tapes should be destroyed." ... "One former senior intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said there had been “vigorous sentiment” among some top White House officials to destroy the tapes. The former official did not specify which White House officials took this position, but he said that some believed in 2005 that any disclosure of the tapes could have been particularly damaging after revelations a year earlier of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq." ... "The current and former officials also provided new details about the role played in November 2005 by Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the chief of the agency’s clandestine branch, who ultimately ordered the destruction of the tapes." ... "The officials said that before he issued a secret cable directing that the tapes be destroyed, Mr. Rodriguez received legal guidance from two C.I.A. [Central Intelligence Agency] lawyers, Steven Hermes and Robert Eatinger. The officials said that those lawyers gave written guidance to Mr. Rodriguez that he had the authority to destroy the tapes and that the destruction would violate no laws." ... "Current and former officials said the two lawyers informed the C.I.A.’s top lawyer, John A. Rizzo, about the legal advice they had provided." (1, 2) -By Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane with contributions by David Johnston -NYTimes

20071218

Mitt Romney - Religion - Secret - 2008 Election - "Ex-Mormon Cartoonist Says Romney Not Telling Truth." ... "As an ex-Mormon, Arizona Republic editorial cartoonist Steve Benson has strong opinions about current Mormon Mitt Romney [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate]. He said the Republican candidate's recent speech on religion should not be trusted by media people and other Americans." ... "In his talk, Romney said "I believe in my Mormon faith" while also noting that the church's "teachings" would not influence his decisions if elected president." ... ""Yeah, right," responded Benson, adding that "Romney also believes in misrepresenting what his Mormon Church actually espouses."" ... "Benson is the grandson of former Mormon leader Ezra Taft Benson." ... "He told E&P that, in his view, a Mormon believer is required by church doctrine (as dictated by the church's "living prophet") to "obey God's commands" over anything else. He said "Romney, like all 'temple Mormons,' made his secret vows using Masonic-derived handshakes, passwords, and symbolic death oaths that he promised in the temple never to reveal to the outside world" -- and that Romney also secretly vowed to devote his "time, talents" and more "to the building of the Mormon religion on earth."" ... ""When Mitt says he belongs to a church that doesn't tell him what to do, that's false; it's a 24/7, do-what-you're-told-to-do church," asserted Benson, who won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1993." -By Dave Astor -EditorAndPublisher.com

20071217

Secret- Jack Abramoff - Dick Cheney - Government - Religion - Politics - "Judge: White House visitor logs are public documents." ... "The [Republican President Bush] White House must release its visitor logs and cannot hide behind a shield of privilege, a federal judge ruled Monday. The Bush administration has resisted public disclosure while it fights a lawsuit over alleged political influence by conservative Christian leaders." ... "The White House claimed exclusive control of the documents, subject to the complete discretion of the president over their release." ... "Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a self-described government watchdog group, sought the visit records of prominent conservatives James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women of America and seven others including the late televangelist Jerry Falwell." ... "Separate legal action by CREW and other groups, including Judicial Watch and the Washington Post, sought White House visitor logs that listed lobbyist Jack Abramoff. He pleaded guilty last year to public corruption charges." ... "Another federal judge in Washington ordered the release of Secret Service logs of visitors to [Republican] Vice President Dick Cheney's office. Cheney claimed those logs were subject to executive privilege. That ruling is being appealed." -By Bill Mears -CNN
Chris Dodd - Secret - Telecom - Industry - Government - Spying - Politics - Net - E-Mails - Data - Iowa - Connecticut - 2008 Election - "Dodd out of Iowa for Senate filibuster." ... "With just weeks until the pivotal Iowa caucuses, [2008 Election] presidential candidate and Democratic [Connecticut Senator] Sen. Chris Dodd has abandoned the Hawkeye State to lead a filibuster against a controversial measure that would give special legal protections to the telecom industry." ... "The Connecticut Democrat has criticized the proposed renewal of government spying powers, insisting it gives too much power to secret agencies and lets large telecommunications firms off the hook for handing over reams of private data on American phone calls and e-mails." ... "Under the measure being considered this week, telecom firms would be given legal immunity from invasion of privacy lawsuits that result from the release of this information to government officials." -By Lisa Desjardins and Rebecca Sinderbrand -CNN

20071216

Secret - Surveillance - Terrorism - Crime - Telecommunications - Companies - Government - Legislation - Politics - Intelligence - Drug - Consumer - Wireless - Technology - United States - Global - Space - Colorado - New Jersey - "Wider Spying Fuels Aid Plan for Telecom Industry." ... "For months, the [Republican President] Bush administration has waged a high-profile campaign, including personal lobbying by President Bush and closed-door briefings by top officials, to persuade Congress to pass legislation protecting companies from lawsuits for aiding the National Security Agency’s warrantless eavesdropping program." ... "But the battle is really about something much bigger. At stake is the federal government’s extensive but uneasy partnership with industry to conduct a wide range of secret surveillance operations in fighting terrorism and crime." ... "The N.S.A.’s reliance on telecommunications companies is broader and deeper than ever before, according to government and industry officials, yet that alliance is strained by legal worries and the fear of public exposure." ... "To detect narcotics trafficking, for example, the government has been collecting the phone records of thousands of Americans and others inside the United States who call people in Latin America, according to several government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the program remains classified. But in 2004, one major phone carrier balked at turning over its customers’ records. Worried about possible privacy violations or public relations problems, company executives declined to help the operation, which has not been previously disclosed." ... "In a separate N.S.A. [National Security Agency] project, executives at a Denver [Colorado] phone carrier, Qwest, refused in early 2001 to give the agency access to their most localized communications switches, which primarily carry domestic calls, according to people aware of the request, which has not been previously reported. They say the arrangement could have permitted neighborhood-by-neighborhood surveillance of phone traffic without a court order, which alarmed them." ... "The federal government’s reliance on private industry has been driven by changes in technology. Two decades ago, telephone calls and other communications traveled mostly through the air, relayed along microwave towers or bounced off satellites. The N.S.A. could vacuum up phone, fax and data traffic merely by erecting its own satellite dishes. But the fiber optics revolution has sent more and more international communications by land and undersea cable, forcing the agency to seek company cooperation to get access." ... "[An ATT engineer is claiming in a lawsuit that as early as February 2001,] “What he saw,” said Bruce Afran, a New Jersey lawyer representing the plaintiffs along with Carl Mayer, “was decisive evidence that within two weeks of taking office, the [Republican] Bush administration was planning a comprehensive effort of spying on Americans’ phone usage.”" (1, 2) -By Eric Lichtblau, James Risen, and Scott Shane -NYTimes

20071209

Secret - Rudy Giuliani - Drug - Government - Politics - Qatar - Hong Kong - North Korea - Crime - Global - US - 2008 Election - "Giuliani Won't Release Client Names." ... "For the past year, though, Giuliani has declined to identify his clients on the grounds that they entered into confidentially agreements with his firm." ... "Giuliani formed the consulting firm in early 2002, offering "management consulting service to governments and business" and over the next five years it earned more than $100 million. That income, along with a robust speaking schedule, helped transform the moderately well-off public servant into a globe-trotting consultant whose net worth is estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars." ... "Giuliani Partners has represented a pharmaceutical company mired in a lengthy investigation; a confessed drug smuggler who hired Giuliani to ensure his security company could do business with the federal government; and the horse racing industry, which was eager to recover public confidence after a betting scandal." ... "But many of the firm's clients have never been listed on its web site or identified publicly by associates, and two of the most controversial arrangements among them only surfaced in recent weeks. One involved a 2005 agreement to provide security advice to the government of Qatar. The second stemmed from a deal to assist a partnership proposing a Southeast Asian gambling venture. Among the partners were relatives of a Hong Kong billionaire who has ties to the regime of North Korea's Kim Jong Il and has been linked to international organized crime, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune." -By Matthew Mosk -WashingtonPost

20071206

Secret - Porter J Goss - Michael V Hayden - Military - Government - Terrorism - Intelligence - Videotapes - Censorship - Officers - Safety - Prisoner - Torture - War Crimes - Law - Politics - "C.I.A. Destroyed Tapes of Interrogations." ... "The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about the C.I.A’s [Central Intelligence Agency] secret detention program, according to current and former government officials." ... "The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terror suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques. They were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that tapes documenting controversial interrogation methods could expose agency officials to greater risk of legal jeopardy, several officials said." ... "The C.I.A. said today that the decision to destroy the tapes had been made “within the C.I.A. itself,” and they were destroyed to protect the safety of undercover officers and because they no longer had intelligence value. The agency was headed at the time by Porter J. Goss. Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Goss declined this afternoon to comment on the destruction of the tapes." ... "The existence and subsequent destruction of the tapes are likely to reignite the debate over the use of severe interrogation techniques on terror suspects, and their destruction raises questions about whether C.I.A. officials withheld information about aspects of the program from the courts and from the Sept. 11 commission appointed by [Republican] President Bush and Congress. It was not clear who within the C.I.A. authorized the destruction of the tapes, but current and former government officials said it had been approved at the highest levels of the agency." ... "General [CIA Director, General Michael V Hayden] Hayden said in a statement that leaders of Congressional oversight committees were fully briefed on the matter, but some Congressional officials said notification to Congress had not been adequate." (1, 2) -By Mark Mazzetti with contributions by Eric Lichtblau and Scott Shane -NYTimes

20071204

US - Iran - Nuclear - Military - Intelligence - Politics - Secret - History - "U.S. Finds Iran Halted Its Nuclear Arms Effort in 2003." ... "A new assessment by American intelligence agencies released Monday concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting a judgment two years ago that Tehran [Iran's capital] was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb." ... "The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to reshape the final year of the [Republican President] Bush administration, which has made halting Iran’s nuclear program a cornerstone of its foreign policy." ... "The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran is likely to keep its options open with respect to building a weapon, but that intelligence agencies “do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.”" ... "Iran is continuing to produce enriched uranium, a program that the Tehran government has said is intended for civilian purposes. The new estimate says that the enrichment program could still provide Iran with enough raw material to produce a nuclear weapon sometime by the middle of next decade, a timetable essentially unchanged from previous estimates." ... "But the new report essentially disavows a judgment that the intelligence agencies issued in 2005, which concluded that Iran had an active secret arms program intended to transform the raw material into a nuclear weapon. The new estimate declares instead with “high confidence” that the military-run program was shut in 2003, and it concludes with “moderate confidence” that the program remains frozen. The report judges that the halt was imposed by Iran “primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure.”" (1, 2) -By Mark Mazzetti -NYTimes

20071202

Secret - Larry Craig - Gay - Idaho - Colorado - Minnesota - Airport - Police - Law - 2008 Election - Money - "More gay men describe sexual encounters with U.S. Sen. Craig: Allegations made since news of the Minneapolis case broke lend weight to rumors about [Idaho Republican Senator Larry] Craig." ... "David Phillips. Mike Jones. Greg Ruth. Tom Russell." ... "Four gay men, willing to put their names in print and whose allegations can't be disproved, have come forward since news of U.S. Sen. Larry Craig's guilty plea. They say they had sex with Craig or that he made a sexual advance or that he paid them unusual attention." ... "They are telling their stories now because they are offended by Craig's denials, including his famous statement, "I am not gay, I never have been gay." Those words, spoken on live national TV on Aug. 28, are now memorialized on a just-released-for-Christmas Talking Senator Larry Craig Action Figure." ... "A fifth gay man, who is from Boise [Idaho's capital] but who declined to be named for fear of retaliation, offered a recent and telling account: He was in a men's restroom at [Colorado's] Denver International Airport in September 2006 when the man in the next stall moved his hand slowly, palm up, under the divider. Alarmed, the man said he waited outside the restroom and then identified the man in the adjoining stall as Craig, whom he had met in Idaho." ... "Craig, 62, says he was a victim of "profiling" when he was arrested June 11 at [Minnesota's] Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for soliciting sex from an undercover police officer in an adjoining stall in a men's restroom. Craig pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in August. He is appealing his conviction, financed by his 2008 re-election fund." ... "Craig has said he hoped to keep his guilty plea secret." -By Dan Popkey -IdahoStatesman.com

20071201

Secret - Rudy Giuliani - Cops - Car - Family - Travel - Gas - Account - New York - Pennsylvania - Christmas - 2008 Election - "City taxpayers picked up tab for Judith Giuliani's visit to kin in Pennsylvania." ... "In the fall of 2001, [New York City, New York] city cops chauffeured [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Rudy Giuliani's then-mistress, Judith Nathan, to her parents' Pennsylvania home 130 miles away on the taxpayers' dime." ... "Records show that city cops refueled at an ExxonMobil station down the road from Nathan's childhood home in Hazleton on Oct. 20, 2001, while Giuliani stayed behind in New York attending 9/11 funerals." ... "A similar receipt pops up at a different Hazleton gas station two months later, when Nathan apparently went home for a pre-Christmas visit with her parents." ... "The records show that - in addition to using [New York] City Hall funds to take Giuliani and Nathan to 11 secret trysts in the Hamptons, as has been previously reported - taxpayers were paying to ferry Nathan on long-distance trips without Giuliani, now a Republican contender for President." ... "The expenses were all paid with a City Hall American Express card funded with money from mayoral office units that had nothing to do with travel or security." -By Michael Saul and David Saltonstall -NYDailyNews.com

20071130

Secret - Rudy Giuliani - Accounting - History - New York - Police - 2008 Election - "Rudy Giuliani campaign team backtracks on tryst talk." ... "The uproar grew Thursday over expenses for [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Rudy Giuliani's protection during his trysts with Judith Nathan as his campaign's initial defense - that its accounting methods were the same as previous mayors' - unraveled." ... "Joe Lhota, a deputy mayor in Giuliani's City Hall, told the Daily News Wednesday night that the administration's practice of allocating security expenses to small city offices that had nothing to do with mayoral protection has "gone on for years" and "predates Giuliani."" ... "When told budget officials from the administrations of Ed Koch and David Dinkins said they did no such thing, Lhota caved Thursday, "I'm going to reverse myself on that. I'm just going to talk about the Giuliani era," Lhota said. "I should only talk about what I know about."" ... "The embarrassing backtrack comes as Giuliani rushed to network airwaves to defend himself against allegations his administration deliberately attempted to conceal the taxpayer cost of his NYPD protection while he engaged in secret Hamptons liaisons with Nathan, his then-mistress and current wife." (1, 2) -By David Saltonstall and Michael Saul -NYDailyNews.com
Secret - Rudy Giuliani - Police - Car - Accounting - Politics - New York - 2008 Election - "NYPD Chief Casts Doubt on Giuliani Expense Story." ... "New questions were raised today about [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Rudy Giuliani's explanation for submitting police security expenses to obscure city agencies while he was mayor of New York [City, New York] and carried on a secret affair with his mistress, who also was given use of a police driver and city car." ... "Giuliani said Thursday the unusual billing practice was not intended to hide anything but instead to speed payment of American Express credit card bills." ... "But the current New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said today he knew of no problems with the delay of payments before Giuliani was mayor, when Kelly served under Mayor David Dinkins, or since." -By Brian Ross and Richard Esposito -ABCNEWS.com

20071129

Secret - Rudolph Giuliani - New York - Police - Car - Transport - Traveling - Politics - 2008 Election - "Giuliani's Mistress Used N.Y. Police as Taxi Service." ... "Well before it was publicly known he was seeing her, then-married New York Mayor [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Rudy Giuliani provided a police driver and city car for his mistress Judith Nathan, former senior city officials tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com." ... ""She used the PD [Police Department] as her personal taxi service," said one former city official who worked for Giuliani." ... "New York papers reported in 2000 that the city had provided a security detail for Nathan, who became Giuliani's third wife after his divorce from Donna Hanover, who also had her own police security detail at the same time." ... "The former officials told ABCNews.com the extra costs involved overtime and per diem costs for officers traveling with Giuliani to secret weekend rendezvous with Nathan in the fashionable Hamptons resort area on Long Island." -By Richard Esposito -ABCNEWS.com

20071127

Secret - US - Iraq - Texas - Oil - Money - Criminal - UN - Food- "Texas oilman Wyatt sentenced to year in prison." ... "Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt was sentenced to one year and one day in prison on Tuesday for conspiracy in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal, becoming the most prominent figure jailed over corruption in the program to buy oil from Saddam Hussein's Iraq." ... "Under his plea agreement, prosecutors dropped four other counts against him, cutting short a trial in which they made a case that he paid secret kickbacks to Saddam's government to win oil contracts from Iraq." ... "U.S. criminal investigations into the corrupted U.N. program has so far produced the convictions of seven individuals and two companies, including Chevron Corp. which agreed to pay $30 million to resolve criminal and civil liabilities." (1, 2) -By Christine Kearney with contributions by David Wiessler -Reuters

20071122

Secret - Rudolph W Giuliani - California - Money - Election - Law - Politics - 2008 Election - New York - Jet - Poor - Countries - "Publicity-shy Giuliani backer in spotlight: Backer of plan many Democrats think could sink their chances at presidency." ... "Paul E. Singer is the founding partner of one of the oldest hedge funds around. And while he has become a major donor to Republican and conservative causes in recent years, he has largely managed to stay out of the limelight, even avoiding having his picture appear in newspapers." ... "But this year Mr. Singer became one of the biggest supporters of [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Rudolph W. Giuliani’s presidential campaign, making his jet available to Mr. Giuliani, while Mr. Singer and workers at his companies have donated $200,000 to the campaign. And he became the largest individual backer of a California ballot initiative that many Democrats believe could sink their chances of winning the presidency." ... "Suddenly, the normally low-profile Mr. Singer, a New Yorker, found himself singled out by Democrats intent on beating back the California effort before it gained any steam." ... "Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic Party, questioned “Paul Singer’s involvement in this dirty trick aimed at stealing the White House.” A group of Democrats filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission charging that Mr. Singer had been acting on behalf of Mr. Giuliani in his efforts to change the California law — which Mr. Singer and the campaign deny. And the Democratic National Committee drew attention to the part of Mr. Singer’s business that involves buying the debt of poor countries at a discount and then seeking repayment in full — prompting an article in The Times of London labeling his firm, Elliott Associates, a “vulture fund.”" (1, 2) -By Michael Cooper and Leslie Wayne -NYTimes via -MSNBC

20071121

Secret - Rudolph Giuliani - Nevada - New York - US - Singapore - China - North Korea - International - Crime - Law - 2008 Election - "Giuliani's business ties create challenge: Was a consultant for controversial tycoon." ... "Nine days after registering his presidential exploratory committee last November, [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Rudolph Giuliani appeared in Singapore to help a Las Vegas [Nevada] developer make a pitch for a $3.5 billion casino resort." ... "Though the bid ultimately failed, and there was nothing illegal about the involvement, it drew Giuliani into a complex partnership with the family of a controversial Hong Kong [China] billionaire who has ties to the regime of North Korea's Kim Jong Il and has been linked to international organized crime by the U.S. government." ... "Giuliani's participation as a security consultant in the Singapore gambling venture illustrates the challenge he faces while attempting to win the Republican presidential nomination with a law-and-order message while maintaining a far-flung, international business portfolio, an unknown portion of which remains in the shadows." ... "Even today, more than a year after the former New York mayor signaled his intention to run for the presidency, it remains impossible to fully evaluate Giuliani's business dealings because he has declined to list all of the clients in Giuliani Partners, the consulting firm he founded and heads." (1, 2, 3) -By Andrew Zajac and Evan Osnos with contributions by Rick Pearson -ChicagoTribune

20071109

Secret - Women - Health - Money - People - Accounting - Consumer - Law - "Health insurer tied bonuses to dropping sick policyholders." ... "One of the [California] state's largest health insurers set goals and paid bonuses based in part on how many individual policyholders were dropped and how much money was saved." ... "Woodland Hills [California]-based Health Net Inc. avoided paying $35.5 million in medical expenses by rescinding about 1,600 policies between 2000 and 2006. During that period, it paid its senior analyst in charge of cancellations more than $20,000 in bonuses based in part on her meeting or exceeding annual targets for revoking policies, documents disclosed Thursday showed." ... "The revelation that the health plan had cancellation goals and bonuses comes amid a storm of controversy over the industry-wide but long-hidden practice of rescinding coverage after expensive medical treatments have been authorized." ... "These cancellations have been the recent focus of intense scrutiny by lawmakers, state regulators and consumer advocates. Although these "rescissions" are only a small portion of the companies' overall business, they typically leave sick patients with crushing medical bills and no way to obtain needed treatment." ... "The bonuses were disclosed at an arbitration hearing in a lawsuit brought by Patsy Bates, a Gardena [California] hairdresser whose coverage was rescinded by Health Net in the middle of chemotherapy treatments for breast cancer." ... "Health Net had sought to keep the documents secret even after it was forced to produce them for the hearing, arguing that they contained proprietary information and could embarrass the company." (1, 2) -By Lisa Girion -LAtimes
Bernard Kerik - Rudolph Giuliani - Secret - Apartment - Book - Money - Law - New York - New Jersey - "Ex-NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik surrenders in corruption probe." ... "[Former Police Commissioner Bernard] Kerik is charged with conspiracy, tax fraud, making false statements and depriving the city of his honest services while he was [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate Rudolph] Giuliani’s corrections commissioner and top cop." ... "The one-time nominee to be [Republican] President Bush’s Homeland Security czar faces charges that carry a top prison sentence of 142 years, if convicted. He also faces more than $4 million and fines, and would have to repay $255,000 in free rent he got from a Manhattan developer." ... "Kerik is charged with trying to convince city investigators that a New Jersey contractor secretly renovating his Bronx apartment was free of mob ties." ... "He also faces multiple allegations of tax fraud, including failing to report those renovations as income, hiding $75,000 in income from his book, “The Lost Son, and to taking a bogus $80,000 charitable donation." -By Thomas Zambito and Greg B. Smith -NYDailyNews.com

20071030

Michael B Mukasey - Rudolph W Giuliani - John McCain - Prisoner - Torture - Law - Opinion - Classified - Government - Politics - Intelligence - History - New York - Arizona - "Mukasey Unsure About Legality of Waterboarding." ... "In an effort to quell growing doubts in the Senate about his nomination as [Republican President Bush's] attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey on Tuesday declared that waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques “seem over the line or, on a personal basis, repugnant to me” and promised to review the legality of all such techniques if confirmed." ... "But Mr. Mukasey told Senate Democrats he could not offer an opinion on whether waterboarding, which simulates drowning, is illegal torture because he has not been briefed on the details of the classified technique and does not want to suggest that Central Intelligence Agency officers who have used such techniques may be in “personal legal jeopardy.”" ... "Mr. Mukasey noted that Congress had not explicitly banned the use of waterboarding by the Central Intelligence Agency, though the method was outlawed for use by the military in the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005. That left room for interpretation as to whether waterboarding or any other technique is prohibited as “cruel, inhuman, or degrading” treatment, he wrote." ... "All 10 Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote to Mr. Mukasey last week asking that he clarify his position on waterboarding. “Your unwillingness to state that waterboarding is illegal may place Americans at risk of being subject to this abusive technique,” the senators wrote." ... "Last week, after [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, said he wasn’t sure about waterboarding because he thought “the liberal media” might not have described it properly, [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Senator John McCain of Arizona, who was tortured himself as a prisoner in North Vietnam, shot back." ... "“All I can say is that it was used in the Spanish Inquisition, it was used in Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia, and there are reports that it is being used against Buddhist monks today,” Mr. McCain said." -By Scott Shane -NYTimes

20071021

US - Guantanamo Bay - Cuba - Political - Military - Prisoner - Terrorism - Secret - Law- 2008 Election - "Pressure Alleged in Detainees' Hearings: Ex-Prosecutor Says Pentagon Pushing 'Sexy' Cases in '08." ... "Politically motivated officials at the Pentagon have pushed for convictions of high-profile detainees ahead of the 2008 elections, the former lead prosecutor for terrorism trials at Guantanamo Bay [Cuba] said last night, adding that the pressure played a part in his decision to resign earlier this month." ... "Senior defense officials discussed in a September 2006 meeting the "strategic political value" of putting some prominent detainees on trial, said Air Force Col. Morris Davis. He said that he felt pressure to pursue cases that were deemed "sexy" over those that prosecutors believed were the most solid or were ready to go." ... "Davis said his resignation was also prompted by newly appointed senior officials seeking to use classified evidence in what would be closed sessions of court, and by almost all elements of the military commissions process being put under the Defense Department general counsel's command, something he believes could present serious conflicts of interest." ... ""There was a big concern that the election of 2008 is coming up," Davis said. "People wanted to get the cases going. There was a rush to get high-interest cases into court at the expense of openness."" -By Josh White -WashingtonPost

20071011

Secret - Government - Phone - Network - Spying - Intelligence - Law - Terrorism - Money - Politics - "Documents: Qwest was targeted: 'Classified info' was not allowed at ex-CEO's trial." ... "The National Security Agency and other government agencies retaliated against Qwest because the Denver telco refused to go along with a phone spying program, documents released Wednesday suggest." ... "The documents indicate that likely would have been at the heart of former CEO Joe Nacchio's so-called "classified information" defense at his insider trading trial, had he been allowed to present it." ... "The secret contracts - worth hundreds of millions of dollars - made Nacchio optimistic about Qwest's future, even as his staff was warning him the company might not make its numbers, Nacchio's defense attorneys have maintained. But Nacchio didn't present that argument at trial." ... "The documents suggest U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham refused to allow Nacchio to present the argument about retaliation. Nottingham also said Nacchio would have to take the stand to raise the classified defense." ... "Nacchio was convicted last spring on 19 counts of insider trading for $52 million of stock sales in April and May 2001, and sentenced to six years in prison. He's free pending appeal." ... "The topic itself is redacted each time it appears in the hundreds of pages of documents, but there is mention of Nacchio believing the request was both inappropriate and illegal, and repeatedly refusing to go along with it." ... "The NSA contract was awarded in July 2001 to companies other than Qwest." ... "USA Today reported in May 2006 that Qwest, unlike AT&T and Verizon, balked at helping the NSA track phone calling patterns that may have indicated terrorist organizational activities. Nacchio's attorney, Herbert Stern, confirmed that Nacchio refused to turn over customer telephone records because he didn't think the NSA program had legal standing." ... "The documents maintain that Nacchio met with top government officials, including [Republican] President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and then-National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice in 2000 and early 2001 to discuss how to protect the government's communications network." -By Sara Burnett And Jeff Smith -RockyMountainNews.com

20071009

Secret - Osama bin Laden - TV - Web - Communications - Terrorist - Surveillance - Company - Military - Intelligence - Politics - "Leak Severed a Link to Al-Qaeda's Secrets: Firm Says [Republican President Bush's] Administration's Handling of Video Ruined Its Spying Efforts." ... "A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release." ... "Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide." ... "The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group [Search for International Terrorist Entities], says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group's communications network." ... ""Techniques that took years to develop are now ineffective and worthless," said Rita Katz, the firm's 44-year-old founder, who has garnered wide attention by publicizing statements and videos from extremist chat rooms and Web sites, while attracting controversy over the secrecy of SITE's methodology. Her firm provides intelligence about terrorist groups to a wide range of paying clients, including private firms and military and intelligence agencies from the United States and several other countries." ... "She spoke first with White House counsel Fred F. Fielding, whom she had previously met, and then with Joel Bagnal, deputy assistant to the president for homeland security. Both expressed interest in obtaining a copy, and Bagnal suggested that she send a copy to Michael Leiter, who holds the No. 2 job at the National Counterterrorism Center." (1, 2) -By Joby Warrick -WashingtonPost

20071004

Alberto R Gonzales - David S Addington - Dick Cheney - John Yoo - Secret - Torture - War Crimes - Law - Politics - Terrorism - Government - Intelligence - Prison - Psychological - Health - Human Rights - US - World - History - "Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations." ... "When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the [Republican President] Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations." ... "But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency." ... "The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures." ... "Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it." ... "Later that year, as Congress moved toward outlawing “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment, the Justice Department issued another secret opinion, one most lawmakers did not know existed, current and former officials said. The Justice Department document declared that none of the C.I.A. interrogation methods violated that standard." ... "The classified opinions, never previously disclosed, are a hidden legacy of [Republican] President Bush’s second term and Mr. Gonzales’s tenure at the Justice Department, where he moved quickly to align it with the White House after a 2004 rebellion by staff lawyers that had thrown policies on surveillance and detention into turmoil." ... "Associates at the Justice Department said Mr. Gonzales seldom resisted pressure from [Republican] Vice President Dick Cheney and David S. Addington, Mr. Cheney’s counsel, to endorse policies that they saw as effective in safeguarding Americans, even though the practices brought the condemnation of other governments, human rights groups and Democrats in Congress. Critics say Mr. Gonzales turned his agency into an arm of the Bush White House, undermining the department’s independence." ... "The interrogation opinions were signed by Steven G. Bradbury, who since 2005 has headed the elite Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department. He has become a frequent public defender of the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program and detention policies at Congressional hearings and press briefings, a role that some legal scholars say is at odds with the office’s tradition of avoiding political advocacy." ... "The Bush administration had entered uncharted legal territory beginning in 2002, holding prisoners outside the scrutiny of the International Red Cross and subjecting them to harrowing pressure tactics. They included slaps to the head; hours held naked in a frigid cell; days and nights without sleep while battered by thundering rock music; long periods manacled in stress positions; or the ultimate, waterboarding." ... "Never in history had the United States authorized such tactics. While President Bush and C.I.A. officials would later insist that the harsh measures produced crucial intelligence, many veteran interrogators, psychologists and other experts say that less coercive methods are equally or more effective." ... "With virtually no experience in interrogations, the C.I.A. had constructed its program in a few harried months by consulting Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials and copying Soviet interrogation methods long used in training American servicemen to withstand capture. The agency officers questioning prisoners constantly sought advice from lawyers thousands of miles away." ... "“We were getting asked about combinations — ‘Can we do this and this at the same time?’” recalled Paul C. Kelbaugh, a veteran intelligence lawyer who was deputy legal counsel at the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorist Center from 2001 to 2003." ... "Mr. Kelbaugh said the questions were sometimes close calls that required consultation with the Justice Department. But in August 2002, the department provided a sweeping legal justification for even the harshest tactics." ... "That opinion, which would become infamous as “the torture memo” after it was leaked, was written largely by John Yoo, a young Berkeley law professor serving in the Office of Legal Counsel." ... "Mr. Yoo’s memorandum said no interrogation practices were illegal unless they produced pain equivalent to organ failure or “even death.”" (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) -By Scott Shane, David Johnston, and James Risen -NYTimes

20070920

Secret - Phone - E-Mail - Surveillance - Company - Consumer - Lawsuit - Politics - Terrorism - Government - Intelligence - San Francisco - California - "Case Dismissed? The secret lobbying campaign your phone company doesn't want you to know about." ... "The nation’s biggest telecommunications companies, working closely with the [Republican President Bush] White House, have mounted a secretive lobbying campaign to get Congress to quickly approve a measure wiping out all private lawsuits against them for assisting the U.S. intelligence community’s warrantless surveillance programs." ... "The campaign—which involves some of Washington's most prominent lobbying and law firms—has taken on new urgency in recent weeks because of fears that a U.S. appellate court in San Francisco [California] is poised to rule that the lawsuits should be allowed to proceed." ... "If that happens, the telecom companies say, they may be forced to terminate their cooperation with the U.S. intelligence community—or risk potentially crippling damage awards for allegedly turning over personal information about their customers to the government without a judicial warrant." ... "But critics say the language proposed by the White House—drafted in close cooperation with the industry officials—is so extraordinarily broad that it would provide retroactive immunity for all past telecom actions related to the surveillance program. Its practical effect, they argue, would be to shut down any independent judicial or state inquires into how the companies have assisted the government in eavesdropping on the telephone calls and e-mails of U.S. residents in the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks." ... "Among those coordinating the industry’s effort are two well-connected capital players who both worked for President George H.W. Bush: Verizon general counsel William Barr, who served as attorney general under 41, and AT&T senior executive vice president James Cicconi, who was the elder Bush's deputy chief of staff." ... "Working with them are a battery of major D.C. lobbyists and lawyers who are providing "strategic advice" to the companies on the issue, according to sources familiar with the campaign who asked not to be identified talking about it. Among the players, these sources said: powerhouse Republican lobbyists Charlie Black and Wayne Berman (who represent AT&T and Verizon, respectively), former GOP senator and U.S. ambassador to Germany Dan Coats (a lawyer at King & Spaulding who is representing Sprint), former Democratic Party strategist and one-time assistant secretary of State Tom Donilon (who represents Verizon), former deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick (whose law firm also represents Verizon) and Brad Berenson, a former assistant White House counsel under President George W. Bush who now represents AT&T." (1, 2, 3) -By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball -MSNBC /Newsweek

20070914

Pete Kott - Ben Stevens - Ted Stevens - Secret - Alaska - VECO - Oil - Money - Crime - Politics - 2006 Election - "Witness in Alaska says he had oil company contacts: Ex-CEO who pleaded guilty says he talked with top unit officials" ... "Veco Corp.'s former chief executive told a federal jury Thursday that he was in regular contact with officials at ConocoPhillips and BP's Alaska divisions while bribing state lawmakers there to limit the state's oil production tax." ... "Bill Allen, ex-CEO of Veco, the [Alaska] Anchorage-based oil-services contractor, made the claim at the bribery and fraud trial of former Alaska state [Alaska state Republican Representative] Rep. Pete Kott. Allen told jurors in Anchorage federal court that he paid Kott about $8,000 to help fund the lawmaker's 2006 re-election campaign in exchange for his vote and influence with other representatives during a legislative debate over state oil taxes. Kott denied the charges." ... "Allen said he wanted to keep oil taxes low for his oil producer clients, whom he called "the three big boys" in secretly recorded conversations, and encouraged them to build a multibillion-dollar natural gas pipeline from Alaska to the lower 48 states. The clients were ConocoPhillips, BP and Exxon Mobil, he said." ... "On Thursday Allen claimed to have paid phony consulting fees to [Alaska state Republican Senator] Ben Stevens. Ben and [his father, Alaska Republican Senator] Ted Stevens have denied any wrongdoing and haven't been charged with a crime." -By Tony Hopfinger -Bloomberg via -Chron

20070912

US - Intelligence - Politics - Terrorism - Germany - Overseas - Telephone - E-Mail - Secret - Electronic - Surveillance - Law - Connecticut - "Spy Master Admits Error: Intel czar Mike McConnell told Congress a new law helped bring down a terror plot. The facts say otherwise." ... "In a new embarrassment for the [Republican President] Bush administration's top spymaster, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell is withdrawing an assertion he made to Congress this week that a recently passed electronic-surveillance law helped U.S. authorities foil a major terror plot in Germany." ... "The temporary measure, signed into law by President Bush on Aug. 5, gave the U.S. intelligence community broad new powers to eavesdrop on telephone and e-mail communications overseas without seeking warrants from the surveillance court. The law expires in six months and is expected to be the subject of intense debate in the months ahead. On Monday, McConnell—questioned by [Connecticut Independent Democratic Senator] Sen. Joe Lieberman—claimed the law, intended to remedy what the White House said was an intelligence gap, had helped to “facilitate” the arrest of three suspects believed to be planning massive car bombings against American targets in Germany. Other U.S. intelligence-community officials questioned the accuracy of McConnell's testimony and urged his office to correct it. Four intelligence-community officials, who asked for anonymity discussing sensitive material, said the new law, dubbed the "Protect America Act,” played little if any role in the unraveling of the German plot." ... "Late Wednesday afternoon, McConnell issued a statement acknowledging that "information contributing to the recent arrests [in Germany] was not collected under authorities provided by the 'Protect America Act'."" ... "The developments were cited by Democratic critics on Capitol Hill as the latest example of the Bush administration's exaggerated claims—and contradictory statements—about ultrasecret surveillance activities." (1, 2, 3) -By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball -MSNBC /Newsweek

20070911

Secret - Federal - Health - Safety - Consumer - Law - Politics - Food - Drug - Traffic - Manufacturers - Companies - "Stealth Rules War Pits Lawyers Versus Companies." ... "Official Washington loves the word ``stealth.'' It connotes intrigue and secrecy, making the term well understood in a capital where spies and invisible fighter jets aren't all that's sneaking around." ... "At least that's how the nation's trial lawyers view the [Republican President] Bush administration's increasing use of federal health and safety regulations as a line of defense for manufacturers trying to fend off multimillion-dollar liability claims from consumers in state courts." ... "The fine print of a 2006 U.S. Food and Drug Administration rule on prescription labeling that preempts, or overrides, state laws is proving to be a powerful weapon in the courtroom at a time when Merck & Co. is fighting thousands of lawsuits from consumers claiming they were harmed by its drug Vioxx." ... "Since 2005, federal agencies, including the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Department of Homeland Security have issued more than a dozen rules that stress the primacy of federal law." ... "Plaintiff attorneys, who have been watching the trend with alarm, say eliminating the option of suing a company at the state level will result in weaker federal regulations, more cost to the government for consumers' medical bills, and a usurping of congressional authority." ... "The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing for tomorrow: ``Regulatory Preemption: Are Federal Agencies Usurping Congressional and State Authority?''" -By Cindy Skrzycki -Bloomberg

20070907

John Edwards - US - International - Terrorism - Intelligence - Police - New York - History - Financial - Immigration - Secret - Torture - Prisons - Spying - Civil Liberties - Law - Safe - 2008 Election - "Edwards proposes international anti-terrorism body." ... "[2008 election] Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards proposed a new international body to fight terrorism on Friday, rejecting the tactics of U.S. [Republican] President George W. Bush as an unnecessary assault on civil liberties." ... "Edwards chose New York City [New York] four days ahead of the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks to unveil his anti-terrorism strategy, starting with a Counterterrorism and Intelligence Treaty Organization, or CITO." ... ""CITO will allow members to voluntarily share financial, police, customs and immigration intelligence. Together, nations will be able to track the way terrorists travel, communicate, recruit, train and finance their operations," Edwards said in a speech at New York's Pace University." ... "In an interview with Reuters, he also vowed to rescind many Bush policies, including the use of secret prisons, warrantless domestic spying and the extraordinary rendition of suspects to third countries, where critics say they may be tortured." ... ""I wouldn't do any of those things," Edwards said. "It's not necessary to violate every basis on which America exists to keep the American people safe. You can protect the rights of Americans and effectively fight terrorism."" -By Daniel Trotta -Reuters

20070905

US - Iraq - Military - Hurricane Katrina - Historical - Secrets - Archive - Electronic - Messages - Presidential Records Act - Government - E-Mail - Politics - "White House sued again over e-mail." ... "The [law]suit by the National Security Archive, a private group, is the latest effort to find out whether the [Republican President] Bush administration lost millions of electronic messages." ... ""The period covers the period beginning with the Iraq war until the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; it doesn't get more historically valuable than that," said Tom Blanton, director of the private organization, which advocates public disclosure of government secrets." ... "The Federal Records Act and the Presidential Records Act require that e-mail be preserved." -By Pete Yost -AP via -SeattlePI

20070818

Secret - Government - Wiretapping - Intelligence - Law - Civil Liberties - Politics - "Secret Court Asks For White House View on Inquiry: ACLU Seeking Rulings Issued On Warrantless Wiretapping." ... "A secret U.S. intelligence court has ordered the [Republican President] Bush administration to register its views about a records request by the American Civil Liberties Union, which wants the court to release a series of pivotal orders issued earlier this year about the National Security Agency's wiretapping program." ... "The ACLU has asked the court for copies of orders it issued in January related to the NSA's warrantless surveillance program, which had been operated without court oversight since late 2001 and which has been the focus of fierce congressional debate." ... "The group is also seeking a copy of one or more court orders issued in the spring that, according to administration officials and congressional Republicans, concluded that parts of the program are illegal." -By Dan Eggen -WashingtonPost

20070816

Secret - Military - Government - Space - Aircraft - Surveillance - Imagery - Technology - Law - Enforcement - Intelligence - Liberty - Politics - "Domestic Use of Spy Satellites To Widen: Law Enforcement Getting New Access To Secret Imagery." ... "The Bush administration has approved a plan to expand domestic access to some of the most powerful tools of 21st-century spycraft, giving law enforcement officials and others the ability to view data obtained from satellite and aircraft sensors that can see through cloud cover and even penetrate buildings and underground bunkers." ... "A program approved by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security will allow broader domestic use of secret overhead imagery beginning as early as this fall, with the expectation that state and local law enforcement officials will eventually be able to tap into technology once largely restricted to foreign surveillance." ... "But the program, described yesterday by the Wall Street Journal, quickly provoked opposition from civil liberties advocates, who said the government is crossing a well-established line against the use of military assets in domestic law enforcement." ... ""They want to turn these enormous spy capabilities, built to be used against overseas enemies, onto Americans," [Center for National Security Studies director Kate] Martin said. "They are laying the bricks one at a time for a police state."" -By Joby Warrick -WashingtonPost
Federal - Military - Surveillance - Intelligence - Secrets - Law - Politics - "U.S. Defends Surveillance to 3 Skeptical Judges." ... "Three federal appeals court judges hearing challenges to the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs appeared skeptical of and sometimes hostile to the Bush administration’s central argument Wednesday: that national security concerns require that the lawsuits be dismissed." ... "“Is it the government’s position that when our country is engaged in a war that the power of the executive when it comes to wiretapping is unchecked?” Judge Harry Pregerson asked a government lawyer. His tone was one of incredulity and frustration." ... "Gregory G. Garre, a deputy solicitor general representing the administration, replied that the courts had a role, though a limited one, in assessing the government’s assertion of the so-called state secrets privilege, which can require the dismissal of suits that could endanger national security. Judges, he said, must give executive branch determinations “utmost deference.”" ... "“Litigating this action could result in exceptionally grave harm to the national security of the United States,” Mr. Garre said, referring to the assessment of intelligence officials." ... "The appeals concern two related questions that must be answered before the merits of the challenges can be considered: whether the plaintiffs can clearly establish that they have been injured by the programs, giving them standing to sue; and whether the state secrets privilege requires dismissal of the suits on national security grounds." -By Adam Liptak -NYTimes
Government - Intelligence - Wiretap - Secrets - Phone - E-Mail - Internet - Messages - Technology - Companies - Politics - San Francisco - California- "Classified evidence debated: Court likely to allow suit against AT&T, reject wiretap case." ... "A federal appeals court holding a high-stakes hearing Wednesday in San Francisco [California] on President Bush's clandestine eavesdropping program appeared inclined to keep alive a lawsuit accusing AT&T of illegally letting the government intercept millions of Americans' phone calls and e-mails." ... "At the same hearing, however, the panel appeared skeptical about a suit by a defunct Islamic charity that said it had evidence that it and two of its lawyers had been wiretapped - the only such case in the nation filed by an alleged target of the surveillance program. The snag is that the evidence, a document that the government inadvertently released to the plaintiffs in 2004, is classified top secret and thus can't be used in court to prove that the calls were overheard." ... "The two-hour hearing by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals involved two different cases with a common theme: the Bush administration's argument that the details of the program were so sensitive that a lawsuit challenging any aspect of it would pose an unacceptable risk of exposing state secrets." ... "The AT&T suit, like several cases pending against other telecommunications companies, accuses the firm of giving the National Security Agency unlimited access to customers' phone calls, e-mails and message records. Plaintiffs in the AT&T case have submitted a declaration by a former company engineer who said he helped install equipment at the company's San Francisco office that would divert Internet messages to a room reserved for government-cleared employees." -By Bob Egelko -SFGate.com

20070815

US - International - Secret - Government - Phone - Wiretapping - Internet - Intelligence - Database - Technology - Law - San Francisco - California - "NSA Judge: 'I feel like I'm in Alice and Wonderland'." ... "Spectators lined up outside the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco [California] starting at noon to guarantee a seat at a much-anticipated legal showdown over the government's secret wiretapping program." ... "The hearing involves two cases: one aimed at AT&T for allegedly helping the government with a widespread datamining program allegedly involving domestic and international phone calls and internet use; the other a direct challenge to the government's admitted warrantless wiretapping of overseas phone calls." ... "Jon Eisenberg, (right [photo at Wired.com]) an Oakland-based [California] attorney, is arguing on behalf of a now-defunct Islamic charity Al-Haramain and its lawyers, who claim to have been accidentally given a Top Secret log of their own phone conversations, which they say proves the government illegally eavesdropped on them without warrants." ... "The courtroom filled quickly with more than 20 attorneys in the courtroom well, and 80 spectators seated and standing. Another 40 filed into an overflow courtroom, including Mark Klein, the former AT&T engineer who provided internal company documents to the EFF. Those documents allegedly show that AT&T built a secret spying room for the NSA in its San Francisco internet switching center. " ... "The government says the purported log of calls between one of the Islamic charity directors and two American lawyers is classified Top Secret and has the SCI level, meaning that it is "secure compartmented information." That designation usually applies to surveillance information" -By Kevin Poulsen -Wired

20070813

Government - Secrecy - Telephone - Civil Liberties - Law - Ohio - "Secrecy May Be Spy Program's Defense." ... "The [Republican President] Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program has a built-in feature the Justice Department believes may shield it from ever being challenged as unconstitutional: secrecy." ... "The administration has acknowledged it intercepted some U.S. telephone conversations without warrants as it hunted for terrorists. Whose calls? The government isn't saying. And since only those who were spied on have grounds to sue, it's almost impossible to mount a successful legal challenge." ... "A federal appeals court in Ohio dismissed one such challenge last month because the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups could not prove the government had listened to their conversations. The court did not rule on whether the program was constitutional." ... "The U.S. Supreme Court has held that people can't sue merely to right a wrong. They must have standing, meaning they must be able to prove they were harmed by the government's behavior. Even if it might mean nobody will ever have standing to sue, the Supreme Court has said that proof is required." ... "``Without that, I think there is that Catch-22,'' said Charles Fried, who served as solicitor general under [Republican] President Reagan." -By Matt Apuzzo -AP via -Guardian.co.uk
Bob Ney - Jack Abramoff - Money - Politics - Law - Secrets - Ohio - "Ney's Chief of Staff Wore Wire, Was Key To Boss's Conviction." ... "When Will Heaton went to work for [Ohio Republican Representative] Rep. Robert W. Ney in 2001, he was 23 years old and still in awe of the members of Congress he had come to know years earlier as a congressional page. Within six months, the Ohio Republican promoted the fresh-faced neophyte to be the youngest chief of staff in Congress." ... "For the next five years, Heaton stuck by Ney, even as the House Administration Committee chairman accepted free meals at super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff's downtown restaurant, sports tickets in his arena skyboxes and luxurious junkets around the world. Heaton accompanied Ney on a golf junket to Scotland with Abramoff, and he helped Ney return the favors to Abramoff." ... "But as Ney's political career disintegrated amid revelations of his ties to Abramoff, Heaton became disillusioned and began secretly helping an FBI task force investigating Abramoff. At first, through his attorney, Heaton handed over internal documents from Ney's office to the FBI. Then he recorded colleagues in Ney's office." ... "Last summer, Heaton began secretly recording his conversations with the six-term congressman, according to documents filed in court last week by the government and Heaton's lawyers. Heaton taped numerous phone calls and wore a hidden wire to a 2 1/2 -hour, face-to-face meeting with Ney that provided "exceptionally important" help to the FBI's investigation of Abramoff." (1, 2) -By James V. Grimaldi -WashingtonPost

20070812

Americans - Global - Communications - Liberty - Politics - Law - Secret - Government - Intelligence - Electronic - Surveillance - Tech - E-Mail - Terrorism - History - "How the Fight for Vast New Spying Powers Was Won." ... "For three days, Mike McConnell, the [Republican President Bush's] director of national intelligence, had haggled with congressional leaders over amendments to a federal surveillance law, but now he was putting his foot down. "This is the issue," said the plain-spoken retired vice admiral and Vietnam veteran, "that makes my blood pressure rise."" ... "McConnell viscerally objected to a Democratic proposal to limit warrantless surveillance of foreigners' communications with Americans to instances in which one party was a terrorism suspect. McConnell wanted no such limits. "All foreign intelligence" targets in touch with Americans on any topic of interest should be fair game for U.S. spying, he said, according to two participants in the Aug. 2 conversation." ... "McConnell won the fight, extracting a key concession despite the misgivings of Democratic negotiators. Shortly after that exchange, the [Republican President] Bush administration leveraged Democratic acquiescence into a broader victory: congressional approval of a Republican bill that would expand surveillance powers far beyond what Democratic leaders had initially been willing to accept." ... "Until September -- and possibly for much longer -- the new law will enable the high-tech collection of foreign communications without judicial scrutiny on a vastly larger scale than previously possible, allowing billions of phone calls and e-mails inside as well as outside the United States to be routinely screened for possible links to terrorism and other security threats." ... "What McConnell wanted most from Congress was to be able to intercept, without a warrant, purely foreign-to-foreign communications that pass through fiber-optic cables and switching stations on U.S. soil. That provision was meant to restore a U.S. capability that existed three decades ago, when a 1978 law allowed warrantless surveillance of foreign calls that were overwhelmingly relayed wirelessly." ... "Since then, advances in technology have caused 90 percent of global communications to pass through wires -- mostly optic fibers capable of carrying 6,000 calls in a strand. That development has been a boon to the National Security Agency, which has worked hard to monitor the traffic with U.S.-based taps and concluded it was doing so legally." ... "But in a secret ruling in March, a judge on a special court empowered to review the government's electronic snooping challenged for the first time the government's ability to collect data from such wires even when they came from foreign terrorist targets. In May, a judge on the same court went further, telling the administration flatly that the law's wording required the government to get a warrant whenever a fixed wire is involved." (1, 2, 3) -By Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus -WashingtonPost
Italy - Iraq - US - Russia - Secretive - Military - Money - Intelligence - Politics - "Italy probe unearths huge Iraq arms deal." ... "In a hidden corner of [Italy's capital] Rome's busy Fiumicino Airport, police dug quietly through a traveler's checked baggage, looking for smuggled drugs. What they found instead was a catalog of weapons, a clue to something bigger." ... "Their discovery led anti-Mafia investigators down a monthslong trail of telephone and e-mail intercepts, into the midst of a huge black-market transaction, as Iraqi and Italian partners haggled over shipping more than 100,000 Russian-made automatic weapons into the bloodbath of Iraq." ... "As the secretive, $40 million deal neared completion, Italian authorities moved in, making arrests and breaking it up. But key questions remain unanswered." ... "For one thing, The Associated Press has learned that Iraqi government officials were involved in the deal, apparently without the knowledge of the U.S. Baghdad command — a departure from the usual pattern of U.S.-overseen arms purchases." ... "Why these officials resorted to "black" channels and where the weapons were headed is unclear." ... "The purchase would merely have been the most spectacular example of how Iraq has become a magnet for arms traffickers and a place of vanishing weapons stockpiles and uncontrolled gun markets since the 2003 U.S. invasion and the onset of civil war." -By Charles J. Hanley and Ariel David -AP via -Yahoo

20070810

Pete Hoekstra - John Boehner - United States - World - Intelligence - Secrets - Politics - Media - Mich - Ohio - "Are GOP Leaders Leaking State Secrets?" ... "For the second time in as many weeks, a senior House Republican may have divulged classified information in the media." ... "In an opinion article published in the New York Post Thursday, [Michigan Republican Representative] Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., reported the top-secret budget for human spying had decreased -- the type of detail normally kept under wraps for national security reasons." ... ""The 2008 Intelligence Authorization bill cut human-intelligence programs," Hoekstra wrote in the piece, in which he also criticized "leaks to the news media."" ... "Formerly the chairman of the intelligence committee, Hoekstra is now its highest ranking Republican." ... "Secrets are apparently hard to keep these days. On July 31, House Minority Leader [Ohio Republiacan Representative] John Boehner, R-Ohio, allegedly disclosed a secret court ruling during a television interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto." ... ""There's been a ruling, over the last four or five months, that prohibits the ability of our intelligence services and our counterintelligence people from listening in to two terrorists in other parts of the world where the communication could come through the United States," Boehner said." ... "Government officials have since confirmed to reporters that Boehner was discussing classified information, although the GOP leader denies it." -By Justin Rood -ABCNEWS.com
Secret - Canadian - Syrian - Kuwaiti - United States - Terrorism - Prison - Torture- Politics - Immigration - New York - "Deported Canadian Was No Threat, Report Shows." ... "Canadian intelligence officials anticipated that the United States would ship Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian who was detained in New York in 2002 on suspicion of terrorism, to a third country to be tortured, declassified information released on Thursday shows." ... "Mr. Arar was sent by American intelligence officials in October 2002 to Syria, where he was tortured and jailed for a almost a year. Last September, an extensive Canadian inquiry concluded that the terrorism accusations against him were groundless." ... "Portions of the inquiry's report were originally removed for security and diplomatic reasons. But a court ruled last month that much of the editing was not justified." ... "The newly released sections indicate that neither the Syrian government nor the Federal Bureau of Investigation were convinced that Mr. Arar was a significant security threat. They also suggest that the investigation of Mr. Arar was prompted by the coerced confession of Ahmad Abou el-Maati, a Kuwaiti-born Canadian who was also imprisoned and tortured in Syria. And despite claims by the United States government that Mr. Arar s removal to Syria was mainly an immigration matter, the new material suggests that the Central Intelligence Agency led the action." -By Ian Austen -NYTimes

20070809

US - Yemen - Guantánamo - Cuba - Secret - Censored - Military - Prison - Terrorism - Politics - "14 detainees upheld as `enemy combatants'." ... "As a first step to possible military trial, the Pentagon said Thursday that review panels have upheld President Bush's designation of ''enemy combatant'' for 14 so-called ''high value detainees'' at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who were held and interrogated for years at CIA black sites." ... "They include Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the reputed 9/11 mastermind who, according to a censored Pentagon transcript of his secret hearing in March, confessed to a broad list of global terror plots -- most unrealized." ... "They also include men who allegedly planned the Oct. 12, 2000, suicide bombing of the USS Cole off Aden, Yemen, and the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania." ... "The Pentagon's statement Thursday made no mention of an ongoing controversy over whether the hearings should have been determining whether Guantánamo captives are ''unlawful enemy combatants'' versus run-of-the-mill ``enemy combatants.''" -By Carol Rosenberg-Miami/Herald

20070808

Clandestine - Government - "Top clandestine official comes out of the shadows _ to retire." ... "One of the CIA's top spooks has come out of the shadows." ... "With little fanfare, Jose Rodriguez, who heads the National Clandestine Service, had his cover lifted about a month ago." ... "Rodriguez became head of the CIA's clandestine service in November 2004. With the creation of the National Clandestine Service the following year as part of an intelligence reorganization, Rodriguez rose to be chief of "human intelligence" operations, overseeing the classic spycraft that takes place at a variety of U.S. spy agencies." ... "In national security circles, however, Rodriguez's identity wasn't a well-kept secret. Wikipedia users even created an entry about him last year, although the page contains inaccuracies." -By Katherine Shrader -AP via -Chron

20070807

Alberto R Gonzales - US - Government - Foreign - Intelligence - Surveillance - Law - Politics - E-Mail - Communications - Secrecy - "Same Agencies to Run, Oversee Surveillance Program." ... "The [Republican President] Bush administration plans to leave oversight of its expanded foreign eavesdropping program to the same government officials who supervise the surveillance activities and to the intelligence personnel who carry them out, senior government officials said yesterday." ... "The law, which permits intercepting Americans' calls and e-mails without a warrant if the communications involve overseas transmission, gives Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales responsibility for creating the broad procedures determining whose telephone calls and e-mails are collected. It also gives McConnell and Gonzales the role of assessing compliance with those procedures." ... "The law, signed Sunday by President Bush after being pushed through the Senate and House over the weekend, does not contain provisions for outside oversight -- unlike an earlier House measure that called for audits every 60 days by the Justice Department's inspector general." ... "Central to the new program is the collection of foreign intelligence from "communication service providers," which the officials declined to identify, citing secrecy concerns." -By Walter Pincus with contributions by Joby Warrick -WashingtonPost
New York - Police - Covert - Intelligence - Surveillance - Politics - 2004 Election - Free Speech - Civil Liberties - "City Is Rebuffed on the Release of ’04 Records." ... "A federal judge yesterday rejected New York City’s [New York] efforts to prevent the release of nearly 2,000 pages of raw intelligence reports and other documents detailing the Police Department’s covert surveillance of protest groups and individual activists before the Republican National Convention in 2004 [election]." ... "In a 20-page ruling, Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV ordered the disclosure of hundreds of field intelligence reports by undercover investigators who infiltrated and compiled dossiers on protest groups in a huge operation that the police said was needed to head off violence and disruptions at the convention." ... "But at the behest of the city and with the concurrence of civil liberties lawyers representing plaintiffs swept up in mass arrests during the convention, the judge agreed to the deletion of sensitive information in the documents to protect the identities of undercover officers and confidential informants and to safeguard police investigative methods and the privacy of individuals caught up in investigations." ... "The order was the latest development in the long-running case, which posed thorny questions about the free speech rights of protesters and the means used by law enforcement officials to maintain public order." (1, 2) -By Robert D. McFadden -NYTimes

20070806

Secret - New York - Police - Intelligence - Surveillance - Politics - 2004 Election - "NYPD Surveillance Files Ordered Released." ... "The city [New York City, New York] must release hundreds of pages of documents related to police surveillance of protesters prior to the 2004 Republican National Convention, but they will be allowed to black out some information, a judge ruled Monday." ... "The city had sought to keep secret field intelligence reports prepared by undercover police officers, but U.S. Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV called for the city to turn over those and other documents to lawyers representing hundreds of protesters challenging their arrests." ... "For the most part, Francis rejected city arguments that the documents were not relevant and were protected by law enforcement privilege. He did, however, say some documents and information were not pertinent and could be withheld or redacted." ... "Francis said they could be released in redacted form to hide the identities of undercover officers and confidential police tactics and strategies." -By Larry Neumeister -AP via -WashingtonPost
Secret - United States - Government - Foreign - Intelligence - Surveillance - History - Electronic - E-Mail - Telephone - Law - Language - Politics - Terrorism - "Bush Signs Law to Widen Legal Reach for Wiretapping." ... "[Republican] President Bush signed into law on Sunday legislation that broadly expanded the government’s authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants." ... "Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government’s ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States." ... "They also said that the new law for the first time provided a legal framework for much of the surveillance without warrants that was being conducted in secret by the National Security Agency and outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that is supposed to regulate the way the government can listen to the private communications of American citizens." ... "“This more or less legalizes the N.S.A. program,” said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, who has studied the new legislation." ... "Previously, the government needed search warrants approved by a special intelligence court to eavesdrop on telephone conversations, e-mail messages and other electronic communications between individuals inside the United States and people overseas, if the government conducted the surveillance inside the United States." -By James Risen -NYTimes

20070805

US - Saudi Arabia - Secret - Government - Terrorism - Phone - Wiretap - Civil Liberties - Law - Politics - "Secret call log at heart of wiretap challenge." ... "In open court and legal filings it's referred to simply as "the Document."" ... "Federal officials claim its contents are so sensitive to national security that it is stored in a bombproof safe in Washington [D.C.] and viewed only by prosecutors with top secret security clearances and a few select federal judges." ... "The Document, described by those who have seen it as a National Security Administration log of calls intercepted between an Islamic charity [in Saudi Arabia] and its American lawyers, is at the heart of what legal experts say may be the strongest case against the [Republican President] Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program." ... "Unlike dozens of other lawyers who have sued alleging similar violations of civil liberties stemming from the Bush administration's secret terrorism surveillance program, Eisenberg's team had what it claimed to be unequivocal proof: the Document." ... "In 2004, as the Treasury Department was considering whether to include the group on its list of terrorist organizations, Al-Haramain's Washington lawyer, Lynne Bernabei, asked to see the evidence." ... "That's when, in a case of bureaucratic bungling, Treasury officials mistakenly handed over the call log — which has the words "top secret" stamped on every page — along with press clippings and other unclassified documents deemed relevant to the case." ... "Still, the lawyers were unsure what they'd been given until December 2005, when The New York Times published a story exposing the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program. The attorneys involved in the Al-Haramain case suddenly realized that the call log was proof their clients had been eavesdropped on, and they sued." ... "Belew and Ghafoor, the two lawyers whose calls were allegedly intercepted by NSA, appear to be the only U.S. citizens with actual proof that the government eavesdropped on them." -By Paul Elias -AP via -USATODAY

20070803

Electronic - Voting Machine - Election - Hacking - Technology - Secrecy - California - 2008 Elections - Politics - "Virus attack on single e-voting machine could tilt election: Review of Deibold's source code shows an attacker with access to a one electronic voting machine could change the outcome of an election using viruses." ... "Diebold Election Systems voting machines are not secure enough to guarantee a trustworthy election, and an attacker with access to a single machine could disrupt or change the outcome of an election using viruses, according to a review of Diebold's source code." ... ""The software contains serious design flaws that have led directly to specific vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit to affect election outcomes," read the University of California at Berkeley report, commissioned by the California Secretary of State as part of a two-month "top to bottom" review of electronic voting systems certified for use in California." ... "The assessment of Diebold's source code revealed an attacker needs only limited access to compromise an election." ... ""An attack could plausibly be accomplished by a single skilled individual with temporary access to a single voting machine. The damage could be extensive -- malicious code could spread to every voting machine in polling places and to county election servers," it said." ... "The report, titled "Source Code Review of the Diebold Voting System," [PDF] was apparently released Thursday, just one day before California Secretary of State Debra Bowen is to decide which machines are certified for use in California's 2008 presidential primary elections." ... "The source-code review identified four main weaknesses in Diebold's software: vulnerabilities that allow an attacker to install malware on the machines, a failure to guarantee the secrecy of ballots, a lack of controls to prevent election workers from tampering with ballots and results, and susceptibility to viruses that could allow attackers to an influence an election." -By Sumner Lemon -IDG.net via -InfoWorld
Secret - US - World- Intelligence - E-Mail - Communications - Spying - Government - Law - Politics - John A Boehner - Ohio - Illinois - California - New York - "Ruling Limited Spying Efforts: Move to Amend FISA Sparked by Judge's Decision." ... "A federal intelligence court judge earlier this year secretly declared a key element of the [Republican President] Bush administration's wiretapping efforts illegal, according to a lawmaker and government sources, providing a previously unstated rationale for fevered efforts by congressional lawmakers this week to expand the president's spying powers." ... "House Minority Leader [Ohio Republican Representative] John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) disclosed elements of the court's decision in remarks Tuesday to Fox News as he was promoting the administration-backed wiretapping legislation. Boehner has denied revealing classified information, but two government officials privy to the details confirmed that his remarks concerned classified information." ... "The judge, whose name could not be learned, concluded early this year that the government had overstepped its authority in attempting to broadly surveil communications between two locations overseas that are passed through routing stations in the United States, according to two other government sources familiar with the decision." ... "The practical effect has been to block the NSA's [National Security Agency's] efforts to collect information from a large volume of foreign calls and e-mails that passes through U.S. communications nodes clustered around New York and California." ... ""There's been a ruling, over the last four or five months, that prohibits the ability of our intelligence services and our counterintelligence people from listening in to two terrorists in other parts of the world where the communication could come through the United States," Boehner told Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto in a Tuesday interview." ... "Commenting on Boehner's remarks, [Illinois Democratic Representative] Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), the House Democratic Caucus chairman, said yesterday that "John should remember the old adage: Loose lips very much sink ships."" (1, 2) -By Carol D. Leonnig and Ellen Nakashima with contributions by Dan Eggen, Barton Gellman, and Paul Kane -WashingtonPost

20070730

Alberto R Gonzales - Secret - Government - Wiretapping - Torture - Intelligence - Law - Politics - Civil Liberties - Wis - Texas - Maine - "Gonzales's Truthfulness Long Disputed: Claims of Misstatements to Shield [Republican President] Bush Stretch Back a Decade." ... "When Alberto R. Gonzales was asked during his January 2005 confirmation hearing whether the Bush administration would ever allow wiretapping of U.S. citizens without warrants, he initially dismissed the query as a "hypothetical situation."" ... "But when [Wisconsin Democratic Senator] Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) pressed him further, Gonzales declared: "It is not the policy or the agenda of this president to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes."" ... "By then, however, the government had been conducting a secret wiretapping program for more than three years without court oversight, possibly in conflict with federal intelligence laws. Gonzales had personally defended the effort in fierce internal debates. Feingold later called his testimony that day "misleading and deeply troubling."" ... "Over the past 2 1/2 years, lawmakers have accused Gonzales of dissembling on many topics, including civil liberties abuses under the USA Patriot Act and his role in reviewing aggressive interrogation tactics. After a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in February 2006, Gonzales sent the panel a six-page, single-spaced letter to "clarify" six major points of testimony, including his erroneous claim that the Justice Department had never undertaken a legal analysis of domestic wiretapping." ... "Questions about Gonzales's willingness to shade the truth on Bush's behalf came to prominence in the 1996 episode in which Bush was excused from Texas jury duty in a drunken-driving case. Bush was then the state's governor, and Gonzales was his general counsel. If Bush had served, he probably would have had to disclose his own drunken-driving conviction in Maine two decades earlier." ... "The judge, prosecutor and defense attorney involved in the case have said that Gonzales met with the judge and argued that jury service would pose a potential conflict of interest for Bush, who could be asked to pardon the defendant. Gonzales has disputed that account. He made no mention of meeting with the judge in a written statement submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee." (1, 2) -By Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein with contributions by Alice Crites -WashingtonPost

20070727

Secret - Government - Law Enforcement - History - Money - Massachusetts - Death Penalty - Prison - "US ordered to pay $101.7m in false murder convictions: FBI withheld evidence in '65 gangland slaying." ... "A federal judge held the FBI "responsible for the framing of four innocent men" in a 1965 gangland murder in a landmark ruling yesterday and ordered the government to pay the men $101.7 million for the decades they spent in prison. The award is believed to be the largest of its kind nationally." ... "In a decision that was as dramatic as it was stern, US District Judge Nancy Gertner said from the bench that the FBI had deliberately withheld evidence that Peter J. Limone, Joseph Salvati, Louis Greco, and Henry Tameleo were innocent, and that the bureau helped cover up the injustice for decades as the men grew old behind bars and Tameleo and Greco died." ... ""FBI officials up the line allowed their employees to break laws, violate rules, and ruin lives, interrupted only with the occasional burst of applause," said Gertner, berating the FBI for giving commendations and bonuses to the agents who helped send the men to prison for the killing in Chelsea of Edward "Teddy" Deegan, a small-time hoodlum." ... ""Sadly when law enforcement perverts its mission, the criminal justice system does not easily self-correct," Gertner said. "We understand that our system makes mistakes; we have appeals to address them. But this case goes beyond mistakes, beyond unavoidable errors of a fallible system."" ... "She added, "This case is about intentional misconduct, subornation of perjury, conspiracy, the framing of innocent men."" ... "After all four men were convicted July 31, 1968, of Deegan's slaying, Greco, Limone, and Tameleo were sentenced to die in the electric chair. Their sentences were later reduced to life in prison after Massachusetts abolished the death penalty. Salvati was sentenced to life in prison." ... "The discovery of secret FBI files that were never turned over during the men's trial prompted a state judge six years ago to overturn the murder convictions of Limone, who was immediately freed from prison, and Salvati, who was paroled in 1997." -By Shelley Murphy and Brian R. Ballou -Boston/Globe

20070726

Alberto R Gonzales - Secret - Eavesdropping - Intelligence - Law - Politics - "F.B.I. Chief Challenges Gonzales’s Testimony." ... "The dispute over the truthfulness of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales reached a new intensity today as the F.B.I. [Federal Bureau of Investigation ] Director, Robert S. Mueller 3rd, contradicted Mr. Gonzales’s sworn testimony before a Senate committee." ... "Mr. Mueller told the House Judiciary Committee that the [Republican President] Bush administration’s secret eavesdropping program was the main topic at an encounter in the hospital room of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft on March 10, 2004, contrary to what Mr. Gonzales told a Senate panel on Tuesday." ... "At the time, Mr. Gonzales was the White House counsel, and Mr. Ashcroft was recovering from gall bladder surgery. That March night, Mr. Gonzales went to the hospital room with Andrew H. Card Jr., then White House chief of staff." ... "In his testimony before the Senate panel on Tuesday, Mr. Gonzales said the subject in the hospital room was “intelligence activities” under debate in the administration, but not the secret eavesdropping program." ... "But Mr. Mueller contradicted that version of events today, several hours after four Senate Democrats called for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate whether Mr. Gonzales perjured himself before Congress." ... "The conflict in accounts could be significant, because Mr. Gonzales’s critics have accused him of trying to convey the false impression that the N.S.A. [National Security Agency] program had spawned no serious dissension within the Bush administration." ... "But former Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey has testified that Justice Department lawyers were balking at recertifying the program early in 2004 and that he thought Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card rushed to the hospital to persuade Mr. Ashcroft, who was not at full capacity, to overlook his own objections to the program." ... "Mr. Mueller said that after receiving a call from Mr. Comey he went to the hospital, arriving shortly after Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card left, and that after he spoke with Mr. Ashcroft he understood that the N.S.A. program was indeed the focus of the dramatic bedside encounter." (1, 2) -By David Stout -NYTimes
Alberto R Gonzales - Secret - Emergency - Terrorism - Intelligence - Eavesdropping - Law - Enforcement - Politics - "F.B.I. Chief Gives Account at Odds With Gonzales’s." ... "The director of the F.B.I. offered testimony Thursday that sharply conflicted with Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales’s sworn statements about a 2004 confrontation in which top Justice Department officials threatened to resign over a secret intelligence operation." ... "The director, Robert S. Mueller III, told the House Judiciary Committee that the confrontation was about the National Security Agency’s counterterrorist eavesdropping program, describing it as “an N.S.A. program that has been much discussed.” His testimony was a serious blow to Mr. Gonzales, who insisted at a Senate hearing on Tuesday that there were no disagreements inside the [Republican President] Bush administration about the program at the time of those discussions or at any other time." ... "The director’s remarks were especially significant because Mr. Mueller is the Justice Department’s chief law enforcement official. He also played a crucial role in the 2004 dispute over the program, intervening with President Bush to help deal with the threat of mass resignations that grew out of a day of emergency meetings at the White House and at the hospital bedside of John Ashcroft, who was then attorney general." ... "Doubts about Mr. Gonzales’s version of events in March 2004 grew after James B. Comey, the former deputy attorney general, testified in May that he and other Justice Department officials were prepared to resign over legal objections to an intelligence program that appeared to be the N.S.A. program." ... "In addition, in testimony last year, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who was the N.S.A. director when the program started and now heads the Central Intelligence Agency, said the March 2004 meeting involved the Terrorist Surveillance Program." -By David Johnston and Scott Shane -NYTimes

20070723

Secret - Government - Politics - Terrorism - Law - Oregon - "Congressman Denied Access To Post-Attack Continuity Plans." ... "Constituents called [Oregon Democratic Representative] Rep. Peter DeFazio's office, worried there was a conspiracy buried in the classified portion of a White House plan for operating the government after a terrorist attack." ... "As a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, DeFazio, D-Ore., is permitted to enter a secure "bubbleroom'' in the Capitol and examine classified material. So he asked the White House to see the secret documents." ... "On Wednesday, DeFazio got his answer: DENIED." ... ""I just can't believe they're going to deny a member of Congress the right of reviewing how they plan to conduct the government of the United States after a significant terrorist attack,'' DeFazio said." -By Jeff Kosseff -NewHouse.com

20070720

US - Global - Secret - Military - Intelligence - Terrorism - Torture - Prisons - Human Rights - Politics - "Bush bars CIA from using torture, but details remain cloudy." ... "[Republican] President Bush signed an executive order Friday barring the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] from using torture, acts of violence and degrading treatment in the interrogation and detention of terrorism suspects, but human rights experts questioned its scope." ... "While Bush's order broadly outlines what the CIA can and cannot do to prisoners, and sets standards for what the agency must provide in terms of food and shelter for detainees, it says nothing about specific controversial interrogation techniques." ... "Some experts in human-rights law said Bush's order contains "loopholes" that would allow the CIA to continue using aggressive interrogation techniques that others would consider torture." ... "The Bush administration received heavy criticism globally over CIA interrogators using "water-boarding," which simulates drowning, and for allowing the CIA to operate secret prisons in Europe." ... "Some military and intelligence officials dispute that harsh interrogations have produced useful intelligence, contending that detainees will say whatever interrogators want to hear to stop their suffering. Moreover, they worry that U.S. military and intelligence officers will be subject to the same procedures if captured." -By William Douglas and Jonathan S. Landay -McClatchyDC.com

20070718

Secret - US - Philippines - Dick Cheney - Leandro Aragoncillo - Government - Military - Intelligence - Politics - "Ex-Cheney aide gets 10 years in prison in spy case." ... "A former White House official who took top secret documents from U.S. [Republican] Vice President Dick Cheney's office and gave them to opposition figures in the Philippines was sentenced on Wednesday to 10 years in prison." ... "Philippine-born Leandro Aragoncillo, a U.S. citizen and former Marine, pleaded guilty last year to taking the documents that included details on threats against U.S. government interests and military personnel in the Philippines." ... "Prosecutors told the court Aragoncillo used a fax machine in Cheney's office to send documents to the Philippines. They said up to 800 classified documents had been compromised by Aragoncillo, as well as the name of a U.S. government source." (1, 2) -By Edith Honan -Reuters

20070714

Pat Tillman - Secret - Government - Military - Media - Politics - Sports - People - "White House Denies Request for Documents in Ex-NFL Player's Death." ... "The [Republican President Bush] White House has refused to give Congress documents about the death of former NFL player Pat Tillman, with White House counsel Fred F. Fielding saying that certain papers relating to discussion of the friendly-fire shooting "implicate Executive Branch confidentiality interests."" ... "The military at first concocted a heroic story about how Tillman, a specialist posthumously promoted to corporal, had been killed in a fierce firefight with the enemy, despite obvious evidence that he had been shot by his own men at close range." -By Josh White -WashingtonPost

20070710

Secret - Alberto R Gonzales - Civil Liberties - Surveillance - Law - Phone - Internet - Finances - Terrorism - Intelligence - Politics - "Gonzales Was Told of FBI Violations: After Bureau Sent Reports, Attorney General Said He Knew of No Wrongdoing." ... "As he sought to renew the USA Patriot Act two years ago, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured lawmakers that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers. "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse," Gonzales told senators on April 27, 2005." ... "Six days earlier, the FBI sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information that they were not entitled to have. It was one of at least half a dozen reports of legal or procedural violations that Gonzales received in the three months before he made his statement to the Senate intelligence committee, according to internal FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act." ... "The acts recounted in the FBI reports included unauthorized surveillance, an illegal property search and a case in which an Internet firm improperly turned over a compact disc with data that the FBI was not entitled to collect, the documents show. Gonzales was copied on each report that said administrative rules or laws protecting civil liberties and privacy had been violated." ... "The reports also alerted Gonzales in 2005 to problems with the FBI's use of an anti-terrorism tool known as a national security letter (NSL), well before the Justice Department's inspector general brought widespread abuse of the letters in 2004 and 2005 to light in a stinging report this past March." ... "The report sent to Gonzales on April 21, 2005, concerned a violation of the rules governing NSLs, which allow agents in counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations to secretly gather Americans' phone, bank and Internet records without a court order or a grand jury subpoena." (1, 2) -By John Solomon -WashingtonPost

20070706

Secret - US - Foreign - Government - Intelligence - Surveillance - Journalists - Academics - Telephone - Internet- Civil Liberties - Law - Politics - Michigan - "Court orders dismissal of U.S. wiretapping lawsuit: A divided appeals court says plaintiffs weren't harmed by surveillance program." ... "A U.S. appeals court has ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit against the U.S. National Security Agency for a wiretapping program because it said the plaintiffs haven't been hurt by the agency's actions." ... "A divided three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled today that the lawsuit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and a group of journalists, lawyers and academics, be sent back to a district court judge to be dismissed. In August 2006, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan ruled the NSA program, which monitored telephone and Internet communications without court-ordered warrants, was illegal." ... "Judge Ronald Lee Gilman disagreed with the two-judge majority, arguing that the NSA program violates FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court], which establishes wiretapping procedures, including warrants. "When faced with the clear wording of FISA ... the conclusion becomes inescapable that [the program] was unlawful," he wrote." ... "The appeals court ruled that the plaintiffs could not sue because they can't prove they were affected by the program, and at the same time, ruled that details about the program, including who was targeted, are state secrets." (1, 2) -By Grant Gross -Computerworld

20070705

Environmental - Safety - Secrecy - Business - Law - Tenn - "Secrecy Shrouds Accident at Nuclear Plant." ... "A factory that makes uranium fuel for nuclear reactors had a spill so bad that it kept the plant closed for seven months last year and became one of only three incidents in all of 2006 serious enough for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to include in an annual report to Congress. After an investigation, the commission changed the terms of the factory’s license and said that the public had 20 days to request a hearing on the changes." ... "But no member of the public ever did. In fact, no member of the public could find out about the changes. The document describing them, including the notice of hearing rights for anyone who felt adversely affected, was stamped “official use only,” meaning that it was not publicly accessible. “Official use only” is a category below “Secret” and, while documents in that category are not technically classified, they are kept from the public." ... "The agency would not even have told Congress which factory was involved were it not for the efforts of one of the five commissioners, Gregory B. Jaczko, who named the company, Nuclear Fuel Services, of Erwin, Tenn., in a memo that became part of the public record." -By Matthew L. Wald -NYTimes

20070628

Dick Cheney - Secret - Electronic - Communications - Surveillance - Terrorism - Politics - Vermont - Civil Liberties - Enforcement - "Bush won't supply subpoenaed documents." ... "The Senate committee investigating the Bush administration's controversial domestic wiretapping program subpoenaed the [Republican President Bush] White House, Vice President Dick Cheney's office and the Justice Department today for information regarding their legal justification for the warrantless secret surveillance." ... "The subpoenas by the Judiciary Committee set the stage for another legal and political battle between Senate Democrats and the administration over its counter-terrorism and law enforcement policies. Earlier subpoenas issued by Democratic lawmakers to current and former White House officials have essentially been ignored." ... "[Democratic Vermont Senator Patrick] Leahy noted that the Judiciary Committee was charged with oversight of the executive branch in the areas of constitutional protections and the civil liberties of Americans. "The warrantless electronic surveillance program directly impacts those responsibilities," Leahy wrote. "We cannot conduct this oversight without knowing the legal arguments the administration has used to justify interception of the communications of Americans without a warrant."" -By Terence Hunt -LAtimes
US - International - Dick Cheney - Secret - Military - Surveillance- Telecommunications - E-Mail - Companies - Intelligence - Law - History - Politics - "Panel pushes for files on spy program: White House, Cheney get subpoenas." ... "The Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday issued subpoenas to the Bush administration for documents related to its warrantless surveillance program, elevating a long-simmering dispute between Congress and the [Republican] White House over classified national-security information into a possible constitutional showdown." ... "Specifically, the committee is seeking documents related to White House authorization and reauthorization of the warrantless surveillance program, internal memos analyzing whether the surveillance is legal, agreements with telecommunications companies that assisted in the spying, orders by a secret national-security court regarding the program, and papers concerning [Republican] President Bush's decision to shut down an in-house Justice Department investigation related to the program." ... "The program dates to the weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when [Republican President George] Bush signed an order authorizing the military's National Security Agency to monitor Americans' international phone calls and e-mails without a judge's approval." ... "A 1978 statute makes it a felony to conduct such surveillance without a warrant, but the president's legal team secretly asserted that his wartime powers include an unwritten right to bypass such laws at his own discretion. Cheney and his counsel, David Addington , were the leading proponents of the program and the controversial legal theory supporting it, former administration lawyers have said." ... "The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, which polices compliance with legal ethics, opened an investigation into whether department lawyers knowingly signed off on a faulty interpretation of the law to give the program legal cover. But Bush shut down the investigation by refusing to grant the office security clearance." -By Charlie Savage -Boston/Globe

20070626

Dick Cheney - Secrets - Intelligence- Government - Money - Law - "Democrats Target Cheney's Office Funds." ... "House Democrats, responding to Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that his office is exempt from certain national security disclosure requirements, said Tuesday they will try to strip his office's funding." ... "Cheney set off protests from Democrats when he declared that his office was exempt from sections of a presidential order that executive branch offices provide data on how much material they classify and declassify. The White House agreed, saying that Cheney's office was exempt from the reporting order because it was not intended to treat the vice president's office as an executive branch "agency."" -AP via -CBSNews

20070624

Dick Cheney - Government - Secrets - Military - Terrorism - Law - Politics - Intelligence - "'A Different Understanding With the President'." ... "In roles that have gone largely undetected, Cheney has served as gatekeeper for Supreme Court nominees, referee of Cabinet turf disputes, arbiter of budget appeals, editor of tax proposals and regulator in chief of water flows in his native West." ... "The vice president's reputation and, some say, his influence, have suffered in the past year and a half. Cheney lost his closest aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to a perjury conviction, and his onetime mentor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, in a Cabinet purge. A shooting accident in Texas, and increasing gaps between his rhetoric and events in Iraq, have exposed him to ridicule and approval ratings in the teens." ... "Waxing or waning, Cheney holds his purchase on an unrivaled portfolio across the executive branch." ... "Cheney preferred, and Bush approved, a mandate that gave him access to "every table and every meeting," making his voice heard in "whatever area the vice president feels he wants to be active in," Bolten said." ... "Other recent vice presidents have enjoyed a standing invitation to join the president at "policy time." But Cheney's interventions have also come in the president's absence, at Cabinet and sub-Cabinet levels where his predecessors were seldom seen. He found pressure points and changed the course of events by "reaching down," a phrase that recurs often in interviews with current and former aides." ... "Stealth is among Cheney's most effective tools. Man-size Mosler safes, used elsewhere in government for classified secrets, store the workaday business of the office of the vice president. Even talking points for reporters are sometimes stamped "Treated As: Top Secret/SCI." Experts in and out of government said Cheney's office appears to have invented that designation, which alludes to "sensitive compartmented information," the most closely guarded category of government secrets. By adding the words "treated as," they said, Cheney seeks to protect unclassified work as though its disclosure would cause "exceptionally grave damage to national security."" ... "Across the board, the vice president's office goes to unusual lengths to avoid transparency. Cheney declines to disclose the names or even the size of his staff, generally releases no public calendar and ordered the Secret Service to destroy his visitor logs. His general counsel has asserted that "the vice presidency is a unique office that is neither a part of the executive branch nor a part of the legislative branch," and is therefore exempt from rules governing either. Cheney is refusing to observe an executive order on the handling of national security secrets, and he proposed to abolish a federal office that insisted on auditing his compliance." ... "More than any one man in the months to come, Cheney freed Bush to fight the "war on terror" as he saw fit, animated by their shared belief that al-Qaeda's destruction would require what the vice president called "robust interrogation" to extract intelligence from captured suspects. With a small coterie of allies, Cheney supplied the rationale and political muscle to drive far-reaching legal changes through the White House, the Justice Department and the Pentagon." ... "The way he did it -- adhering steadfastly to principle, freezing out dissent and discounting the risks of blow-back -- turned tactical victory into strategic defeat. By late last year, the Supreme Court had dealt three consecutive rebuffs to his claim of nearly unchecked authority for the commander in chief, setting precedents that will bind Bush's successors." ... "Yet even as Bush was forced into public retreats, an examination of subsequent events suggests that Cheney has quietly held his ground. Most of his operational agenda, in practice if not in principle, remains in place." -By Barton Gellman and Jo Becker -WashingtonPost

20070622

Dick Cheney - Secrecy - Intelligence - Archives - Law - Enforcement - Politics - Government - Calif - "Cheney Defiant on Classified Material: Executive Order Ignored Since 2003." ... "[Republican] Vice President Cheney's office has refused to comply with an executive order governing the handling of classified information for the past four years and recently tried to abolish the office that sought to enforce those rules, according to documents released by a congressional committee yesterday." ... "Since 2003, the vice president's staff has not cooperated with an office at the National Archives and Records Administration charged with making sure the executive branch protects classified information. Cheney aides have not filed reports on their possession of classified data and at one point blocked an inspection of their office. After the Archives office pressed the matter, the documents say, Cheney's staff this year proposed eliminating it." ... "The aggressive efforts to protect the operations of his staff have usually pitted Cheney against lawmakers, interest groups or media organizations, sometimes going all the way to the Supreme Court. But the fight about classified information regulation indicates that the vice president has resisted oversight even by other parts of the Bush administration. Cheney's office argued that it is exempt from the rules in this case because it is not strictly an executive branch agency." ... ""He's saying he's above the law," said [California Democratic Representative] Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which released a series of correspondence yesterday outlining the situation. "It just seems to me this is arrogant and shows bad judgment."" -By Peter Baker -WashingtonPost
Dick Cheney - Secret - Intelligence - Archives - Law - Politics - "Congressman: Cheney challenges classified oversight." ... "[Republican] Vice President Dick Cheney's office refused to cooperate with an agency that oversees classified documents, then tried to abolish the office when it challenged the actions, House oversight committee Chairman Henry Waxman said." ... "The National Archives' Information Security Oversight Office is charged by presidential order with ensuring that classified information and documents are properly handled by executive branch agencies." ... ""I question both the legality and wisdom of your actions," [California Democratic Representative Henry] Waxman, D-California, wrote in a letter Thursday to Cheney." ... ""Your decision to exempt your office from the president's order is problematic because it could place national security at risk," wrote Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee." -Contributed to by Adam Levine and Suzanne Malveaux -CNN
Dick Cheney - I Lewis Libby Jr - Secrets - Intelligence - Government - Archives - Law - Enforcement - Politics - Leandro Aragoncillo - Philippines - California - "Cheney in Dispute on Oversight of His Office." ... "For four years, [Republican] Vice President Dick Cheney has resisted routine oversight of his office’s handling of classified information, and when the office in charge of overseeing classification in the executive branch objected, the vice president’s office suggested that the oversight office be shut down, according to documents released today by a Democratic congressman." ... "The oversight office, a unit of the National Archives, appealed the issue to the Justice Department, which has not yet ruled on the matter." ... "The archives’ division that oversees classification and declassification, the Information Security Oversight Office, is an obscure part of the federal bureaucracy." ... "[California Democratic Representative Henry] Mr. Waxman asserted both in his letter and the interview that Mr. Cheney’s office should take the efforts of the National Archives especially seriously because it has had problems protecting secrets." ... "He noted that the vice president’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying to a grand jury and the F.B.I. [Federal Bureau of Investigation] during an investigation of the leak of classified information — the secret status of Valerie Wilson, the wife of a [Republican President] Bush administration critic, as an undercover Central Intelligence Agency officer." ... "He added that in May 2006 a former aide in Mr. Cheney’s office, Leandro Aragoncillo, pleaded guilty to passing classified information to plotters trying to overthrown the president of the Philippines." ... "“Your office may have the worst record in the executive branch for safeguarding classified information,” Mr. Waxman wrote to Mr. Cheney." (1, 2) -By Scott Shane -NYTimes

20070621

Dick Cheney - Government - Intelligence- Secrets - Archives - Law - Politics - California - "Waxman decries Cheney security exemption." ... "House Democrats on Thursday denounced [Republican] Vice President Dick Cheney's idea of abolishing a government office charged with safeguarding national security information — and criticized him for refusing to cooperate with the agency." ... "Cheney's office — over the objections of the National Archives — has exempted itself from a presidential executive order that seeks to protect national security information generated by the government, according to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform." ... "Cheney's office provided the information in 2001 and 2002, then stopped. [California Democratic Representative] Henry Waxman, chairman of the committee, said Cheney's office claims it need not comply with the executive order because it is not an "entity within the executive branch."" -By Deb Riechmann -AP via -Yahoo
Dick Cheney - Government - Intelligence - Secrets - Law - Politics - Calif - "Cheney Power Grab: Says White House Rules Don't Apply to Him." ... "[Republican] Vice President Dick Cheney has asserted his office is not a part of the executive branch of the U.S. government, and therefore not bound by a presidential order governing the protection of classified information by government agencies, according to a new letter from [California Democratic Representative] Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., to Cheney." ... "Bill Leonard, head of the government's Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), told Waxman's staff that Cheney's office has refused to provide his staff with details regarding classified documents or submit to a routine inspection as required by presidential order, according to Waxman." ... "As director of the tiny, 25-person Information Security Oversight Office, Leonard is responsible for keeping track of the nation's secrets and making sure they are properly protected." -By Justin Rood Reports -ABCNEWS.com

20070613

Secretive - Harriet E Miers - Karl Rove - Sara M Taylor - D Kyle Sampson - Gonzales - US Attorneys - Law - E-Mail - Calif - "Bush Aides Helped Respond to Firings, E-Mails Show." ... "Several high-ranking White House officials were closely involved in crafting a public response to the uproar over the firing of a group of U.S. attorneys, according to documents released late yesterday." ... "Then-White House counsel Harriet E. Miers and aides to presidential adviser Karl Rove were deeply enmeshed in debates over how to respond to the controversy as early as mid-January, when [California Democratic Senator] Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) questioned the spate of prosecutor departures in a Senate floor speech, according to e-mails that the Justice Department turned over to the House and Senate judiciary committees." ... "The 46 pages of e-mails show that Miers and others --including her deputy, William Kelley, and the White House political affairs director at the time, Sara M. Taylor -- were involved in spirited and sometimes angry e-mail exchanges as the secretive firings operation began to unravel in public. Many of the exchanges also included D. Kyle Sampson, who coordinated the firings as Gonzales's chief of staff." -By Dan Eggen -WashingtonPost

20070608

Secret - US - Iraq - Intelligence - Religious - Terrorism - Military - Politics - Indiana - "Nominee to Coordinate War Offers Grim Forecast on Iraq: General's Appraisal Echoes Secret Intelligence Findings." ... "President Bush's nominee to be war czar said yesterday that conditions in Iraq have not improved significantly despite the influx of U.S. troops in recent months and predicted that, absent major political reform, violence will continue to rage over the next year." ... "Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, tapped by Bush to serve as a new high-powered White House coordinator of the war, told senators at a confirmation hearing that Iraqi factions "have shown so far very little progress" toward the reconciliation necessary to stem the bloodshed. If that does not change, he said, "we're not likely to see much difference in the security situation" a year from now." ... "Lute's dour assessment mirrored the views of U.S. intelligence officials, who told the Senate Armed Services Committee in a closed session last month that trends in Iraq remain negative and that the prospect for political movement by the nation's feuding Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds appears marginal. The secret intelligence conclusions were disclosed during yesterday's hearing by [Indiana Democratic Senator] Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and confirmed by a Republican official." ... "The conclusions largely tracked the findings of the last National Intelligence Estimate, released in January, before Bush announced his decision to send nearly 30,000 more troops to Iraq, suggesting that the intelligence community does not think the force buildup has changed the outlook nearly five months later. Bayh quoted a CIA expert on radical Islam as saying that "our presence in Iraq is creating more members of al-Qaeda than we are killing in Iraq," though it was unclear whether that came during the May 24 briefing." -By Peter Baker and Karen DeYoung -WashingtonPost
Secret - US - Poland - Romania - Germany - Italy - Egypt - Military - Intelligence - Terrorism - Torture - Prisons - Human Rights - Law - Politics - "CIA jails in Europe 'confirmed'." ... "A Council of Europe investigator says he has evidence to prove the CIA ran secret jails in Poland and Romania to interrogate "war on terror" suspects." ... "Dick Marty, a Swiss senator, has been investigating CIA operations on behalf of the European human rights body." ... "In his new report, released on Friday, Mr Marty says secret CIA prisons "did exist in Europe from 2003 to 2005, in particular in Poland and Romania"." ... "The governments of both countries have strongly denied any involvement. A spokesman for the CIA told the BBC that "the CIA's counter-terror operations have been lawful, effective, closely reviewed, and of benefit to many people -including Europeans - by disrupting plots and saving lives"." ... "Mr Marty says he drew on multiple sources and used his own intelligence methods to investigate the CIA's "extraordinary renditions", the process under which terror suspects were transported around the world for interrogation." ... ""Some European governments have obstructed the search for the truth and are continuing to do so by invoking the concept of 'state secrets'.... This criticism applies to Germany and Italy, in particular," he said." ... "His report came as the first criminal trial over the CIA "extraordinary renditions" opened in Italy. Twenty-five CIA agents and a US Air Force colonel are on trial in their absence, accused of kidnapping an Egyptian terror suspect and sending him to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured." -BBC/News
Secret - US - Poland - Romania - Military - Terrorism - Torture - Prisons - Law - Airspace - Politics - "Report claims US ran secret prisons in Europe." ... "The CIA ran secret prisons in Poland and Romania from 2003 to 2005 where terrorism suspects could be interrogated free of US legal restraints, a Council of Europe investigation concluded today." ... "It revealed that Abu Zubaydah, believed to be a senior al-Qaida member, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks, were held and interrogated in Poland." ... "None of the prisoners had access to the Red Cross and many were subjected to what [Republican President] George Bush has called the CIA's "enhanced" interrogation, which critics have condemned as torture." ... "The report said that within weeks of the 9/11 attacks, Nato signed an agreement with the US that allowed civilian jets used by the CIA during its so-called extraordinary rendition programme to move across member states' airspace." ... "Dick Marty, a Swiss senator who ran the investigation, said in his report that the "the highest state authorities were aware of the CIA's illegal activities on their territories"." ... "Politicians from Poland and Romania, as well as a spokesman for the CIA, have rejected the findings of the investigation." -By Fred Attewill -Guardian.co.uk

20070607

Cheney - Secret - Surveillance - Politics - Phone - E-Mail- United States - - Intelligence - Liberty - Law - Health - "Official: Cheney Urged Wiretaps: Stand-In for Ashcroft Alleges Interference." ... "[Republican] Vice President Cheney told Justice Department officials that he disagreed with their objections to a secret surveillance program during a high-level White House meeting in March 2004, a former senior Justice official told senators yesterday." ... "The meeting came one day before White House officials tried to get approval for the same program from then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, who lay recovering from surgery in a hospital, according to former deputy attorney general James B. Comey." ... "Comey's disclosures, made in response to written questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, indicate that Cheney and his aides were more closely involved than previously known in a fierce internal battle over the legality of the warrantless surveillance program. The program allowed the National Security Agency to monitor phone calls and e-mails between the United States and overseas." ... "Comey said that Cheney's office later blocked the promotion of a senior Justice Department lawyer, Patrick Philbin, because of his role in raising concerns about the surveillance." ... "The disclosures also provide further details about the role played by then-White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales. He visited Ashcroft in his hospital room and wrote an internal memorandum on the surveillance program shortly afterward, according to Comey's responses. Gonzales is now the attorney general." ... ""Mr. Comey has confirmed what we suspected for a while -- that White House hands guided Justice Department business," said Sen. [New York Democratic Senator] Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). "The vice president's fingerprints are all over the effort to strong-arm Justice on the NSA program, and the obvious next question is: Exactly what role did the president play?"" (1, 2) -By Dan Eggen with contributions by Amy Goldstein -WashingtonPost

20070601

Secret - I Lewis Libby - Dick Cheney - Government - Military - Intelligence - Employee - Free Speech - Book - Politics - New York - "Plame Sues C.I.A. for Blocking Her Memoir." ... "Valerie Wilson [nee Plame], the former intelligence operative at the heart of an investigation that reached into the White House, sued the Central Intelligence Agency in federal court in New York yesterday over its refusal to allow her to publish a memoir that would discuss how long she had worked for the agency." ... "Although that information is set out in an unclassified letter to Ms. Wilson that has been published in the Congressional Record, the C.I.A. contends that her dates of service remain classified and may not be mentioned in “Fair Game,” the memoir Ms. Wilson hopes to publish in October." ... "The letter [published in the Congressional Record] said that Ms. Wilson had worked for the government since Nov. 9, 1985, for a total of “20 years, 7 days,” including “six years, one month and 29 days of overseas service.”" ... "The C.I.A. has been adamant in refusing to confirm the dates or details of Ms. Wilson’s service before 2002. In July 2003, the syndicated columnist Robert Novak disclosed her identity as “an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction.” Mr. Novak referred to Ms. Wilson by her maiden name, Valerie Plame." ... "The investigation into that disclosure led to the conviction of I. Lewis Libby Jr., formerly [Republican] Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, on perjury and obstruction of justice charges in March." ... "On Friday, the special prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, submitted an unclassified summary of Ms. Wilson’s “C.I.A. employment and cover history” to the judge who will sentence Mr. Libby." ... "The summary said that Ms. Wilson was a covert C.I.A. employee at the time of Mr. Novak’s disclosure. Between the beginning of 2002 and Ms. Wilson’s resignation from the agency at the end of 2005, the summary said, she traveled overseas “under a cover identity, sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias” at least “seven times to more than 10 countries.”" -By Adam Liptak -NYTimes

20070529

Dick Cheney - I Lewis Libby - Political - Secrecy - Media - Government - Intelligence - Employment - Law - Opinion - "Fitzgerald Again Points to Cheney." ... "Special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald has made it clearer than ever that he was hot on the trail of a coordinated campaign to out CIA agent Valerie Plame until that line of investigation was cut off by the repeated lies from [Republican] Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby." ... "Libby was convicted in February [correction: March] of perjury and obstruction of justice. Fitzgerald filed a memo on Friday asking U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, who will sentence Libby next week, to put him in prison for at least two and a half years." ... "Despite all the public interest in the case, Fitzgerald has repeatedly asserted that grand-jury secrecy rules prohibit him from being more forthcoming about either the course of his investigation or any findings beyond those he disclosed to make the case against Libby. But when his motives have been attacked during court proceedings, Fitzgerald has occasionally shown flashes of anger -- and has hinted that he and his investigative team suspected more malfeasance at higher levels of government than they were able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt." ... "In Friday's eminently readable court filing [PDF], Fitzgerald quotes the Libby defense calling his prosecution "unwarranted, unjust, and motivated by politics." In responding to that charge, the special counsel evidently felt obliged to put Libby's crime in context. And that context is Dick Cheney." ... "Libby's lies, Fitzgerald wrote, "made impossible an accurate evaluation of the role that Mr. Libby and those with whom he worked played in the disclosure of information regarding Ms. Wilson's CIA employment and about the motivations for their actions."" ... "It was established at trial that it was Cheney himself who first told Libby about Plame's identity as a CIA agent, in the course of complaining about criticisms of the administration's run-up to war leveled by her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. And, as Fitzgerald notes: "The evidence at trial further established that when the investigation began, Mr. Libby kept the Vice President [Dick Cheney] apprised of his shifting accounts of how he claimed to have learned about Ms. Wilson's CIA employment."" ... "The investigation, Fitzgerald writes, "was necessary to determine whether there was concerted action by any combination of the officials known to have disclosed the information about Ms. Plame to the media as anonymous sources, and also whether any of those who were involved acted at the direction of others. This was particularly important in light of Mr. Libby's statement to the FBI that he may have discussed Ms. Wilson's employment with reporters at the specific direction of the Vice President [Dick Cheney]." (My [Froomkin's] italics.)" ... "Not clear on the concept yet? Fitzgerald adds: "To accept the argument that Mr. Libby's prosecution is the inappropriate product of an investigation that should have been closed at an early stage, one must accept the proposition that the investigation should have been closed after at least three high-ranking government officials were identified as having disclosed to reporters classified information about covert agent Valerie Wilson, where the account of one of them was directly contradicted by other witnesses, where there was reason to believe that some of the relevant activity may have been coordinated, and where there was an indication from Mr. Libby himself that his disclosures to the press may have been personally sanctioned by the Vice President [Dick Cheney]." (My [Froomkin's] italics.)" (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) -By Dan Froomkin -WashingtonPost
I Lewis Libby - Dick Cheney - Political - Media - Secret - Government - Intelligence - Employee - Law - "Plame was ‘covert’ agent at time of name leak: Newly released unclassified document details CIA employment." ... "An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame's employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was "covert" when her name became public in July 2003." ... "The summary is part of an attachment to Fitzgerald's memorandum to the court supporting his recommendation that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, [Republican] Vice President Cheney's former top aide, spend 2-1/2 to 3 years in prison for obstructing the CIA leak investigation." ... "The unclassified summary of Plame's employment with the CIA at the time that syndicated columnist Robert Novak published her name on July 14, 2003 says, "Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for who the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States."" ... "Plame worked as an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations and was assigned to the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) in January 2002 at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia." ... "The employment history indicates that while she was assigned to CPD, Plame, "engaged in temporary duty travel overseas on official business." The report says, "she traveled at least seven times to more than ten times." When overseas Plame traveled undercover, "sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias -- but always using cover -- whether official or non-official (NOC) -- with no ostensible relationship to the CIA."" -By Joel Seidman -MSNBC
"Read Plame employment report (pdf)." [Legal document recognizing Valerie Plame's secret government intelligence employment.] via -MSNBC
Cheney - Abramoff - Secret - Archives - Lawsuit - Religious - Politics - "Lawyer: Cheney visitor logs not recorded." ... "A lawyer for Vice President Dick Cheney told the Secret Service in September to eliminate data on who visited Cheney at his official residence, a newly disclosed letter states. The Sept. 13, 2006, letter from Cheney's lawyer says logs for Cheney's residence on the grounds of the Naval Observatory are subject to the Presidential Records Act." ... "Such a designation prevents the public from learning who visited the vice president." ... "The Justice Department filed the letter Friday in a lawsuit by a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, seeking the identities of conservative religious leaders who visited Cheney at his official residence." ... ""The latest filings make clear that the administration has been destroying documents and entering into secret agreements in violation of the law," said Anne Weismann, CREW's chief counsel." ... "The letter regarding the vice president's residence was in addition to an agreement quietly signed between the White House and the Secret Service a year ago when questions were raised about visits to the executive compound by convicted influence peddler Jack Abramoff." -By Pete Yost -AP via -USATODAY

20070520

Australia - US - Guantanamo Bay - Cuba - Military - Terrorism - Secrecy - Politics - War Crimes - History - "Australian Guantánamo detainee back home." ... "The first Guantánamo Bay inmate convicted of supporting terrorism by a US military court returned to Australia on Sunday under a veil of secrecy, but “elated” to serve out his remaining sentence at home." ... "A government-chartered executive jet bringing David Hicks from the US enclave prison in Cuba landed at an Australian military base in Adelaide, where a convoy of elite police whisked him to jail in a blacked-out police van." ... "Mr Hicks’s return was cloaked in secrecy on government orders after an intense public campaign that damaged prime minister John Howard’s standing ahead of an election due later this year." ... "Polls have showed slipping support for Mr Howard, who has been accused of indifference over Mr Hicks’s case, despite a five-year struggle by family, friends and the public to bring him home." ... "Under a deal with US prosecutors, most of his sentence was suspended and he will be free on December 29, 2007." ... "Mr Hicks was the first person convicted by a US war crimes tribunal since World War Two and the first of hundreds of foreign captives held at the Guantánamo Bay to face a military trial." -Reuters via -FT.com

20070517

Noteworthy - Secret - US - World - Military - Torture - Prison - War Crimes - Law - History - Terrorism - Politics - 2008 Election - "It's Our Cage, Too: Torture Betrays Us and Breeds New Enemies." [by "Charles C. Krulak was commandant of the Marine Corps from 1995 to 1999. Joseph P. Hoar was commander in chief of U.S. Central Command from 1991 to 1994."] ... "Fear can be a strong motivator. It led Franklin Roosevelt to intern tens of thousands of innocent U.S. citizens during World War II; it led to Joseph McCarthy's witch hunt, which ruined the lives of hundreds of Americans. And it led the United States to adopt a policy at the highest levels that condoned and even authorized torture of prisoners in our custody." ... "Fear is the justification offered for this policy by former CIA director George Tenet as he promotes his new book. Tenet oversaw the secret CIA interrogation program in which torture techniques euphemistically called "waterboarding," "sensory deprivation," "sleep deprivation" and "stress positions" -- conduct we used to call war crimes -- were used. In defending these abuses, Tenet revealed: "Everybody forgets one central context of what we lived through: the palpable fear that we felt on the basis of the fact that there was so much we did not know."" ... "The American people are understandably fearful about another attack like the one we sustained on Sept. 11, 2001. But it is the duty of the commander in chief to lead the country away from the grip of fear, not into its grasp. Regrettably, at Tuesday night's presidential debate in South Carolina, several Republican candidates revealed a stunning failure to understand this most basic obligation. Indeed, among the candidates, only John McCain demonstrated that he understands the close connection between our security and our values as a nation." ... "The torture methods that Tenet defends have nurtured the recuperative power of the enemy. This war will be won or lost not on the battlefield but in the minds of potential supporters who have not yet thrown in their lot with the enemy. If we forfeit our values by signaling that they are negotiable in situations of grave or imminent danger, we drive those undecideds into the arms of the enemy. This way lies defeat, and we are well down the road to it." ... "This is not just a lesson for history. Right now, White House lawyers are working up new rules that will govern what CIA interrogators can do to prisoners in secret. Those rules will set the standard not only for the CIA but also for what kind of treatment captured American soldiers can expect from their captors, now and in future wars. Before the president once again approves a policy of official cruelty, he should reflect on that." ... "It is time for us to remember who we are and approach this enemy with energy, judgment and confidence that we will prevail. That is the path to security, and back to ourselves." -By Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar -WashingtonPost

20070516

Alberto Gonzales - Secret - Intelligence - Surveillance - Law - Enforcement - Politics - "Gonzales Hospital Episode Detailed: Ailing Ashcroft Pressured on Spy Program, Former Deputy Says." ... "On the night of March 10, 2004, as Attorney General John D. Ashcroft lay ill in an intensive-care unit, his deputy, James B. Comey, received an urgent call." ... "White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales and President Bush's chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., were on their way to the hospital to persuade Ashcroft to reauthorize Bush's domestic surveillance program, which the Justice Department had just determined was illegal." ... "In vivid testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Comey said he alerted FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and raced, sirens blaring, to join Ashcroft in his hospital room, arriving minutes before Gonzales and Card. Ashcroft, summoning the strength to lift his head and speak, refused to sign the papers they had brought. Gonzales and Card, who had never acknowledged Comey's presence in the room, turned and left." ... "The sickbed visit was the start of a dramatic showdown between the White House and the Justice Department in early 2004 that, according to Comey, was resolved only when Bush overruled Gonzales and Card. But that was not before Ashcroft, Comey, Mueller and their aides prepared a mass resignation, Comey said. The domestic spying by the National Security Agency continued for several weeks without Justice approval, he said." ... "The crisis in March 2004 stemmed from a review of the program by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, which raised "concerns as to our ability to certify its legality," according to Comey's testimony. Ashcroft was briefed on the findings on March 4 and agreed that changes needed to be made, Comey said." (1, 2) -By Dan Eggen and Paul Kane with contributions by Julie Tate -WashingtonPost

20070515

Alberto Gonzales - Secret - Intelligence- Surveillance - Law - Enforcement - Politics - "Gonzales Pressed Ailing Ashcroft on Spy Plan, Aide Says." ... "On the night of March 10, 2004, a high-ranking Justice Department official rushed to a Washington hospital to prevent two White House aides from taking advantage of the critically ill Attorney General, John Ashcroft, the official testified today." ... "One of those aides was Alberto R. Gonzales, who was then White House counsel and eventually succeeded Mr. Ashcroft as Attorney General." ... "“I was very upset,” said James B. Comey, who was deputy Attorney General at the time, in his testimony today before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I was angry. I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me.”" ... "The hospital visit by Mr. Gonzales and Andrew H. Card Jr., who was then White House chief of staff, has been disclosed before, but never in such dramatic, personal detail." ... "Although Mr. Comey declined to say specifically what the business was that sent Mr. Gonzales to the bedside of Mr. Ashcroft in George Washington University Hospital, where he lay critically ill with pancreatitis, it was clear that the subject was the National Security Agency’s secret domestic surveillance program. The signature of Mr. Ashcroft or his surrogate was needed by the next day, March 11, in order to renew the program, which was still secret at that time." ... "The surveillance program was reauthorized on March 11, 2004, without a signature from the Department of Justice “attesting to its legality,” Mr. Comey testified." -By David Stout -NYTimes

20070504

Cunningham - Renzi - Gibbons - Jerry Lewis - Miers - Sampson - Griffin - Rove - Noteworthy - Secret - US Attorneys - Law - Money - Politics - Los Angeles - California - Arizona - Nevada - Arkansas - "The U.S. Attorney, the G.O.P. Congressman and the Timely Job Offer." ... "There is yet another United States attorney whose abrupt departure from office is raising questions: Debra Wong Yang of Los Angeles [California]." ... "Carol Lam, the United States attorney in San Diego [California], was fired after she put [California Republican Representative] Randy Cunningham, known as Duke, in prison. Paul Charlton, in Arizona, was dismissed while he was investigating [Arizona Republican Representative] Rick Renzi. Dan Bogden, in Nevada, was fired while he was reportedly investigating [Republican] Jim Gibbons, a congressman who was elected [Nevada] governor last year." ... "Ms. Yang was investigating [California Republican Representative] Jerry Lewis, who was chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee." ... "Ms. Yang says she left for personal reasons, but there is growing evidence that the White House was intent on removing her. Kyle Sampson, the Justice Department staff member in charge of the firings, told investigators last month in still-secret testimony that Harriet Miers, the White House counsel at the time, had asked him more than once about Ms. Yang. He testified, according to Congressional sources, that as late as mid-September, Ms. Miers wanted to know whether Ms. Yang could be made to resign. Mr. Sampson reportedly recalled that Ms. Miers was focused on just two United States attorneys: Ms. Yang and Bud Cummins, the Arkansas prosecutor who was later fired to make room for Tim Griffin, a Republican political operative and Karl Rove protégé." ... "Press reports say she [Ms. Yang] got a $1.5 million signing bonus to become a partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, a firm with strong Republican ties." ... "Gibson, Dunn was defending Mr. Lewis in Ms. Yang’s investigation." -By Adam Cohen -NYTimes

20070503

Secret - Paul McNulty - Michael Elston - US Attorneys - Law - Politics - Arizona - Arkansas - Seattle - Washington - San Francisco - California - "Justice Official Says He Was Directed To Call Fired Prosecutors." ... "The chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty has told congressional investigators that phone calls he placed to four fired U.S. attorneys -- calls that three of the prosecutors say involved threats about testifying before Congress -- were made at McNulty's direction." ... "Michael Elston, the chief of staff, told congressional investigators in a closed-door session on March 30 that McNulty specifically instructed him to make the phone calls after the Justice Department's No. 2 official learned that the fired prosecutors might testify before Congress about their dismissals." ... "At least one member of Congress has questioned whether the phone calls might constitute obstruction of justice." ... "Elston said that McNulty directed him to place calls to fired U.S. attorneys Paul Charlton of Arizona, Bud Cummins of Arkansas, and John McKay of Seattle [Washington], all of whom said they felt pressured to keep quiet. Elston also placed a call to federal prosecutor Kevin Ryan of San Francisco [California], as directed, but did not speak to him. The calls were placed between January and March of this year -- before details about the political motivations for the firings became public." ... "On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee made public formal correspondence from three fired prosecutors who said they thought that Elston was trying to intimidate them into keeping quiet." -By Murray Waas -NationalJournal

20070430

Secret - Gonzales - Kyle Sampson - Monica Goodling - US Attorneys - Government - Law - Politics - "Secret Order By Gonzales Delegated Extraordinary Powers To Aides." ... "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales signed a highly confidential order in March 2006 delegating to two of his top aides -- who have since resigned because of their central roles in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys --extraordinary authority over the hiring and firing of most non-civil-service employees of the Justice Department. A copy of the order and other Justice Department records related to the conception and implementation of the order were provided to National Journal." ... "In the order, Gonzales delegated to his then-chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, and his White House liaison "the authority, with the approval of the Attorney General, to take final action in matters pertaining to the appointment, employment, pay, separation, and general administration" of virtually all non-civil-service employees of the Justice Department, including all of the department's political appointees who do not require Senate confirmation. Monica Goodling became White House liaison in April 2006, the month after Gonzales signed the order." ... "The existence of the order suggests that a broad effort was under way by the White House to place politically and ideologically loyal appointees throughout the Justice Department, not just at the U.S.-attorney level. Department records show that the personnel authority was delegated to the two aides at about the same time they were working with the White House in planning the firings of a dozen U.S. attorneys, eight of whom were, in fact, later dismissed." ... "The senior administration official who had firsthand knowledge of the plan said that Gonzales and other Justice officials had a "clear obligation" to disclose the plan's existence to the House and Senate Judiciary committees -- but the official said that, as far as he knew, they had not done so. When the committees began to inquire into the firings of the U.S. attorneys, the official said, Congress had a right to know that the firings were part of an ambitious effort to install administration loyalists throughout the department." ... "The official added, "The president of the United States [Republican George Bush] has said it was imperative for the attorney general, and the attorney general alone, to re-establish trust with the Congress to keep his job … and you have, even after the president has said that, the attorney general and his men stiffing Congress."" -By Murray Waas -NationalJournal

20070424

Secret - Military - Politics - Pat Tillman - Family - People - Lawmakers - California- US - Iraq - Afghanistan - "Soldier: Army ordered me not to tell truth about Tillman." ... "The last soldier to see Army Ranger Pat Tillman alive, Spc. Bryan O'Neal, told lawmakers that he was warned by superiors not to divulge --especially to the Tillman family -- that a fellow soldier killed Tillman." ... "O'Neal particularly wanted to tell fellow soldier Kevin Tillman, who was in the convoy traveling behind his brother at the time of the 2004 incident in Afghanistan." ... ""I wanted right off the bat to let the family know what had happened, especially Kevin, because I worked with him in a platoon and I knew that he and the family all needed to know what had happened," O'Neal testified. "I was quite appalled that when I was actually able to speak with Kevin, I was ordered not to tell him."" ... "Asked who gave him the order, O'Neal replied that it came from his battalion commander, then-Lt. Col. Jeff Bailey." ... ""He basically just said ... 'Do not let Kevin know, that he's probably in a bad place knowing his brother's dead,' " O'Neal told House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman [California Democratic Representative]. "And he made it known I would get in trouble, sir, if I spoke with Kevin on it being fratricide."" ... "The military instead released a "manufactured narrative" detailing how Pat Tillman died leading a courageous counterattack in an Afghan mountain pass, Kevin Tillman told the committee. (Watch Kevin Tillman accuse the military of lying [video])" ... "Also Tuesday, former Pfc. Jessica Lynch told the House panel that the military lied about her capture." ... "Lynch testified that after her vehicle was attacked in Iraq in March 2003, she suffered a mangled spinal column, broken arm, crushed foot, shattered femur and even a sexual assault." ... "But it only added insult to injury, literally, when she returned to her parents' home in West Virginia, which "was under siege by media all repeating the story of the little girl 'Rambo' from the hills of West Virginia who went down fighting," Lynch said. (Watch Lynch set the record straight [video])" ... ""It was not true," she said before gently chiding the military. "The truth is always more heroic than the hype."" ... "Waxman, D-California, said the military "invented" tales about Tillman and Lynch. (Watch Lynch describe her bond with the Tillman family [video])" ... ""The bare minimum we owe our soldiers and their families is the truth," Waxman said. "That didn't happen for two of the most famous soldiers in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars."" -CNN

20070406

Secret - US- Iraq - Military - Terrorism - Intelligence - Politics - Cheney - Douglas Feith - Mich - "Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted: Pentagon Report Says Contacts Were Limited." ... "Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday." ... "The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February." ... "The report's release came on the same day that [Republican] Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, repeated his allegation that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq "before we ever launched" the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June." ... "Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich. [Michigan Democratic Senator]), who requested the report's declassification, said in a written statement that the complete text demonstrates more fully why the inspector general concluded that a key Pentagon office -- run by former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith -- had inappropriately written intelligence assessments before the March 2003 invasion alleging connections between al-Qaeda and Iraq that the U.S. intelligence consensus disputed." ... "The report, in a passage previously marked secret, said Feith's office had asserted in a briefing given to Cheney's chief of staff in September 2002 that the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda was "mature" and "symbiotic," marked by shared interests and evidenced by cooperation across 10 categories, including training, financing and logistics." ... "Instead, the report said, the CIA had concluded in June 2002 that there were few substantiated contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and Iraqi officials, and said that it lacked evidence of a long-term relationship like the one Iraq had forged with other terrorist groups." (1, 2) -By R. Jeffrey Smith with contributions by Dafna Linzer and Julie Tate-WashingtonPost

20070327

Secret - Military- Technology - Corporation - Enforcement - US - NY - China - UK - "ITT Fined $100 Million For Illegal Exports: Manufacturer Will Plead Guilty To Illegally Exporting Night-Vision Technology." ... "Diversified industrial manufacturer ITT Corp. has agreed to pay a $100 million penalty for illegally sending classified night-vision technology used by the U.S. military to China, Singapore and the United Kingdom [UK], the U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday." ... ""The criminal actions of this corporation have threatened to turn on the lights on the modern battlefield for our enemies and expose American soldiers to great harm," U.S. Attorney John Brownlee said in a statement." ... "ITT, which Brownlee cited as the 12th-largest systems supplier to the U.S. military, is the first major defense contractor convicted of violating the Arms Export Control Act." ... "The $100 million penalty includes a $2 million criminal fine, the forfeiture of $28 million in illegal proceeds to the United States, and $20 million to the State Department." ... "The remaining $50 million penalty will be suspended for five years and the White Plains, N.Y. [New York]-based company can reduce it on a dollar-for-dollar basis by investing in the development and production of more advanced night-vision technology so the U.S. military can maintain its advantage on the battlefield." -AP via -CBSNews
Secret - Terrorism - Intelligence - Surveillance - Law - Enforcement - Politics - Phone - E-Mail - Internet - Companies - "FBI Provided Inaccurate Data for Surveillance Warrants." ... "FBI agents repeatedly provided inaccurate information to win secret court approval of surveillance warrants in terrorism and espionage cases, prompting officials to tighten controls on the way the bureau uses that powerful anti-terrorism tool, according to Justice Department and FBI officials." ... "The errors were pervasive enough that the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, wrote the Justice Department in December 2005 to complain. She raised the possibility of requiring counterterrorism agents to swear in her courtroom that the information they were providing was accurate, a procedure that could have slowed such investigations drastically." ... "The department's acknowledgment of the problems with the FISA court applications comes nearly two weeks after a blistering inspector general's report revealed widespread violations of the use of "national security" and "exigent circumstances" letters, which allow FBI agents to collect phone, e-mail and Internet records from telecommunications companies without review by a judge. The problems included failing to document relevant evidence, claiming emergencies that did not exist and failing to show that phone records requests were connected to authorized investigations." (1, 2) -By John Solomon -WashingtonPost

20070326

Secret - NY - Police - Intelligence - Surveillance - Politics - Free Speech -