On Jan. 24, 2003, a new law enforcement and investigatory agency whose duties include functions taken from as many as 22 other federal agencies came into existence. The reorganization of these operations reportedly marks the biggest government bureaucratic shake-up since the creation of the Department of Defense half a century ago.
Even before the new Department of Homeland Security opened its doors, controversies arose over not just how it would operate and exercise its powers, but what level of access to information it would allow, and how it would respond to news media requests. Will new exemptions be carved out of the FOI Act, either by law or by practice? Will officials and agents feel free to tap phones of journalists, or subpoena their records during investigations? Will the new director consider procedural safeguards, like those adopted years ago by the Department of Justice, to ensure that freedom of the press will not be denied? And will those practices be followed?

But "homeland" security is not the only concern for journalists covering anti-terrorism initiatives; military actions abroad often present a greater challenge, as questions over disclosure of information, access to troops, and restraints on reporting seem to resurface anew with each conflict.

Questions and issues like these led the Reporters Committee to launch this "weblog," so that there will be a centralized site on the Internet for journalists who want to follow these issues and pass along information they learn while covering — or worse, being covered by — the new department and other anti-terrorism actions. Please submit comments and pass along tips to make this project as useful, thorough and up-to-date as possible.

A few words about what this project will not do. We do not intend to cover many of the issues that will undoubtedly come up as the Department takes shape, even if those issues are the ones generating headlines. We will cover information access and free press issues, but will not follow debates over many civil liberties issues that, while important, are outside of our domain.

Funding for the launch of this site was provided by The Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation.

Mar. 31, 2003

SMUCKER OUT OF A JAM. From the Christian Science Monitor: "Reporter Philip Smucker, who was escorted from Iraq by the US Marines, arrived safely in Kuwait on Saturday. His phones, computer, and notebooks were returned. . . . For the record, a US general who was not in the field ordered Smucker's removal." — Posted at 5:52 pm

STATE ACTION TO WITHHOLD INFORMATION. Information continues to be concealed at the state level from the public as part of the "War on Terror." The latest examples are Virginia's Sensitive Records Protection Act and its companion bill, the Freedom of Information Act Critical Infrastructure and Vulnerability Assessments, that make secret the plans and security assesments of infrastructure considered "critical" or infrastructure whose damage may affect health, safety, or welfare of citizens. A bill allowing the Montana government to withhold information it believes may be too sensitive as a matter of security and safety has been dropped by that state's governor and a leading legislator, the Associated Press reports. Senate Bill 142 allowed information to be withheld if public safety, the safety of an elected official or privacy rights would be threatened if the information were given out. The law aimed to keep confidential any information that could be used by terrorists to target the state's public works, such as water supply systems, dams, electrical grids and telecommunication networks. The bill was dropped in great part after Montana's media outlets complained that the bill was unnecessary. — Posted at 5:18 pm

ARNETT FIRED NBC, MSNBC and National Georgraphic reported today that they had terminated reporter Peter Arnett, who appeared on the Today show to apologize for appearing on state-controlled Iraqi television. The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reports that Sunday's interview handed fresh ammunition to those who say Arnett sympathizes with Saddam Hussein's regime. In the interview Arnett pronounced the U.S. effort so far a failure. — Posted at 12:06 pm

AN EYE ON THE ARAB WORLD Al Jazeera is the only independent broadcasting voice in the Arab world, watched by 35 million people. In an editorial in Sunday's New York Times, the newspaper noted that in August 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait precipitating the first Persian Gulf war, state-run media in the Arab world suppressed the news for three days. Today, word of such an attack would be out within minutes because of Al Jazeera. The Times said the decision by the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq to bar the station's reporters is "repugnant." The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and other journalism organizations, including the National Press Club, have also criticized the action taken by the stock exchanges against Al Jazeera. After several comments I made last week in support of reinstating Al Jazeera at the stock exchanges, I received several e-mails that demonstrate the level of intelligence and thoughfulness associated with Al Jazeera haters. Including: Dear, dear Lucy: Very nice. You are showing your true colors in your defense of al-Jazeera. You deserve each other. Why don't you wrap yourself in a bedsheet and take a one-way flight to Iraq? I am sure you would be welcomed with open arms (I hear they specialize in rape as part of their welcoming committee - I am sure you would protect this practice as just another form of 'free speech'). Please address your self-hatred in therapy and stop projecting it on the wonderful country in which you live. You are pathetic and an embarrassment to your fellow Americans who are risking their lives to protect morons such as yourself. By the way, your site is lame. Keep up the good work. --- John Greathouse And this one: "I completely support the rights and freedoms of the press, but could you at least make intelligent statements when you are trying to defend them? That shit up there is rather conceited. Following that logic, why should NYSE allow any reporters? They obviously cannot determine what quality stock trading etc is. Use your brains please." -- Andrew Peterson And, finally, this one: It appears to me the statement, or should I say remark, spit out of Lucy's traiterous mouth, was just one more disgusting observation regarding the so called "right to report " lies by the terrorists that run Al-jazeera news. IT IS GLARINGLY APPARENT THAT SHE AND HER COHORTS ARE ILL ADVISED AS TO WHERE THEIR FREEDOM ACTUALLY COMES FROM DOES SHE LIKE SEEING THE DEAD BODIES OF OUR FREEDOM FIGHTERS ANFD SONS AND DAUGHTERS LING(sic) DEAD ON BROADCAST TO GIVE COMFORT AND HOPE TO AN ENEMY? IT APPEARS THAT SHE AND HER BUDDIES DO(sic) SHAME ON YOU ALL FOR CODDLING THE ENEMY(sic) IDF(sic) YOU LOVE THEM SO MUCH WHY IS IT THAT YOU STAY IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA? WHY DONT YOU GO OVER TO THE OTHER SIDE ( AS IF YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY DONE SO) AND REPORT ON THE WONDERFUL MADMEN-KILLERS IN IRAQ AND WAVE THEIR FLAG? SEEMS TO ME THAT YOUR ALLEGIANCE LIES WITH THE TERRORISTS AND NOT WITH THE UNITED STATES AND OUR FREEDOM LOVING ALLIES. WHY DONT YOU TRY REPORTING THE TRUTH FOR A CHANGE? -- Ben Kramer The Times is correct when it says that Al Jazeera is the only independent broadcast voice in the Arab world. It should be encouraged, rather than banned by the titans of Wall Street. — Posted by Lucy Dalglish, Executive Director, 11:44 am

Mar. 28, 2003

THE BRITISH TAKE ON MISINFORMATION, EMBEDDING An anonymous "senior BBC news source" told The Guardian that "The misinformation in this war is far and away worse than any conflict I've covered, including the first Gulf war and Kosovo. ... We're getting more truth out of Baghdad than the Pentagon at the moment. Not because Baghdad is putting out pure and morally correct information but because they're less savvy about it, I think." The British newspaper is also tracking alleged misinformation from coalition military officials, and reports that British defense secretary Geoff Hoon says the practice of embedding journalists with troops has influenced public opinion in that country, after a new poll showed 55 percent of the British public supports the war. "The imagery they broadcast is at least partially responsible for the public's change in mood," he said. — Posted at 6:57 pm

READINESS REPORTS. A study released today by the General Accounting Office says that the Department of Defense's readiness reports to Congress are still inadequate to provide proper oversight. Among the problem areas GAO sited were: vague explanations of data, imprecise measurements of readiness ratings and lack of information about funding. The DOD's readiness assessment system was designed to assess the ability of units and joint forces to fight and meet the demands of the national security. According to GAO, "For more than a decade ending in 1998, various audit and oversight organizations questioned the thoroughness and reliability of DOD reports on the readiness of U.S. forces. Since 1998, Congress has added reporting requirements to enhance its oversight of military readiness. In doing so, Congress expressed concern over contradictions between assessments of military unit readiness in reports and observations made by military personnel in the field. The DOD has not completed a new readiness reporting system, which was required to be in place by April 1, 2000 by the National Defense Authorization Act of 1999. In the study, done at the request of Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Readiness of the Armed Service Committee, GAO called for an implementation plan "to allow DOD and the Congress to gauge DOD's progress in developing its new readiness reporting system." GAO noted that in commenting on the report, DOD "did not agree with our recommendation to improve readiness reporting, saying that the quarterly reports are comprehensive and spending more time on the report would be counterproductive. — Posted at 6:41 pm

REPORTER KICKED OUT OF IRAQ BY U.S. The Pentagon confirmed that freelance journalist Philip Smucker, working for the Christian Science Monitor and The Daily Telegraph of London, was kicked out of southern Iraq by U.S. forces Wednesday after they concluded that he released too much information about troop positions in a live interview on CNN. Smucker, who last summer was called "the best newsman in Afghanistan" by one media journal, last talked to editors on Wednesday while he was dealing with military officials who were displeased with the CNN report. As of Friday, when he was still presumably being held incommunicado in military custody for the trip back to Kuwait, he had not been able to contact his editors. "We have read the transcript of the CNN interview and it does not appear to us that he disclosed anything that wasn't already widely available in maps and in US and British radio, newspaper, and television reports in that same news cycle," Monitor editor Paul Van Slambrouck wrote in a column in Friday's paper. "We are disappointed Smucker has been removed." — Posted at 4:33 pm

BUSH KNOWS BEST? Seattle Times editorial columnist Kate Riley says the government's instinct toward secrecy during war is understandable. But the "mish-mash" of new laws and regulations promulgated by the Bush administration ultimately will lead to mistrust by the public. "This clearly is an administration that thinks it knows best, and apparently doesn't want any second-guessing from the public or the pesky press," Riley writes. "Sure, some information must be held back. But the Bush administration would earn more confidence from its citizens if it were more forthcoming with information in general." — Posted at 10:55 am

Mar. 27, 2003

ARAB REPORTER NOT SILENCED. Al Jazeera journalist Ammar Sankari told The New York Times he was disappointed with the New York Stock Exchange's decision to bar him from the floor of the exchange. The NYSE revoked Sankari's credentials Monday, after the Arab network aired controversial video of captured and dead American soldiers. Sankari, who has been in the United States since 1989, said: "We enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of press, all the freedoms allowed here. It is different. I love this country." Sankari will continue to cover the stock market for Al Jazeera. — Posted at 6:12 pm

THE BBC IN THEIR BONNET The BBC's cover-all-sides style, even as British troops are under fire in Iraq, has brought the global broadcast organization a steady fusillade of criticism. Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post reports that the BBC's tone is so different from that of the American networks that it sometimes seems to be examining a different war. Meanwhile, Kurtz also reports that Phil Smucker, who writes for the Christian Science Monitor, told his paper Wednesday that military police were going through his belongings and were concerned that he had disclosed too much information in an interview. Smucker had been operating as an un-embedded "unilateral" reporter. — Posted at 3:03 pm

Mar. 26, 2003

U.S. REPRESENTATIVES BLAST PENTAGON OFFICIAL. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) in a lengthy March 19 letter told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Undersecretary of Defense Edward C. "Pete" Aldridge Jr., the Pentagon's top weapons acquisition official, appeared to be making "false public claims regarding critical national security issues -- claims that are contradicted by the Administration's own intelligence and military officials." They quoted from a Los Angeles Times report that Aldridge had testified under oath that the administration's proposed missile defense system would be "90 percent" effective in intercepting missiles fired from the Korean peninsula. Neither publicly available records nor the Pentagon's own classified documents support that claim, which Aldridge "persisted" in under questioning, they said. They asserted that, depending upon what Aldridge knew, his testimony could have criminal implications, merit explanation, or represent a "serious lapse in competence." Addressing "serious misstatements of fact," the congressmen referred also to another letter sent March 17 by Waxman to President Bush. It criticizes the President's reference in his 2003 state of the union address to "evidence" that Iraq had sought nuclear materials from the African country of Niger -- evidence that the CIA had regarded as not credible and that now has proved to be fake. — Posted at 6:22 pm

AL-JAZEERA APPEALS FOR U.S. SUPPORT. Responding to its problems with revoked financial credentials, the al-Jazeera network has asked the U.S. government to defend its free press rights, according to a Reuters report. The network also was concerned over attacks on its new English-language web site -- although it did not present evidence that the attackers were from the U.S. "There has to be a national effort to protect the freedom of the press even more," according to al-Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ballout. "We appeal to authorities to pay attention to this." — Posted at 5:23 pm

APPEAL IN PADILLA DETENTION. The government will appeal a ruling by a federal district judge permitting Jose Padilla, the alleged "dirty bomber," to consult an attorney while in military custody. Padilla has been detained for nine months as an enemy combatant. — Posted at 5:22 pm

THE BIG PICTURE. Television producers are struggling to keep their war reports in context, The New York Times and The New York Observer reported today. Some say it has been hard to track the war's progress because the Pentagon has not offered detailed information fast enough. Thanks in part to the embedding program, broadcasters have many individual images and reports, but have had a hard time piecing together a big picture of the war for viewers. A report in Editor & Publisher quoted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld as saying: "What we're seeing is every second, another slice of what's actually happening out there. It is a breathtaking sight to see it. It tends to be all accurate, but not in an overall context." — Posted at 5:18 pm

CHANGES IN CLASSIFICATION RULES. President Bush cut a key provision in the executive order on classification last night, eliminating language that had required government classifiers to refrain from classification whenever there was "significant doubt" that disclosure might harm national security. An official who played a key role in drafting the amendment called it a "change in tone." The measure automatically classifies foreign government information where disclosure is not authorized. It gives the CIA director broad, but not necessarily final, veto power over an appeal panel's decisions to declassify that agency's documents. And it allows reclassification of documents under some circumstances. The bulk of the 1995 executive order on classification issued by President Clinton remains intact, however. — Posted at 5:14 pm

DETROIT JURY CHOSEN IN SECRET A jury was selected Wednesday in Detroit in the first trial in the United States for an alleged terror cell detected after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Jury selection in the trial of four men accused of conspiring to support terrorism took place largely behind closed doors, according to the Associated Press. — Posted at 5:08 pm

MORE ON AL-JAZEERA The revocation of al-Jazeera credentials by the New York Stock Exchange may be based on what the network aired, contrary to earlier denials, according to a New York Times report. An official for the exchange told the Times that the broadcaster's decision to air video of dead and captured U.S. soldiers influenced the NYSE's decision to ban the reporters. Al Jazeera had covered the NYSE for five years. An editorial in the Times sharply criticized the ban: "Al Jazeera is feisty and frequently controversial, but it does real journalism, and it is the only uncensored TV network in the Arab world. Neither London nor Washington retaliated against Al Jazeera for its decision to broadcast the pictures. Only the New York Stock Exchange has." Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Stock Market also refused to allow Al Jazeera to use its facilities to broadcast live reports. Nasdaq explicitly linked its ban to Qatar-based Al Jazeera's controversial airing last weekend of images of killed and captured American soldiers in Iraq, according to the Los Angeles Tmes. "In light of Al Jazeera's recent conduct during the war, in which they have broadcast footage of U.S. POWs in alleged violation of the Geneva Convention[s], they are not welcome to broadcast from our facility at this time," Nasdaq spokesman Scott Peterson said. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press is not aware of any provision in the Geneva Conventions that regulates what journalists may publish or broadcast. The conventions may prevent countries from allowing POWs to be photographed, but they have no regulatory authority over the media. They regulate only the signatories to the conventions. For a primer on the provisions of the Geneva Conventions, check out the "Reference Guide to the Geneva Conventions" posted by the Society of Professional Journalists. — Posted by Lucy Dalglish, Executive Director, 2:08 pm

AL-JAZEERA CREDENTIALS YANKED The Arab TV network Al-Jazeera says two of its reporters covering the New York Stock Exchange have had their credentials revoked because of the satellite station's coverage of the war in Iraq. But exchange spokesman Ray Pellechia told the Associated Press the station's war coverage was not the cause of the revocation. — Posted at 12:14 pm

Mar. 25, 2003

PENTAGON SILENT ON GUANTANAMO RELEASE. Military officials said they would not give out information on the 18 prisoners released last week from detention at Guantanamo Bay and flown home to Afghanistan because it is their policy not to provide information about people detained or released, according to The Washington Post today. They were transferred to a jail at police headquarters in Kabul where Afghan officials said most will be released. U.S officials warned Afghan security forces that they should not publicize the release because al Qaeda operatives might track down the former detainees and obtain security information about the Guantanamo base. — Posted at 6:41 pm

PENTAGON SEEKS ENVIRONMENTAL EXEMPTIONS. OMBWatcher reported March 24 that the Department of Defense is seeking very broad legislative exemptions from environmental acts for national security reasons, claiming that military readiness is affected. It has directed Secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force to identify cases in which the President can waive environmental controls for national security reasons. However, the public interest newsletter of the Washington, D.C.,-based OMB Watch points out that the General Accounting Office in June found training readiness to be high and that Environmental Protection Agency Christie Whitman told The Washington Post then that environmental protections were not holding up training missions anywhere in the country. — Posted at 6:40 pm

WATCHING DIFFERENT WARS The Christian Science Monitor reports that American audiences are seeing and reading about a different war than the rest of the world. For example, most Americans are not seeing as much coverage of injured Iraqi citizens, or being given more than a glimpse of antiwar protests now raging in the Muslim world. Gruesome video of captured U.S. soldiers reached 35 million Arab speakers worldwide and will probably never be seen by the average American TV viewer. — Posted at 3:07 pm

ARAB STATIONS COMPETE Several Arab news stations are competing for Arabic viewers, according to a report by The New York Times. Al Jazeera dominates, but other stations are also providing news accounts and affecting public opinion. Critics say the Arab stations show considerable bias. "When a figure from the Iraqi opposition tried to say on Al Jazeera recently that all the violence was the legacy of Saddam Hussein's more than two decades of tyranny, the anchor cut him off," the Times reported. "He kept berating the man, asking how he could blame Mr. Hussein when Americans were hurling bombs against Iraq. Iraqi officials, on the other hand, often run on at length, even when edited." — Posted at 2:58 pm

GRISLY DETAILS Whether you get to see the grisly details of war depends largely on where you are. Philip Kennicott of The Washington Post reports that Arab media have been much more likely to publish photographs of American casualties and POWs. Also, The Chicago Tribune reports that Arab television footage of American POWs made available to U.S. viewers Monday tested policies articulated during Sunday's controversy over Iraqi video of the first five American prisoners of war. Finally, in an Op-Ed piece in today's Christian Science Monitor, journalism professor Jerry Lanson reminds readers that war isn't pretty, nor is news of it. — Posted by Lucy Dalglish, Executive Director, 2:09 pm

NEWS TENOR ADJUSTS Recent American casualties have changed the tone of the war coverage, according to a report in The New York Times. At the start of the campaign, news reports were optimistic, making war look almost easy. By Sunday, reporting was more urgent and somber. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is sticking to its message that the war is progressing well. At press briefings, Defense officials told reporters the "big picture" was very positive and refused to say how many U.S. soldiers had been killed. An editorial in The Star Tribune said, "Some Americans were angry Monday, feeling that in the days running up to the war CNN and the other networks had misled them with overoptimistic, almost boosterish coverage of American military might ... But war is always like this. It is confusing and full of contradictory reports and rumors." — Posted at 2:00 pm

USING THE NEWS Author Lucien K. Truscott IV, in an op-ed for today's New York Times, said the Pentagon is using the media embedding program to prove its dominance not only to Americans but also to Iraqi people and officials. "Not since the halcyon days of Ronald Reagan has an administration been so adept at managing information and manipulating images," Truscott wrote. "In Iraq, the Bush administration has beaten the press at its own game. It has turned the media into a weapon of war, using the information it provides to harass and intimidate the Iraqi military leadership." — Posted at 1:56 pm

ANOTHER MOUSSAOUI HEARING CLOSED TO PUBLIC The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit has granted a government request to bar the public from a May 6 hearing in the case against alleged Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. The Washington Post reports that the secrecy surrounding the the prosecution of the only person charged in the United States in connection with the terrorist attacks is almost unprecedented. — Posted at 1:34 pm

Mar. 24, 2003

REBUILDING COSTS. A New York Times report on confidential bids being let for rebuilding Iraq quotes Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.): "We can't tell the taxpayers in this country, who are going to be asked to foot the bill for all of this, what the charge is going to be in the aftermath." And, apparently, the Foreign Relations Committee member said, "the administration believes that they can get away with it, that the Congress will not do anything about it." Invitations for bids for fast-track reconstruction are scarce, an Agency for International Development official says, because security clearances are only held by a certain number of American companies and the work needs doing quickly. But a monitor of the Ground Zero clean-up questions how the demands for speed can accommodate monitoring for integrity in the rebuilding process. The article details links between companies invited to bid and the administration. — Posted at 7:33 pm

SECRET SUBPOENAS. The U.S. Supreme Court today refused to consider when the government should be allowed to monitor someone's telephone conversations and e-mail, then use the information to prosecute them. The Associated Press reports that the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups filing the lawsuit, used an unusual maneuver to get the case to the Supreme Court, appealing on behalf of people who don't even know they're being monitored. The justices would have had to give special permission to allow it. They refused, without comment. The Bush administration has argued the surveillance, and a special court that oversees sensitive domestic espionage tactics, are indispensable tools in the war on terror. The ACLU said it will now take the fight to Congress. In a related story, civil liberties organizations have been sharply critical of the Justice Department's use of a federal law that allows the attorney general to unilaterally issue classified warrants for wiretaps and physical searches of suspected terrorists and other national security threats under certain circumstances. The Washington Post reports that the secret warrants can be enforced for 72 hours before they are subject to review and approval by the ultra-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Documentation of how the law has been used was released as part of an ACLU Freedom of Information lawsuit. — Posted at 7:25 pm

TIGHT LIPS. White House press secretary Ari Fleischer has been even less forthcoming with information than usual since the war started last week. The New York Times reports that Fleischer "and the rest of the communications apparatus at the White House decide on a message of the day early in the morning. That message is repeated so implacably that reporters, especially reporters for the cable news networks in need of sound bites, end up surrendering and head out onto the lawn to parrot what they have heard." — Posted at 7:24 pm

EMBED FELLOWS. The Pentagon carefully devised the reporter "embedding" plan to counter years of complaints by news organizations about restrictions on combat coverage, reporters Todd Purdum and Jim Rutenberg write in The New York Times. The embedding policy has produced riveting images of fighter jets on carriers and tanks plowing across the Iraqi desert, accompanied by household faces like Ted Koppel of ABC's "Nightline," and of surrendering Iraqi soldiers with their hands held high. It's also interesting to note some of the other news outlets targeted for embedding by the Pentagon, including reporters from MTV, Rolling Stone, People magazine and Men's Health, and foreign journalists running the gamut from Al Jazeera, the Arabic-language television channel, to Russia's Itar-Tass news agency. Meanwhile, reporters embedded with troops in and around Iraq say they have been happy thus far with the access they have been given to war events, according to stories in The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. Some journalists are being granted extraordinary access to secret briefings, satellite photos, and battle plans. "The cardinal rule: No reporting, not even any phone calls to their editors, that might divulge details of future operations, and no private satellite telephones, cellphones or sidearms," the Times reports. Meanwhile, Michael Ryan, a former correspondent and editor for Time, Inc., is skeptical about the embedding program and its results. "The purpose of embeds is not to provide free press coverage," Ryan reports. "The American media, essentially, have become an extension of military psychological operations, with Rumsfeld hoping they can help to scare the daylights out of Iraq." Creators Syndicate writer Norman Solomon told Editor & Publisher that "embedding means the journalists covering the U.S. war on Iraq are 'in bed' with the military." Solomon said the system causes reporters losing objectivity as they bond with troops, and makes them unlikely to "rock the boat" for fear of losing favor with their hosts. And in a column for Newsday, journalism professor Robert Jensen also questioned the embedding system, saying the likelihood of censorship is high if Operation Iraqi Freedom runs into trouble. And there may be some evidence to back that up. The news networks struggled over the weekend over whether or not to air graphic videotapes of captured and killed U.S. soldiers. The Pentagon asked that the video, originally aired on Arab satellite news channel Al Jazeera, not be shown until the families of fallen soldiers had been informed of their loved ones' deaths. Most networks ended up showing still frames or short excerpts from the video. The New York Times reported that executives at two networks acknowledged being in a "tricky situation -- uncomfortable in allowing the Pentagon to dictate what they could report, but uneasy with the idea of alienating military officials who had been generous in granting battlefield access." — Posted at 7:22 pm

EUROPEAN COVERAGE. After months of criticizing the United States' actions in Iraq, European newspapers and broadcasters have been providing round-the-clock coverage of the war, according to The New York Times. Starting Thursday, major television networks across Europe scrapped many scheduled programs to provide live coverage of the war. All-news channels came into their own, like France's LCI, Britain's BBC News 24 and Sky News and Germany's N-TV, which is in partnership with CNN. As the American- and British-led invasion of Iraq unfolds, what people see and read around the world still largely depends on where they live and on the stance their governments have taken. Glenn Frankel and Emily Wax of The Washington Post report that many editorials have been relentlessly critical of the United States. But there is better access to and more information about this war than during any recent conflict. — Posted at 7:21 pm

JOURNALISTS KILLED. About 1,500 journalists who are not embedded with American military units are believed to be covering the war in Iraq. According to The Washington Post's Richard Leiby, these "unilaterals" apparently are being shot at, straying into minefields and getting killed. Just as American troops were taking casualties, the first journalists were reported killed over the weekend covering the war. — Posted at 6:09 pm

EXECUTIVE ORDER ON DECLASSIFICATION. President George W. Bush's draft executive order on classification, which will ultimately replace the Clinton administration's executive order, represents a change in "tone" more than anything else, according to Bill Leonard, the new executive director of the Information Security Oversight Office. New York Times reporter Adam Clymer notes that the draft eliminates from the Clinton order the instruction not to classify information where there is significant doubt about the need to classify it. — Posted at 4:50 pm

COALITION SPIN. Washington Post staff writer Glenn Kessler examines administration spin on what countries belong to the "coalition of the willing." Department of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on March 20, for example, told reporters that the coalition against Iraq is large and growing and is larger than the coalition supporting the U.S. during the Gulf War. A critic calls that a "bald-faced lie," noting that, with the exception of Britain and Australia, even those who support the war are not providing troops. In talking points, the administration claimed that 44 countries are a part of a coalition against Iraq, but that includes countries who provide no support other than political support and about 10 countries who will not publicly admit their support. — Posted at 4:29 pm

CDC VOLUNTEERS. In an article about the search for various employees to be vaccinated for smallpox, Washington Post writer Al Kamen reports that the Center for Disease Control will not say how many volunteers it wants. A CDC employee told Kamen that the agency was concerned that a low percentage of volunteers might lead to some conlusion that the program was a flop. — Posted at 3:46 pm

PATRIOT II AND THE ACLU. The freedom of the press would be seriously eroded if the Domestic Security Enhancement Act -- now just draft legislation -- were to become law, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. A report issued by the civil rights group last Thursday lists several ways in which the legislation, which has been informally dubbed "PATRIOT II," threatens America's system of checks and balances. Emphasizing that "the press must be unfettered and must have access to the workings of government," the report says the DSEA will affect public awareness in at least three important ways. First, the bill allows basic operations of government, including the arrests of immigrants or citizens labeled "enemy combatants," to be kept secret, and permits gags on grand jury witnesses in such cases. Second, the bill would severly restrict access to now-public information reported by chemical companies and others whose activities pose hazards. Finally, under the draft bill, the government would be granted broad, unchecked powers to spy on individuals and groups by obtaining personal records and wiretaps without permission from a court. Such surveillance authority could conceivably be used to gain access to journalists' source information. — Posted at 3:15 pm

Mar. 21, 2003

TOO MUCH INFORMATION? In a report on Victoria Clarke, the Pentagon's assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, the Wall Street Journal [not available for free online] noted: Already there have been signs of tension. On Tuesday, Ms. Clarke told a conference call with Washington-based bureau chiefs that she had to warn a few media outlets for revealing too much information about upcoming operations. So far, though, some local military commanders are potentially causing friction by giving out more information than Ms. Clarke might like. — Posted at 1:30 pm

LESS FOI, MORE TIME FOR WAR. The Federation of American Scientists' Secrecy News and the newsletter Inside the Pentagon both reported on March 20 that the National Security Agency has asked in a draft of the Defense Department's appropriations bill for 2004 that it be allowed to routinely withhold "operational files." According to Secrecy News, the Defense department wrote that NSA almost never gives that information out, that other agencies, such as the CIA, are allowed to exempt operational files, and that not having to process FOI requests for the material would allow the agency to spend more time on "key mission areas" like, the defense department said, "the war on terrorism." — Posted at 1:24 pm

NOT ALL OSAMA. Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite network based in Qatar, has been granted access to top American officials in recent days, The New York Times reports. The Bush Administration, which once scorned the network for carrying "All Osama All the Time," has decided to change course and use the network's broad reach to gain support for the United States' military campaign. Officials say the granting of interviews with national security advisor Condoleeza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is part of the administration's concerted effort to spread its message to the Arab world. — Posted at 1:23 pm

Mar. 20, 2003

BEEFING UP SECURITY. The Sacramento Bee recently examined a GAO report on the vulnerabilities of the food industry. "More than one-third of the food safety inspectors surveyed by GAO said they were 'not very confident' or 'not at all confident' in the security efforts being made by the food processing plants they inspect," the newspaper reported. According to the GAO report, federal officials lack the authority to enforce security at food processing plants. "Inspectors have deliberately not documented security shortcomings at food processing plants, for fear the information would be obtained under the Freedom of Information Act -- possibly by terrorists themselves," the newspaper reported. Another GAO report released this week found that the federal government "lacks comprehensive information on the chemical industry's vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks because it has not comprehensively assessed the industry." Neither EPA nor any other federal entity is currently monitoring or documenting the extent to which the industry has implemented security measures, the report found. Much of the information chemical plants are required to submit to the EPA is no longer available online because the agency wanted to protect the information for security reasons. Not making that information available, however, also means that members of the public will not know what risks chemical plants pose. GAO released a notice Tuesday that an upcoming report will address management of chemical plant data. — Posted at 8:54 pm

TERROR WAR HARMS GLOBAL PRESS. A report issued Wednesday by the International Press Institute found that the war on terror has decreased press freedoms around the globe. "The report sharply criticized many countries for using the U.S.-led global war on terror as an excuse to enact restrictive media laws, reduce the free flow of information, arrest journalists, close media outlets, and suppress dissenters," according to the Associated Press. Attacks on press freedoms were reported in several countries, including China, Zimbabwe, Russia, Columbia, and several European nations. — Posted at 8:05 pm

EMBEDDED REPORTS. Now that the invasion of Iraq is underway, initial reports on embedding of troops are showing few complaints, with many journalists indicating -- at least on the air -- that they feel the restrictions imposed are reasonable. Editor & Publisher reports that for most newspapers, embedded reporting is going well. Meanwhile, reporters working independently who tried to leave Baghdad before the bombing began met with some problems leaving. — Posted at 7:28 pm

Mar. 19, 2003

COMMON CAUSE FOLLOWS THE MONEY. Three major business coalitions that championed the secrecy provision in the Homeland Security Act, which requires the government to protect critical infrastructure information, made major contributions to federal candidates including some who were instrumental in moving that provision, according to a March 14 Common Cause report. Common Cause shows where contributions went and who voted on the secrecy measure, which it says essentially denies the public information about a wide range of health, safety and environmental problems that may occur at facilities such as chemical plants, nuclear power plants, utilities and other "critical infrastructure." Between 1998 and June 30, 2002, those coalitions donated nearly $112 million to federal candidates and political parties. — Posted at 6:39 pm

FIRST RESPONDER FUNDING LOGJAM. Many states are not ready to deal with chemical or biological attacks, but the problem is due to "a logjam in government funding that has left first responders feeling vulnerable at a time of greatest danger," The Philadelphia Inquirer reported today. — Posted at 5:33 pm

SENATOR WANTS ANSWERS ON AP CONFISCATION. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) today demanded answers from the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection about the government's seizure and confiscation of unclassified documents sent from one reporter to another in September 2002, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reported. In a letter addressed to FBI director Robert Mueller and Customs chief Robert Bonner, Grassley said the interception and seizure of the package appeared to be an "attempt to stop information and censor the media." — Posted at 5:29 pm

FIRST TERRORISM TRIAL UNDERWAY. The first trial of terrorism suspects arrested after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks began in secrecy Tuesday in Detroit. Jury selection in a case against four defendants arrested 18 months ago is being conducted in secret, although The Washington Post reports that testimony is expected to be taken in open court. — Posted at 3:59 pm

COMPARING STATE TERRORISM LAWS. The Marion Brechner Citizen Access Project recently announced the launch of its new Web site, which examines state open records and open meetings laws, with a strong focus on what has been done at the state level to limit access to security and terrorism-related information. The Project allows visitors to examine and compare, state by state, measures taken to restrict access to such things as vulnerability assessments and terror response plans. It traces the extent to which these have been closed in the wake of Sept. 11 and makes direct reference to specific state laws. For example, the site shows that New York's Freedom of Information Act is quite open. It exempts only "investigatory files compiled for law enforcement purposes." Delaware's Freedom of Information Act, on the other hand, is quite restrictive. It exempts from release vulnerability assessments, emergency tactics, security procedures, and any other information "to prevent, mitigate, or respond to criminal acts," if disclosure "would have a substantial likelihood of threatening public safety." These various laws are also rated for their openess by a panel of experts on a scale from 1 to 7. — Posted at 3:53 pm

NEW TRIBUNALS BILL INTRODUCED. Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Barney Frank (D-Mass.) introduced a bill (H.R. 1290) March 13 that would, among other things, eliminate much of the secrecy surrounding military tribunals. The measure would make public any proceedings conducted by a tribunal or appeals of tribunal action except as necessary for the safety of observers, witnesses, judges, counsel or other persons. And it would require disclosure of evidence to the public except when the head of an agency personally certifies that disclosure will cause any of certain specific harms: harm to the prosecution of military objectives or interference with the capture of Al Quaida members; significant, identifiable harm to intelligence sources and methods; or, substantial risk that the evidence could be used for planning future terrorist attacks. The bill authorizes use of military tribunals in cases involving persons who are not U.S. persons or residents, who are members of al Qaida or other terrorist organizations involved in planning or committing terrorist acts against the United States and who are not prisoners of war, and it sets out procedures for the tribunals that curb civil liberties violations in tribunal proceedings. — Posted at 3:43 pm

Mar. 18, 2003

COVERING THE INVASION. John R. MacArthur, author of a book about press coverage of the Persian Gulf War, told Editor & Publisher that he expects the Pentagon to control media coverage of the invasion of Iraq. He also predicted that the military will find a way to "knock off" Al Jazeera in the first 48 hours of the invasion. — Posted at 3:56 pm

Mar. 17, 2003

WAR CORRESPONDENCE. Reports from embedded journalists are showing that a mixed amount of access is being granted in Iraq so far. The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that while one journalist is working with a commanding officer who quotes Greek poet Pindar, "Unsung, the noblest deed will die," others have faced more difficulty while working. Carol J. Williams reports that the welcome journalists received aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln had "all the warmth due invading enemy forces." Meanwhile, Editor and Publisher today published a memo from Knight Ridder military affairs correspondent Joseph Galloway. Galloway, a long-time military reporter and author of "We Were Soldiers Once...and Young," sent the memo as advice to others within the company covering the possible war in Iraq. The memo touches on the emotional stress of covering war: "There is no way I can prepare someone who has never witnessed combat for the shock of the first sight of a badly wounded soldier, screaming in pain, begging for his mother." — Posted at 6:25 pm

BAGHDAD PULLOUT. American television networks have begun to pull crews out of Baghdad. As of noon Monday, ABC and NBC had ordered their news reporters out of Baghdad. CNN and CBS still had a modest presence there. — Posted at 1:30 pm

Mar. 14, 2003

"HOMEFRONT CONFIDENTIAL" UPDATE RELEASED. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the publisher of the "blog" you're reading, released the third edition of "Homefront Confidential," its report on "how the war on terrorism affects access to information and the public's right to know." The threat assessments -- modeled on the Department of Homeland Security's own color-coded system -- assigned to eight areas of interest were modified since the last edition to reflect a lesser threat in the area of war coverage (giving the embedding program the benefit of the doubt for now) and a greater threat from the various data mining and telephone tapping proposals considered or implemented in Washington. — Posted at 6:56 pm

ASHCROFT MEMO FALLOUT. A government-wide audit of federal responses to Freedom of Information Act requests released today showed dramatic variations in agency reactions to the restrictive FOI guidance issued by Attorney General John Ashcroft in October 2001. The National Security Archive, a public interest group housed at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., unveiled the audit report today at the FOI Day program at the Freedom Forum in Arlington, Va. The audit concluded that some agencies viewed the Ashcroft memo as a "drastic" and "fundamental" change; others saw no change or said "Yeah. OK" when asked about impact, according to an archive press release. Most agencies (17 out of 33) just forwarded copies of the memo to FOI Act officers without changing regulations, guidance or training materials; and one summarized the prevailing feeling as "more thunder than lightning." The Ashcroft memorandum replaced a Janet Reno FOI policy which called for release of information, even if an exemption might fit, unless foreseeable harm would occur. Ashcroft assured agencies that the Justice department would defend almost any "solid basis" for denial. — Posted at 6:01 pm

GLOBE REPORTER EXPELLED FROM IRAQ. According to an Editor & Publisher account: "A reporter for The Boston Globe has been expelled from Baghdad after he broke Iraqi restrictions on when journalists may file stories electronically. David Filipov, 40, who had been in Iraq's capital since March 4, was ordered to leave the country Thursday after he filed a story using a satellite phone in his room at the Al-Rashid Hotel, according to Globe Foreign Editor James Smith." — Posted at 4:48 pm

Mar. 13, 2003

THE UNDISCLOSED COSTS OF WAR. The New York Times yesterday reported on a bipartisan panel organized by the Council on Foreign Relations, which concluded that President Bush has failed "to fully describe to Congress and the American people the magnitude of the resources that will be required to meet the post-conflict needs" of Iraq. The Council is a think tank and publisher with headquarters in New York and offices in Washington, D.C. The panel was led by James R. Schlesinger, secretary of defense in the Nixon and Ford administrations. And in an article about the Department of Defense's postwar plan to rebuild Iraq, Wall Street Journal reporter Neil King Jr. notes that postwar planners are working under "intense secrecy" at the Pentagon and have provided few details including what the effort might cost. The paper reports, "The Bush administration will assign three U.S. administrators to oversee Iraq as part of a postwar plan that also calls for using thousands of Iraqi soldiers to help rebuild the country, U.S. defense officials said. Under the still-incomplete plan, the U.S. also is prepared to pay the salaries of Iraqi bureaucrats and to fund the continued operations of many of Iraq's ministries, possibly using frozen Iraqi assets. The Bush administration hopes to cede authority to a new Iraqi political leadership within months, should a war in Iraq come to pass, the officials said." Meanwhile, a select group of U.S. companies are being allowed to bid on reconstruction contracts worth $1.4 billion from the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Agency for International Development, the newspaper reported. [Not available online without charge. Cite: Wall St. J., 3/12/03, p. A6] — Posted at 3:08 pm

COUNTIES FIGHT FOR ACCESS TO TERRORISM RESPONSE PLANS. The Michigan State Police's tight-fisted approach in releasing terror response information has upset five counties in Michigan, who accuse the state police of stonewalling, the Detroit News reported. The counties are trying to get the department's terrorist response plans. Local officials are using the Freedom of Information Act in a very public way to try and shame the state police into providing them with the information requested. — Posted at 3:03 pm

USING JOURNALISTS IN "PSY-OPS." Embedded reporters in the Persian Gulf appear to be getting an astonishingly complete view of what's going on with military units, Newsday.com reported. The plan is very much part of a psychological warfare campaign against the Iraqis, what a British officer called "white psy-ops." "Yes, we are using them," the officer said. "We use everything we have." — Posted at 2:58 pm

FBI INTERCEPTS AP PACKAGE. According to an Associated Press report, the FBI in September illegally seized a Federal Express package containing unclassified public information sent from an AP correspondent in Manila to another correspondent based in Washington, D.C. The FBI lab reports, which had been introduced in public trials in the United States, had been used by AP correspondents reporting on terrorism. — Posted at 1:38 pm

DRAFT OF CLASSIFICATION ORDER POSTED. Secrecy News, the newsletter of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, obtained a copy of the Bush administration's draft executive order on classification and posted it on its Web site today. Editor Steve Aftergood notes that the draft preserves an automatic 25-year declassification for records that are not specifically exempted although it defers the current deadline until Dec. 31, 2006. The draft also keeps intact the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP), which has proved more effective in declassifying requested records than has the regular Freedom of Information Act process. But the draft allows the CIA director some veto power over ISCAP. An unfortunate provision would automatically classify foreign government information where disclosure is not authorized, presuming that release would cause damage to the national security. — Posted by Rebecca Daugherty, FOI Service Center Director, 10:58 am

Mar. 12, 2003

LINDH LITIGATION ISSUES. CBS News, quoting Jane Mayer's story in the New Yorker on the Justice department's handling of John Walker Lindh's case, discusses the case of former Justice Department attorney Jesseyn Radack, who had given government officials a legal opinion on whether they could question Lindh without an attorney. She was "slammed" in a performance review and is being investigated for possible leaks after she discovered that e-mail messages showing possible FBI misconduct in its interviewing of Lindh no longer exist, and tried to get the restored messages back in the file. Radack had enjoyed a bonus for her work the previous year, according to the account. — Posted at 7:08 pm

HOMELAND SECURITY REFORM. At a press conference today, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) introduced a measure to curb the broad secrecy provisions in the Homeland Security Act enacted last November. The Leahy measure, co-sponsored by Sen. James Jeffords (I-Vt.) and several senate Democrats would, among other things, eliminate the criminal penalties now in place to punish persons who disclose information submitted by businesses concerning the critical infrastructure. — Posted at 6:46 pm

E-MAIL LEAKS. Worried about leaks, the military is starting to clamp down on e-mail communications between stationed troops and their loved ones at home. E-mail access, generally open and greatly appreciated by service men and women, will likely be restricted and/or monitored, according to a New York Times report. Military leaders are particularly concerned that classified information, such as the location of troops, could be disclosed inadvertently through digital photographs and Web cameras. — Posted at 5:32 pm

TERRORISM ACCESS ISSUES TO THE FOREFRONT. This is shaping up to be quite a week for terrorism access issues. The detainees at Guantanamo Bay lost their bid to get into court to challenge their detentions after the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., decided it couldn't hear the case. (See coverage in the New York Times (editorial) and Boston Globe; the opinion is also online.) But the decision in the case of Jose Padilla, the alleged "dirty bomber," drew more attention due to the judge's sharply worded criticism of how the case has been handled. "Lest any confusion remain, this is not a suggestion or a request that Padilla be permitted to consult with counsel, and it is certainly not an invitation to conduct a further 'dialogue' about whether he will be permitted to do so," the judge wrote. "It is a ruling -- a determination -- that he will be permitted to do so." (See the Washington Post editorial; coverage in The New York Times and the New York Law Journal; and read the court's opinion.) And from Florida comes a report in the Miami Daily Business Review about a sealed civil case involving a post-September 11 detainee that has disappeared from the court docket entirely. After a calendar reference was removed, the newspaper reports, "the appellate court's computer records were altered to remove from public view any information about the case, No. 02-11060. In between, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit closed its courtroom March 5 to the public and the press to hear arguments in the sealed case. . . . Also unusual: The public docket for the Southern District of Florida, where the case apparently originated, is devoid of any mention of either Bellahouel or his case." — Posted at 4:10 pm

Mar. 11, 2003

WATER SECRETS. A bill introduced last week in Arkansas seeks to make documents "containing information that, if disclosed, might jeopardize or compromise efforts to secure and protect the public water system" secret in the name of homeland security, according to an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette story. — Posted at 7:39 pm

THE NEED FOR LEAKS. Syndicated columnist Richard Reeves examined the need for the government to leak information and the needs of the public to have that information. He writes, "Government is as human as any man or woman in trying to cover up mistakes, but freedom is endangered by that false secrecy - especially in wartime when mistakes are inevitably part of the hurried national effort. In the end, what you don't know can hurt you - or kill you." — Posted at 6:55 pm

INSTANT WAR COVERAGE. In today's Washington Post, Howard Kurtz predicts that "the combination of greater Pentagon openness and 21st-century gadgetry could produce the most instantaneous war coverage in history" for television networks. On the other hand, some newspapers cannot afford to use the slots set aside by the Pentagon that enable reporters to travel with the military during the likely war with Iraq. — Posted at 6:46 pm

FREEDOM TO READ PROTECTION ACT. Rep. Bernard Sanders (Ind.-Vt.) introduced a bill to revoke government spying on libraries and bookstores last week. His Freedom to Read Protection Act would bar library and bookstore searches unless there were evidence of a crime. The bill, H.R. 1157, had 23 co-sponsors. — Posted at 6:38 pm

GOVERNMENT SWITCHES POSITION ON SECRET EVIDENCE. New Jersey prosecutors have announced that their office "intends to offer no objection to the unsealing of the transcripts" in the case of Mohamed el-Atriss, who reached a plea agreement over charges of selling false identification cards to some of the September 11 hijackers, according to a New York Times account. They had argued that national security interests demanded that the information be kept secret, even from the defendant. The switch prompted a law professor to speculate, "If the information was so sensitive that it could not even be disclosed to the individual against whom it was being used, a plea agreement should have no effect. It raises the suggestion that this was a tactical decision by the government to deny the defendant a meaningful opportunity to respond to and rebut the evidence." — Posted at 6:11 pm

EXECUTIVE ORDER ON CLASSIFICATION. A long-awaited draft of the Bush administration's executive order on classification is being circulated for official comment, according to the Federation of American Scientists' Secrecy News for March 11. According to the newsletter's sources, the new executive order will amend rather than replace the Clinton administration's executive order on classification of records. The Clinton order calls for automatic declassification of records after 25 years unless certain exceptions apply. — Posted at 5:18 pm

Mar. 10, 2003

EMBEDDED DISPATCHES. The Washington Post is featuring dispatches from reporters who are embedded with troops in the middle east. "The embedding program follows media complaints that reporters were kept too far from the warfront in recent military actions. Pentagon officials, in their guidance paper, said the effort is being made because 'we need to tell the factual story -- good or bad -- before others seed the media with disinformation and distortions, as they most certainly will continue to do,'" the Post reports. Today's dispatches come from various divisions stationed in Kuwait. — Posted at 7:07 pm

LIBRARY READING HABITS. Santa Cruz, Calif., libraries are posting warning signs that the FBI can look at records of what books they borrow under the USA Patriot Act, and that the act "prohibits library workers from informing you if federal agents have obtained records about you." Questions about the policy should be directed to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, the warning signs say. The San Francisco Chronicle (through SFGate.com) today examines what the Patriot Act means about government monitoring of reading habits. — Posted at 6:54 pm

GOING HOLLYWOOD. Armytimes.com reports that a Hollywood set designer is putting the finishing touches on a $200,000 stage at Camp Assayliyah in Qatar that American military briefers plan to use to deliver news to reporters and a worldwide television audience. It's a far cry from the flip chart and beat-up television Gen. Norman Schwartkopf used during Operation Desert Storm. — Posted at 5:52 pm

Mar. 7, 2003

LESS SUNSHINE. Florida state senators were to be briefed privately yesterday about a state database that tracks suspected terrorists, marking "the first time in nearly four decades that the public has been barred from attending a Senate committee meeting," according to a report in The Miami Herald. Although Florida has one of the country's strongest freedom of information laws, its record on access has increasingly become a casualty of the War on Terror. — Posted at 9:18 pm

JOURNALISTS SHIP OUT. A "media army began shipping out today" and will be embedded with U.S. military troops prepared to invade Iraq, The Washington Post reports today. The Pentagon has agreed to embed a total of 662 journalists, the paper says. In preparing more than a dozen journalists for deployment to northern Kuwait, one army captain promised "unprecedented access to soldiers in operations," the Post reported. — Posted at 7:45 pm

ACCESS TO THE PRESIDENT. Bush's news conference last night on the likely invasion of Iraq is "a rarity, both because of his distaste for the format and his staff's determined message manangement," the Washington Post reported today. According to the Post, this was Bush's eighth solo news conference. During this same time in office, President Bill Clinton held 30 and Bush's father held 58, wrote the Post, citing research conducted by a Towson University professor specializing in presidential communication. — Posted at 7:02 pm

SMALLPOX RECORDS. Connecticut's Public Works Commissioner Theodore Anson exercised new authority to decide whether security-related records can be disclosed by denying the Manchester Journal Inquirer access to the state's plan for smallpox innoculation, and declined to say why he thought the disclosure would pose a security risk, the Associated Press reported today. The newspaper requested the smallpox plans in early January and received its denial two months later. — Posted at 6:10 pm

Mar. 6, 2003

ASHCROFT'S VIEW OF THE WORLD. Speaking at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this week, Attorney General John Ashcroft said he would continue efforts to remove "excessive restraints imposed in the late '70s" on police and surveillance powers, according to a New York Newsday.com report. During the hearing, Sen. Patrick Leahy complained that someone at the Justice Department lied to his staff last month when they said the department was not working on new anti-terrorism legislation, but Ashcroft stressed that no proposal had been decided on. Ashcroft also asserted that courts had upheld all of his policies challenged by lawsuits, according to the article, although Sen. Russell Feingold pointed out that one appellate courts ruled against his policy on blanket closing of special interest immigration hearings, and federal court in Washington, D.C., ordered the department to release the names of detainees picked up in the anti-terror sweep following the attacks. — Posted at 3:19 pm

Mar. 5, 2003

ARMY INVESTIGATES DEATHS. Deaths of two Afghan prisoners at Bagram air base described on death certificates as due to a heart attack and a blood clot, had been officially listed as homicides by the military pathologist who examined them, The Washington Post reported today. The U.S. Army is now conducting a criminal investigation to determine if soldiers caused the deaths, both of which involved blunt force and other injuries. — Posted at 7:30 pm

RISE IN WIRETAPS. From a Los Angeles Times story about the government's electronic surveillance: "Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday he has authorized more than 170 such emergency searches since the Sept. 11 attacks -- more than triple the 47 emergency searches that have been authorized by other attorneys general in the last 20 years." — Posted at 7:22 pm

ANTI-"PATRIOT" COALITION. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that an array of public interest groups has joined together to fight efforts by the Bush administration to gain broad new surveillance powers and curtail civil liberties during the impending war with Iraq. Ranging from the American Conservative Union to the liberal American Civil Liberties Union, several dozen groups are discussing strategy to oppose the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, also known as "Patriot II." — Posted at 7:02 pm

T-SHIRT TROUBLES. New York attorney Stephen Downs was arrested late Monday at a shopping mall and criminally charged for wearing a T-shirt bearing the words "Give Peace A Chance," which he had just purchased from a vendor inside the Crossgates Mall in Guilderland, New York, near Albany. — Posted at 5:29 pm

Mar. 4, 2003

MEDIA SEEK TRANSCRIPTS OF FORGER'S SECRET BAIL HEARINGS. From the New Jersey Law Journal (via law.com): "The admitted forger of fake international driver's licenses sold to two Sept. 11 hijackers will be sentenced this week, but his punishment will not end the case. A coalition of newspapers on Thursday filed a complaint demanding that transcripts of Mohammed El-Atriss' unprecedented ex parte, in camera bail hearings be released to the public. As a result, the prosecution and defense are considering policy U-turns that might have them adopting each other's positions." — Posted at 7:48 pm

SMALL-POX WOES. The Ohio Department of Health's choice of keeping secret the location of small-pox vaccinated health care workers was intended to keep the information from terrorists so that they could not target hospitals, but health care workers complain that patients, including those with seriously affected immune systems, also do not know where they can receive treatment from health care workers who have been vaccinated, the Akron Beacon Journal reported Tuesday. — Posted at 7:16 pm

INS HEARINGS ACCESS GOES TO WASHINGTON. The ACLU has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of North Jersey Media Group and the New Jersey Law Journal to overturn a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals (3rd Cir.) upholding the closure of detainee deportation hearings. A similar case reaching the opposite conclusion may also reach the court. — Posted at 6:21 pm

FINANCIAL INSECURITY. The General Accounting Office released a report Monday that outlines the types of cyber threats that face the financial services industry, and recommended that the Treasure Department coordinate with the financial industry in its efforts to update plans to protect critical infrastructure and to assess the need for public policy on the issue. The report found that the industry faces similar threats to those faced by other "critical infrastructure sectors," but "the potential for monetary gains and economic disruptions may increase its attractiveness as a target." — Posted at 5:32 pm

Mar. 3, 2003

FIGHTING TERRORISM, ONE TEST-CHEATER AT A TIME. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported over the weekend that many terrorism prosecutions may not be what they seem: Of 62 indictments by the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey in "terrorism cases" -- the most of any office in the country -- 60 of those cases were against "Middle Eastern students charged with paying others to take their English proficiency tests." And nearly all of those have been freed on bond, the newspaper reports. — Posted at 6:52 pm

MILITARY TRIBUNALS AND ALL-ENCOMPASSING JURISDICTION. The Pentagon late last week released a draft listing dozens of crimes, including terrorism, rape and the use of poisons, that could be tried in military tribunals. The crimes on the list were apparently chosen because they met internationally recognized definitions of war crimes which could be prosecuted under such tribunals, according to an Associated Press report of a press conference with two Pentagon legal experts who discussed the rules on the condition of anonymity. Interestingly enough, before listing all the crimes, the report discloses that: This document does not contain a comprehensive list of crimes triable by military commission. It is intended to be illustrative of applicable principles of the common law of war but not to provide an exclusive enumeration of the punishable acts recognized as such by that law. The absence of a particular offense from the corpus of those enumerated herein does not preclude trial for that offense. — Posted at 6:03 pm

TTIC DEVELOPMENTS. Secrecy News, published by the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, reports on emerging details on the development of the "Terrorist Threat Integration Center," first described in President Bush's State of the Union speech as a new interagency intelligence organization designed to "merge and analyze all threat information in a single location." A congressional hearing on the topic focused on, among other things, the organization's " potential to erode the legal barrier that separates the CIA and other foreign intelligence agencies from domestic surveillance and law enforcement," according to Secrecy News. — Posted at 5:05 pm

MORE ON EMBEDDING AND BOOT CAMPS. Editor & Publisher's Joe Strupp reports that few, if any, editors have complained about embedding rules for war correspondents that allow for for "security review" and flagging of "sensitive" information. But many editors say they will watch how the rules are enforced. "They are written in such a way that they could help people report the story or be used to hurt the reporting," said Colin McMahon, foreign editor of the Chicago Tribune, which will have five embedded reporters out of 15 overall in the region. "We will see." Meanwhile, Newsweek senior editor Jonathan Alter says that most of the ground rules that embedded reporters must sign seem reasonable, like not carrying a sidearm, not using flash photography at night and not reporting the unit's exact position. Unlike the Gulf War in 1991, he says, this time there will be no censorship of stories and TV scripts. The truth is, it's just not practical anymore. Wireless communications has killed military censorship for good. And Washington Post ombudsman Michael Getler says the real test of the Pentagon's plan to embed more than 500 journalists with troops will come if combat begins and if things go wrong. "On paper," Getler says, "the new guidance seems to be a step forward -- in terms of access and timely transmission of reporting -- from the restrictive policies and tactics the Pentagon has employed in every conflict since Vietnam. The guidance leaves a lot of discretion to individual unit commanders. But what will probably be more important, and will affect the decisions commanders make in the field, are the vibrations about news coverage given off by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the top military commander, Gen. Tommy R. Franks, once fighting begins. Both take a hard-nosed view of revealing anything that doesn't come from behind a lectern." Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Mark Bowden says that the presence of embedded journalists with frontline troops in Iraq will almost certainly pose problems for the military on occasion. But in today's world, where lies travel at the speed of light, having hundreds of reporters and cameras close to the action will give the truth at least a fighting chance. Personal accounts of reporters' experiences at the Pentagon's media boot camp appeared in The New York Times Magazine and Sunday's New York Times. Boot camp graduate Andrew Jacobs noted that the Pentagon's plan to embed journalists among troops if America goes to war with Iraq "will radically alter the relationship between the military and the news media." Jacobs recognized that "It would be naive to think the military isn't expecting something in return," namely "triumphal clips to living rooms around the country." — Posted at 3:56 pm

COSTS OF WAR In a contentious exchange last week between House Democrats and top Pentagon officials at a House Budget Committee hearing on the costs of war, Rep. James Moran (D-Va.) told Defense deputy Paul Wolfowitz," I think you're deliberately keeping us in the dark," and that "We're not so naive as to think that you don't know more than you're revealing." New York Times reporter Eric Schmitt reported that Wolfowitz rejected remarks by an Army general that $60 to $95 billion would be needed this fiscal year, and promised to eventually fill the lawmakers in on internal estimates. Schmitt also quoted Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's response at the Pentagon to questions about whether he would release a range of estimated costs to permit useful public debate. "I've already decided that," Rumsfeld said, "It's not useful." Wolfowitz defended the refusal to make estimates: "I think it's necessary to preserve some ambiguity of exactly where the numbers are." — Posted at 2:19 pm