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.

May. 30, 2003

WAGGING THE DOG. Paul Krugman of The New York Times writes about parallels between information on the war in Iraq and the plot of the movie "Wag the Dog." The war was real, he writes, but much of its justification was fictional. The public was sold on the war by learning of links between Saddam and Al Qaeda, and of the existence in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. But there has been no evidence of the Qaeda link to surface and no WMDs found that could have posed a threat to the allies. — Posted at 6:28 pm

DEMOCRAT CHALLENGES WMD CLAIMS. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va), top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, challenged comments by the Bush administration that weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are well hidden and difficult to find. If they posed such threat that they caused a war, they should have been found by now, he said in a report by the Associated Press. Rockefeller also criticized the FBI for not investigating at his request the forged documents used as evidence before the war that weapons of mass destruction existed. The senator said he received a "bland" letter from the agency saying the forgery had not been an attempt to manipulate public opinion, but offered no specifics, according to the report. — Posted at 6:22 pm

NO PROOF OF BUNKER FOUND. CBSNews reported Wednesday that, despite Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's claim in late March that "the strike on that leadership headquarters was successful," and despite an Army general's claim that if Saddam Hussein had been there, he would be dead, an underground bunker complex which was attacked heavily by bombs and cruise missiles simply did not exist. The U.S. Army colonel assigned to search the Dora Farms site in the southern Baghdad outskirts bombed 10 weeks ago found "no underground facilities and no bodies." — Posted at 6:08 pm

DEFENSE COMPANY WANTS TV AIRWAVES FOR PUBLIC-SAFETY NETWORK A government defense contractor is petitioning the Federal Communications Commission to reallocate airwaves used by television broadcasters for the Department of Homeland Security and other public-safety agencies. Northrop Grumman Corp. has asked the FCC to free up 10 megahertz of spectrum in the 700-megahertz frequency range for development of an advanced wireless network that would speed government communications, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. Television broadcasters have until at least 2007 to abandon the spectrum as they adopt digital technology. A spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters told The Post its members won't be rushed off the airwaves. — Posted at 4:56 pm

May. 29, 2003

ALLEGATIONS OF TV CENCORSHIP SURFACE IN BAGHDAD. Reuters reports that U.S. administrators had requested that programs aired on the newly created Iraqi Media Network "be reviewed by the wife of Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader and a major figure in the postwar politics of Iraq." — Posted at 5:53 pm

May. 28, 2003

GRAHAM: RELEASE THE REPORT U.S. Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) continues to accuse the administration of "covering up" a congressional report on mistakes by the government that could have contributed to the events of September 11, as we reported earlier this month. The Des Moines Register reports that other Democratic hopefuls campaigning in Iowa for the presidential nomination are not prepared to go that far but believe that the report ought to be released. Graham chaired the committee that produced the report. It was completed last year but has not yet been released by the administration. — Posted at 5:43 pm

REPORT ON HOTEL ATTACK RELEASED The Committee to Protect Journalists released a report yesterday on the April 8 shelling of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad by U.S. forces, which killed two journalists and wounded three others. The report, based on interviews with journalists at the scene of the tragedy, suggests that the attack was avoidable, though not deliberate. An article on the report in today's New York Times said the United States Central Command is still investigating the incident. — Posted at 5:41 pm

May. 27, 2003

COURT TURNS BACK ON "SPECIAL INTEREST" DEPORTATION CASES. In a development that came as a surprise to media lawyers and other Supreme Court watchers, the Court today decided not to review a case out of the Third Circuit that upheld the categorical closure of "special interest" deportation cases -- those cases where the government said there was some connection, albeit undisclosed to the public, to terrorism, but not enough of a connection to amount to a prosecutable crime. The decision is unusually because it leaves a split in the circuits unresolved: the Sixth Circuit has held that such cases should be presumptively open unless a specific showing is made that a case should be closed. Although the Court did not disclose its reasoning in rejecting review, the Solicitor General had urged the Court not to take the case, arguing that there is no right of access to deportation cases and that the issue was moot anyway, since most of the hearings have already been held. — Posted by Gregg Leslie, Legal Defense Director, 6:56 pm

PENTAGON DENIES "NEWS MANAGEMENT" IN LYNCH RESCUE The Pentagon denied BBC claims that it "managed" the news in its account of the rescue of American POW Jessica Lynch. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said, "The Pentagon never released an account of what happened to Lynch because it didn't have an account." — Posted at 5:34 pm

May. 24, 2003

TEXAS GRAND JURY INVESTIGATING DOCUMENT DESTRUCTION. A grand jury in Travis County, Texas, which includes the state capital of Austin, is investigating the destruction last week of state documents related to a manhunt by the state police, who had been ordered by Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick and other Republican lawmakers to round up absent Democratic lawmakers who had gone to Oklahoma and bring them back to the Capitol. The Washington Post reports that the Republicans sought help locating the missing legislators from the federal Department of Homeland Security and destroyed documents related to the DHS assistance. — Posted at 5:04 pm

FBI APOLOGIZES TO MATERIAL WITNESSES. The FBI apologized last month to eight Egyptian men from Evansville, Ind., who were held as material witnesses as part of a national roundup in the weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The Washington Post reports that the "Evansville 8" were among 50 people held as material witnesses in maximum security jails without being charged with a crime. Thousands of more men from Middle Eastern countries were questioned, some arrested and detained, allegedly for links to terrorism, only to be let go or deported on immigration violations. While in custody, they were unable to communicate with their families. — Posted at 4:54 pm

May. 23, 2003

KENNEDY RELEASES STATEMENT ON WHISTLEBLOWER. The plight of Justice Department whistleblower Jesselyn Radack was underscored again by Sen. Ted Kennedy in a released statement taken from the judicial confirmation hearing yesterday of Justice official Michael Chertoff, who denied knowing about a coverup and retaliation against Radack stemming from the John Walker Lindh prosecution. Kennedy's prepared statement read, "Nevertheless, I remain very concerned about Ms. Radack's situation. According to press reports -- and the Department has never issued any statement disputing them -- Ms. Radack was in effect fired for providing legal advice on a matter involving ethical duties and civil liberties that higher-level officials at the Department disagreed with. Furthermore, after Ms. Radack notified Justice Department officials that they had failed to turn over several e-mails requested by the federal court, Department officials notified the managing partners at Ms. Radack's new law firm that she was the target of a criminal investigation. I submitted questions to Attorney General Ashcroft regarding this matter in March, and I await his response." The contacts with Radack's law firm led to her being forced to take administrative leave. Kennedy, while noting that he was satisfied with a second round of questioning of Chertoff, said that "his answers to my first set of written questions were non-responsive, evasive, and hyper-technical. They were stingy in substance, avoiding the questions that were asked, and often answering questions that were not asked." — Posted at 7:44 pm

MILITARY DEFENSE ATTORNEY SAYS TRIBUNALS SHOULD BE OPEN. As the sides are being picked for prosecution and defense teams for military tribunals, the head military defense attorney is saying that the tribunal proceedings should be open to the public, according to an Associated Press report of a briefing. "I see that as in the best interest of the nation as a whole," Col. Will Gunn said. "We will be judged from the world community on whether or not the process was fair and just." — Posted at 7:05 pm

MEMBERS OF CONGRESS SEEK GAO INVESTIGATION IN IRAQ EFFORTS. Ranking Republicans and Democrats on the the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House International Relations Committee today asked the General Accounting Office to begin immediately to assess security efforts, humanitarian programs, economic development, procurement and political operations in Iraq, The New York Times reported. "The members gave up on getting the administration to share information, so they asked for this full investigation," a senior Congressional staff member told the newspaper. The move expands an earlier request for a GAO study of the awarding of no-bid contracts in secret, and symbolizes Congress's growing irritation at the administration for keeping its moves secret. — Posted at 7:01 pm

NO INFO FOR PAKISTAN. The Daily Times of Pakistan reported today that after it published a report May 18 that Pakistan had lost $10 billion after joining the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) removed all information on Pakistan from its website. — Posted at 5:34 pm

EDITORIAL CRITICIZES TEXAS OFFICIALS WHO DESTROYED INVESTIGATIVE INFORMATION. An editorial in today's Washington Post was sharply critical of Texas officials who involved Department of Homeland Security officials in tracking down Democratic Texas legislators who deserted the legislature for Oklahoma last week. "The federal government has no proper role in locating state legislators who prefer hotels in Oklahoma to their offices in Austin." But Homeland Security officials say the department got involved because it was led to believe the plane was missing and may have crashed. Even more disturbing, the day after the search was called off, the Texas Department of Public Safety ordered the destruction of "any notes, correspondence, photos, etc. that were obtained" in the investigation. The department said it did so because federal rules prohibit retaining "intelligence information that is not related to criminal conduct or activity" -- and the search was not a criminal matter. The Post concluded "the public deserves convincing evidence that the document destruction was routine, not an effort to cover something up." — Posted at 11:53 am

May. 22, 2003

JUSTICE OFFICIAL CLAIMS NO KNOWLEDGE OF ETHICS ADVICE IN LINDH MATTER. The New York Times today looked into the case of Jesselyn Radack, the Justice Department ethics attorney who challenged the department's handling of the interrogation of John Walker Lindh and told her supervisor that documentation of her advice had been withheld from a federal judge. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), who, as we reported last month, had asked Attorney General John Ashcroft for answers on why she was forced out of her job, got to ask his questions again when Michael Chertoff, the head of Justice's criminal division and now a federal judicial nominee, came before the Judiciary Committee. But at the hearing last week, Chertoff claimed he had no knowledge of the e-mail dialogue between his subordinate and Radack. Kennedy said he was troubled by Chertoff's lack of active involvement in the case, according to the Times account. "I'm very concerned about this Radack situation," Kennedy later told the Times. "It appears she was effectively fired for providing legal advice that the department didn't agree with." The dispute has slowed but not derailed Chertoff's nomination. Kennedy, who got the confirmation delayed for one week over dissatisfaction with Chertoff's responses, told the Times that he planned to vote in favor of the nomination, and Chertoff's nomination passed the committee later today. But by the time of the vote, six Democrats -- including Kennedy -- decided they needed more information on a late allegation about the prosecutor's conduct when he was a U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, and only responded "present" when the vote was taken. At today's confirmation hearing, the Times account of the Radack story came in for special abuse by committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, who opined, "It's disgraceful that at this last minute The New York Times is attempting to impugn anybody," and later noted that Eric Lichtblau, the author of the article, had "shared bylines with the infamous Mr. Blair," the reporter who has admitted faking a number of Times articles. That remark reportedly prompted Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) to warn his colleague about avoiding "McCarthyism." The Times had also reported that a "senior Justice Department official said today that Ms. Radack's accusations regarding the possible concealment of documents and retaliation against her were recently referred to the department's Office of Professional Responsibility for an investigation." Better late than never; the investigation of leaks of Justice's concealment has been underway for a few months now. — Posted by Gregg Leslie, Legal Defense Director, 8:02 pm

SENATORS TO COMMISSION: TELL WHAT YOU KNOW Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) urged members of the independent panel convened to study the attacks of September 11 to "blow the whistle" and let the public know what the commission found, The Associated Press reported today. The two senators, who were behind the creation of the panel, criticized the president for excessive secrecy, AP reported. The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States is hearing testimony by lawmakers for two days. — Posted at 5:34 pm

BILL WOULD DEMAND ANSWERS ON IRAQ NO-BID CONTRACTS. Federal legislation sponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) would force a public explanation of why no-bid reconstruction contracts were awarded by federal agencies to rebuild Iraq. The Associated Press reported that the measure would require the government to make public its choice of the contractors, and to publish a list of those invited to bid, as well as documents showing why the bidding is noncompetitive. Wyden said, "In these tough economic times, the government simply can't continue to award billion-dollar contracts behind a veil of secrecy, with no accountability to the public." — Posted at 5:31 pm

DHS QUESTIONED ON ROLE IN TEXAS SEARCH. The Deparment of Homeland Security has been accused of withholding information on its involvement in a search in mid-May for 51 "missing" Texas legislators. State officials asked the DHS to help them find the missing legislators, who left for Oklahoma before May 12 to stop the legislature from being able to act on redistricting plans proposed by the GOP. Congressional Democrats want to find out whether Texas officials misled federal authorities to get them involved in the search. UPI reports that DHS refused to release tapes to Congress of conversations between Texas Department of Public Safety and DHS officials, despite the fact that quotes from the tapes had already been released to the media. "I made a request of you that you allow the committee to hear the tapes of those conversations," Jim Turner (D-Texas) said to Homeland Security head Tom Ridge in a May 20 House Select Committee on Homeland Security hearing. "And I got back a response yesterday, indicating that because a inspector-general investigation had been launched, we will not be allowed to hear the tapes." Turner also told Ridge that there was no "basis for the department to deny the committee the opportunity to hear the tapes." — Posted at 5:27 pm

STATES REVISING OPEN RECORDS LAWS. For the second year running, state legislators worried about terrorists are seeking to revise open-government laws, conducting a piecemeal but wide-ranging examination of the states' freedom-of-information measures. The proposed changes are being watched closely by civil libertarians and news media groups, which complain about proposals so broad they would close access to far more than information about security issues. But compromises seem to be emerging. The Associated Press reports that at least 15 states have considered such legislation this year. So far, five of those have passed laws to tighten public access to documents or meetings, but most have yet to finish their legislative sessions. — Posted at 10:49 am

May. 21, 2003

EVEN THE NUMBERS ARE CLASSIFIED. The American Civil Liberties Union has called on Congress to seek information from the Justice Department about how many times it has used the expanded powers for new law enforcement and intelligence gathering powers available to it under the USA PATRIOT Act. A House panel was to hear testimony today about how the department is using those powers. The hearing follows the ACLU's loss of an Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for statistics concerning the department's use of the new powers in a ruling May 19 by Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle of the federal district court in Washington. — Posted at 7:31 pm

SO WHAT ABOUT THOSE PATRIOT MISSILES? Military accounts have been "studiously silent" about how many Patriot missiles were fired in Iraq and the data about the successes of their use are confusing, according to a report on missile defense by the Center for Defense Information, a Washington, D.C.,-based public interest organization that promotes the availability of research information on a variety of military topics. The report recommends that "in order to head off accusations of misleading the public about the Patriot's acumen," there needs to be an "objective and thorough investiation" of Patriot's usage during Operation Iraqi Freedom with the results made public as far as possible so that they can be independently confirmed. The Center notes that the U.S. military's "triumphant" proclamations about the Patriot's use in the first Gulf War were later proven faulty. — Posted at 7:20 pm

JUSTICE GIVES CONGRESS SOME ANSWERS. The Associated Press reported on a 60-page Justice Department response to the House Judiciary Committee's request for information about "the prosecution of the war on terror and use of the USA Patriot Act since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks." According to the AP, the report shows that "the Justice Department had detained fewer than 50 people as material witnesses without charging them in the war in terror as of January and had gained 47 court-ordered delays in notifying people of search warrants, according to documents released Tuesday." — Posted at 6:18 pm

SECRET NUCLEAR PLANT PLANS DISCUSSED. The author of "Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy" writes in The New York Times that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has "quietly issued" security standards nuclear power plants must meet to defend against terrorist attacks, standards he says "will not help people living near the plants sleep more soundly." Breaking with tradition, the commission refused to make public even its nonclassified elements, Ramberg writes. Keeping terrorists guessing about defenses may have motivated the secrecy, he said, and "the secrecy might also reflect the commission's desire to play down its acquiescence to the nuclear industry's hubristic view that the plants are nearly invulnerable." Bennett Ramberg, the author, is a former State Department policy analyst who testified as early as 1985 that the plants did not have adequate security in place to ward off terrorist attacks. He writes that public interest groups who focus on nuclear energy plans have urged stronger security for years but were excluded from the plans. Instead, the commission relied only upon the advice of cleared government agencies and the energy industry itself. — Posted at 5:15 pm

FREE FOI OP-ED PIECES AVAILABLE TO NEWSPAPERS. The Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service has begun offering opinion pieces free of charge to all newspapers, including those that do not subscribe to the KRT News Service, to address Freedom of Information issues. An FOI op-ed will move weekly. — Posted at 12:05 pm

ACCESS TO IMMIGRATION HEARINGS ON COURT'S CALENDAR. At its private conference on Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court will take up North Jersey Media Group, et al. v. Ashcroft, its first chance to debate the conflict between national security and public access to immigration hearings. Tony Mauro reports for Legal Times that media outlets are asking the Court to overturn a ruling by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that allowed the Bush administration to hold closed deportation hearings for so-called special interest aliens detained after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The Justice Department opposes the petition for review. — Posted at 10:12 am

May. 20, 2003

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT RELEASES MATERIAL WITNESS STATISTICS. In the documents released Tuesday, Justice Department officials said that as of January, the number of people detained as material witnesses in alleged terrorism cases was fewer than 50, with 90 percent of those detained for 90 days or less and half held for 30 days or less. The new details are part of a 60-page agency response to the House Judiciary Committee's request for information about the prosecution of the war on terror and use of the USA Patriot Act since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The number of material witnesses detained around the country without charges has been a closely guarded secret, with Justice Department officials repeatedly insisting that the law prevented the names and circumstances from being made public. — Posted at 3:46 pm

PENTAGON SAYS PLANNED SPY SYSTEM WON'T INVADE CITIZEN PRIVACY. In a report to Congress, the Defense Department on Tuesday assured lawmakers that its planned anti-terror surveillance system will only analyze legally acquired information. The report said the Total Information Awareness program now under development by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, will henceforth be named the Terrorism Information Awareness program. In report ordered by Congress 90 days ago, DARPA said the old name "created in some minds the impression that TIA was a system to be used for developing dossiers on U.S. citizens. That is not DoD's (Department of Defense's) intent in pursuing this program." A coalition of eight advocacy groups that spanned the political spectrum from left to right criticized the report for leaving questions unanswered, particularly about how the system would deal with errors in the databases it searches. They called on Congress to continue strict scrutiny of the project. The eight groups were the ACLU, People for the American Way, Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Democracy and Technology on the left of center and, to the right of center, the American Conservative Union, Americans for Tax Reform, Eagle Forum and Free Congress Foundation. — Posted at 3:39 pm

May. 19, 2003

JUDGE MAY RELEASE DOCUMENTS IN MOUSSAOUI CASE. Slowly, more openness is coming to the Zacarias Moussaoui case. Last Friday, Judge Leonie M. Brinkema ordered the government to review more than 100 documents, identified only by docket number, and state its position on whether they should remain sealed. The judge also ruled that a few dozen other documents would remain under seal. Prosecutors have until May 31 to respond, so actual access to the documents may be delayed awhile still. The action came in response to a motion by a number of news organizations, including the Reporters Committee, that argued that too many of the filings in the case were being sealed despite a previous order by the judge that created a system to ensure appropriate access to documents in the case. — Posted at 6:39 pm

NO DETAILS ON RELEASED GUANTANAMO DETAINEES. For "operational security" reasons the Pentagon will release no details on the U.S. government's release of one detainee on Guantanamo and transfer of four Saudi Arabian detainees to their country for continued detention, according to a May 16 news release. The release notes that detainees are released or transferred when they are no longer considered a threat to the United States. The detainees were not identified. — Posted at 5:39 pm

May. 17, 2003

U.S. SECRETLY ARRESTS SUSPECTED AL QAEDA OPERATIVES. U.S. government officials told the New York Times that there have been several secret arrests of suspected Al Qaeda operatives in the United States in the past couple of months. Two of the arrested Arab men, whom the officials would not identify, were said to be conducting "presurveillance" activities. They were part of a larger group of about six Qaeda followers arrested in recent months whose presence in the United States has led the authorities to conclude that the terrorist group remains determined to carry out attacks on American soil. The exact number of men, their identities, where they were arrested and where they are being held and on what charges has not been disclosed. — Posted by Lucy Dalglish, Executive Director, 12:44 pm

May. 16, 2003

ARMY EDITS MOSUL TV. In an article about military efforts to bring stability to Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, Washington Post foreign service reporter Scott Wilson looks into events at the city's only television station, which has been a U.S. Army post for almost a month. The station manager, who had never been able to select news stories in the past, is still not completely free to do so. Ahmed Jasim said U.S. Marines seized a videotape of Mishaan Jabouri, the returned exile claiming authority, while it was on the air after riots last month. Wilson wrote that Maj. Gen. David H. Patraeus more recently told Jasim to give fair access to all political parties, not just Jabouri's, and to censor anti-American messages. Petraeus said, according to the report, that his next step would be to review material before it airs. "I am the occupying power, make no mistake," Petraeus said, adding that censorship to preserve public order was his "obligation" under the Geneva Conventions. "I am responsible for this place." — Posted at 6:27 pm

FEDERAL JUDGE RULES AGAIN, MOUSSAOUI CAN INTERVIEW WITNESS. For the second time, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ordered that accused September 11 terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui can interview a senior al-Qaida prisoner to aid in his defense, the Associated Press reported this morning. "Prosecutors reportedly offered summaries of the witness' statements as an alternative, but Brinkema ruled this was inadequate to protect the defendant's right to potentially favorable information." The government has appealed Brinkema's order and oral arguments are scheduled to occur June 3 before the U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond (4th Cir.). Eleven media orgainizations fought and received an order granting access to at least part of the arguments that do not pertain to classified information. — Posted at 6:06 pm

HATE MAIL OVER NEWSPAPER REPORTS. Ron Martz, a military-affairs reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution embedded with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division (mechanized), surveys hate mail he has received after his reports. "There must have been two wars in Iraq," he said in an Editor and Publisher article, concluding that the one he wrote about was not the one the public wanted to see. — Posted at 5:23 pm

May. 15, 2003

FRENCH ACCUSE BUSH OF LAUNCHING DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN. In front page headlines this morning, The Washington Post reports that the "French government believes it is the victim of an 'organized campaign of disinformation' from within the Bush administration, designed to discredit it with allegations of complicity with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein." "In a letter prepared for delivery today to administration officials and members of Congress, France details what it says are false news stories, with anonymous administration officials as sources, that appeared in the U.S. media over the past nine months," the Post reports. France's complaint includes allegations that articles appearing in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Washington Times contained misinformation and that many of these stories relied on anonymous American intelligence sources. By afternoon, The International Herald-Tribune had confirmed that the letter has been sent to the White House by the French ambassador, and that the French Foreign Ministry has told its diplomats "to monitor the U.S. news media for signs of orchestrated anti-French disinformation." Earlier, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld responded to questions about the complaint by saying, "Certainly there's no such campaign out of this building. I can't speak for the rest of the government. But I have heard of nothing like that." — Posted at 4:39 pm

May. 14, 2003

FOURTH CIRCUIT WILL PARTLY OPEN MOUSSAOUI APPEAL TO PUBLIC. Eleven media organizations, including the Reporters Committee, successfully obtained modification of two sealing orders issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond (4th Cir.) that prevented access to appellate proceedings and documents determining whether Zacarias Moussaoui will have access to Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, the alleged planner of the September 11 attacks and whom Moussaoui argues will aid in his defense. The Fourth Circuit bifurcated the oral arguments that will be presented in the appeal. The first portion of the arguments will be open to the public and will address limited legal issues. The second portion of the arguments will be sealed and will address classified information. A redacted transcript of the sealed arguments will be available in the public file after the government is provided an opportunity to censor classified information. Oral arguments are scheduled for June 3. For more information, see News Media Update. — Posted at 6:54 pm

IRAQI NEWS MEDIA OFF TO ROCKY START. New York Times reporter Neela Banerjee examines new news ventures in Iraq today. With no government so far, there are no press restrictions. However, Iraqi journalists do find old habits persist and "praise the boss without prompting." The Times reports that the United States plans in the near future to start television and radio channels and a twice-weekly newspaper, all of which will ultimately be turned over to Iraqis. But the re-birth of the main Iraqi TV channel, which has been dark since the ouster of Saddam Hussein, was marred by censorship complaints and technical glitches. Iraqi journalists are complaining that U.S. officials tried to control their broadcasts, according to the New York Daily News and Reuters. They cited efforts to stop the broadcast of Koran verses -- a TV staple in most Arab countries and they said that U.S. authorities also killed a program about rebuilding Baghdad that was critical of U.S. efforts. They also said their news programs had to be reviewed by local powerbrokers. Meanwhile, the Capitol Hill newsletter The Hill reports that U.S. funded radio and television broadcasts to Iraq are likely to gain more congressionally designated funds this week. The newsletter describes the broadcasts as "designed to provide the Middle East's tens of millions of viewers with an alternative to their usual viewing diet of unremediated anti-American propaganda." — Posted at 6:22 pm

NO ACCOUNTING OF "EMERGENCY RESPONSE" MONEY. The Pentagon spent almost all of the 28.5 billion "emergency response" money appropriated by Congress to fight terrorism in the year following the events of September 11, and nothing on the public record shows in any meaningful way how the money was actually spent, according to an article in Defense Week. Secrecy News editor Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists remarked, "One might think that as a matter of good public policy, oversight would increase as spending increases. But incredibly, what is actually happening is closer to the opposite, as billions of defense dollars vanish into unaccountable thin air. — Posted at 5:01 pm

REPORTER DOUBTS DISCOVERY OF CIVILIAN CASUALTY NUMBERS. Editor and Publisher Online reports today on an interview with New York Times reporter and long-time war correspondent Chris Hedges about coverage in Iraq. According to Hedges, "We didn't ever discover how many civilian casualties occurred in the first Gulf War, and I doubt we'll ever know about this one," Hedges told E&P last week. In addition, Hedges says the public lacks enough coverage of the "human cost of this war." — Posted at 4:53 pm

May. 12, 2003

THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT AND CIVIL LIBERTIES EXAMINED. A recent Time magazine article looks at recent Justice Department initiatives on civil liberites and the war on terror. The piece examines John Ashcroft's recent incarceration of Haitian refugees, the ongoing legal battles over the rights of Guantanamo prisioners and severe restrictions placed on accused terrorist Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen. In a related story, Time reports that librarians are strongly opposing recent provisions enacted in the U.S.A. Patriot Act which makes it easier for federal agents to search library records. Claiming that this infringes on their patrons' personal privacy, libiraries have begun destroying certain records to in an effort to ensure that the government will not gain access to them. — Posted by Gil Shochat, Jack Nelson Legal Fellow, 4:41 pm

FBI RETURNS REPORT TO AP. The FBI has returned an unclassified lab report to the Associated Press, seven months after the document was seized from a package mailed from one AP reporter in the Philippines to another in Washington, D.C. FBI officials said they would develop guidelines to address news media material. The lab report dealt with materials seized from an apartment in the Philippines rented by convicted terrorist Ramzi Yousef. It had been discussed in open court in two legal cases before it was obtained by the AP. — Posted at 10:50 am

May. 9, 2003

GAO LOOKS INTO ALIEN INTERVIEWS. The General Accounting Office released a report today examining the Justice Department's program to interview more than 7,600 immigrants after September 11. The interviews were conducted with a list of immigrants who's demographic characteristics matched those of the September 11 hijackers. According to the report, law enforcement officials have conducted interviews with 3,216 aliens. "However, the list contained problems such as duplicate names and data entry errors, making it difficult to determine how many interviews remained to be completed," the GAO stated. Because the Justice Department has not fully analyzed the results of those interviews, it's difficult to know how successful to program has been. GAO recommended that the Justice Department evaluate the program. — Posted at 6:10 pm

GRAHAM BLASTS BUSH ON SECRECY. The AP reported today that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bob Graham thinks the Bush administration is "stonewalling on the public release of a congressional report on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks." Grahamchaired the congressional committee at the time the report was completed. "The only reason that delay has occurred is because the administration does not want our report to be available to the American people," Graham said. "There has not been in my memory, and I would question whether there has been in modern American history, an administration that was so committed to secrecy as this Bush administration." — Posted at 6:04 pm

CONTROVERSY OVER TV TAKEOVER PLANS. The Washington Post today looked into the 101st Airborne's attempt to control television broadcasts in the town of Mosul in northern Iraq, including a major general's assertion that a Wall Street Journal report of an order to seize the station was false. According to the Post account, "Fearing that local politicians and returning exiles have bullied their way onto the air, often to promote themselves and sometimes to incite violence, the 101st commander, Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus, said yesterday in a telephone interview from his Mosul headquarters that he is considering putting a U.S. Army officer and a translator in the station to monitor what goes on the air." However, "He denied having given such an order, saying the station is still operating and no U.S. military officer has been assigned to work there as a monitor." The Journal account alleged that an officer who refused the order and was promptly relieved of duty: The order to seize the station, which had been under the unofficial control of a local Iraqi militia leader, was discussed at a contentious meeting among American officials based in a former hospital here. During the two-hour meeting last night, the head of the Army public-affairs office in Mosul, Maj. Charmaine Means, said she could not agree to seizing the station and posting troops there. She argued that the presence of armed soldiers would intimidate the station's Arab employees into airing only programming produced by, or acceptable to, the American military. Maj. Means was told to pick up a nearby telephone. On the other end, Col. Thomas Schoenback, chief of staff of the division, ordered her to go along with Gen. Petraeus's plan to take the station, according to people familiar with the matter. When she again refused, he relieved her of her duties. A short time later, she was told that she would be flown out of Mosul on an Army helicopter early this morning. Today, the Journal reported that Petraeus disputed the characterization of the account, and said that Means was told to produce a public service announcement to squelch financial panic rumors and to deliver it to the station. He said she refused, and told colleagues "she thought the presence of armed soldiers could make the station's employees feel pressured to run the announcement." Petraeus told the paper, "When a major refuses a direct order from a full-bird colonel, that's not the kind of person you keep around." (The Journal account is available only to paid subscribers.) — Posted at 5:44 pm

May. 7, 2003

WAXMAN WANTS ANSWERS ON HALLIBURTON CONTRACT. The extent of the government's emergency, no-bid contract with Halliburton Co. to extinguish oil fires in Iraq must be disclosed, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said in a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers, according to a report today by the Associated Press. The Corps wrote Waxman last week that the contract with Halliburton, Vice President Cheney's former company, also includes "operation of facilities and distribution of products." Waxman articulated concerns that "the administration's reluctance to provide complete information about this and other Iraqi contracts has denied Congress and the public important information." — Posted at 6:01 pm

BEARING SECRETS TO THE SEMINAR. The Los Angeles Times reported today that Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle, who resigned his leadership of that body in March because of "controversy surrounding my chairmanship," offered a briefing at a private investment seminar on ways to profit from possible conflicts in North Korea and Iraq only three weeks after listening to a classified presentation from the Defense Intelligence Agency in February on the crisis. Perle has stayed on the board even though he no longer chairs it. — Posted at 5:33 pm

PAPER CALLS FOR OPENNESS VERMONT. In an editorial yesterday, The Burlington Free Press called for the state Senate to kill a bill that would keep secret certain infrastructure information. "The danger of terrorist threats to public buildings in Vermont is far less than the damage the bill represents to the public's right to know," the paper stated in a strongly worded editorial. It proposed instead that the legislature maintain "maximum openness of all public records." This would send "the message that Vermonters won't be cowed by the threat of terrorism and will not surrender their right to hold government accountable." — Posted at 4:31 pm

May. 5, 2003

ARMY TIMES WAS IN HOT WATER OVER PHOTO. Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post reports that during the war in Iraq, "Army officials were so outraged over a photo they found offensive that they tried to boot one news organization from the battlefield. They have trained their rhetorical fire on Army Times, which despite its name is a privately owned newspaper, over a photo of a wounded soldier who died soon after the picture was taken." Kurtz quotes an editor of the paper saying that officials in the field said "there will be consequences," but senior Pentagon officials wouldn't allow the expulsion. — Posted at 5:46 pm

STATE PUSHES FOR DETERMINATIONS ON GUANTANAMO PRISONERS. In a letter released over the weekend, Secretary of State Colin Powell questioned the military's continued detention at Guantanamo Bay of hundreds of prisoners captured mainly during fighting in Afghanistan, and urged Pentagon officials to determine which prisoners can be released. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Sunday blamed the "very slow" process of allowing several agencies to question the prisoners as the cause of the delay. — Posted at 4:14 pm

May. 3, 2003

MILITARY TRIBUNALS LIKELY TO START. The Washington Post reported Saturday that U.S. military officials have drawn up a list of alleged al Qaeda operatives they believe should stand trial before special military tribunals, and the government is ready to start putting the captives on trial almost as soon as President Bush gives his approval. But military officials declined to release the names on the list or say how many detainees they are considering for trial. But knowledgeable sources said only a handful are ever likely to stand trial before the tribunals, which they added will probably be held at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the government is holding most of its detainees from the war on terrorism. It was also unclear as to whether the media will be allowed to cover the tribunals at Guantanamo, where military commanders have kept reporters far away from detainees. — Posted at 9:10 pm

May. 2, 2003

ITN WANTS TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO ITS CREW. Britain's Independent Television News has launched an intense investigation into the deaths of one of its journalist and the whereabouts of two missing crew members who disappeared while covering the war in Iraq. The team, which was not "embedded," was caught in a crossfire between Iraqi forces and American troops on March 22. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, some ITN officials believe that the US Army is dragging its feet investigating the incident and finding the crew. After initially denying that American forces were involved in the incident, the U.S. Central Command decided to investigate only after ITN produced photos showing that a U.S. tank was on the scene during the firefight. While the British Ministry of Defence has informally asked Iraqi POWs in its custody about the missing men, it has refused ITN pleas that it open a formal investigation because "they weren't embedded journalists," a ministry spokeswoman said. [see www.wsj.com (subscription only)] — Posted at 5:08 pm

TRIBUNAL RULES RELEASED BY PENTAGON. The General Counsel of the Department of Defense this week issued eight military commission instructions that would facilitate the conduct of possible future military commissions. The instructions include crimes and elements of offenses as well as other administrative guidance and procedures for Military Commission participants to facilitate the conduct of full and fair trials of non-citizens in the war on terrorism. — Posted at 3:41 pm

PROPOSED NEW POWERS FOR CIA AND PENTAGON DEFEATED. The Bush administration and leading Senate Republicans tried Thursday to give the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon far-reaching new powers to demand personal and financial records on people in the United States as part of foreign intelligence and terrorism operations, the New York Times reported. The proposal, which was beaten back, would have given the CIA and the military the authority to issue administrative subpoenas -- known as "national security letters" -- requiring Internet providers, credit card companies, libraries and a range of other organizations to produce materials like phone records, bank transactions and e-mail logs. That authority now rests largely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the subpoenas do not require court approval. — Posted at 1:59 pm

FEDS REPORT RECORD NUMBER OF WARRANTS FOR SECRET WIRETAPS AND SEARCHES. The U.S. government disclosed Thursday that it requested and won approval for a record 1,228 warrants last year for secret wiretaps and searches of suspected terrorists and spies. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft disclosed the figures in a mandatory, two-paragraph report to the administrative office of the U.S. courts. The Associated Press reports that last year's total was significantly higher than the 934 warrants approved in 2001 and the 1,003 approved in 2000. — Posted at 12:11 pm

May. 1, 2003

COMPARING STATEMENTS ON WMD. A reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald wrote Wednesday that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is now acknowledging publicly for the first time that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program is probably not what the White House portrayed it to be before the war. The article contrasts Dr. Rice's belief that weapons of mass destruction are likely hidden in the "infrastructure" with frightening and "alarmist" descriptions of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction by Colin Powell and President Bush before the war. — Posted at 5:59 pm

BYRD SAYS FOIA RULES GO TOO FAR. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) pressed Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge Wednesday about the agency's proposed Freedom of Information Act rules that would effectively make secret critical infrastructure information submitted to any federal agency. Byrd accused the administration of increasing secrecy about vulnerabilities while failing to seek funds to address "these significant weaknesses." — Posted at 4:38 pm

ADMINISTRATION LIMITS PUBLIC DISCLOSURE OF EVENTS RELATED TO 9-11. Newsweek online reports that Bush Administration officials are waging a behind-the-scenes battle to restrict public disclosure of key events relating to the September 11 attacks. Reporters Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball say some of the information that has been compiled in an 800-page secret report had previously been made public. — Posted at 4:01 pm