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.

Jul. 31, 2003

DON'T LET ASHCROFT HOODWINK THE PUBLIC. John Ashcroft has been on the road for the past two weeks attempting to convince the American public that the media has duped citizens into thinking there is something wrong with the USA Patriot Act. He repeatedly has told audiences that there's nothing at all unique about the Patriot Act -- that it doesn't single out libraries and bookstores, despite what librarians are saying. Ashcroft says the Patriot Act treats library records the same as any other "business record." What he fails to comprehend is that libraries are special. All 50 states have declared them to be special by passing statutes that make it very difficult for law enforcement officials to collect information about what patrons are reading. The federal Patriot Act preempts these state laws, which typically require very strict adherence to probably cause standaards. It allows a secret federal court to issue a warrant for information that merely has to have some relation to a terrorism investigation. The target of the investigation does not need to have any relation to either a foreign power or to terrorism. The standards are extremely vague. No wonder the ACLU and various human rights organizations sued the Justice Department over the Patriot Act yesterday. (See reports from the Detroit Free Press, the Detroit News and the New York Times.) We can't afford to let Ashcroft somehow convince the public that the Patriot Act merely promotes business as usual. Times have changed, and not for the better. — Posted by Lucy Dalglish, Executive Director, 6:18 pm

INTERROGATION FAILS TO UNCOVER WEAPONS. Washington Post staff writers Walter Pincus and Kevin Sullivan wrote July 31 that vigorous efforts by the U.S. government have still not led to the discovery of weapons of mass destruction, despite the interviews and in some cases, arrests, of Iraqi scientists. Across the board they have denied that any work was done on a nuclear weapons program or to hide chemical warfare after United Nations weapons inspectors left in 1998. Some of the scientists have made deals for providing the U.S. with information, the writers said. — Posted at 5:47 pm

BUSH ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR IRAQ CLAIMS. President Bush accepted responsibility Wednesday for making an allegation about Saddam Hussein's nuclear ambitions that was based on flawed intelligence, but he broadly defended the war against Iraq and the evidence his administration used to justify the conflict. Bush's acknowledgment was part of a lengthy and wide-ranging news conference (his first in four months) in the Rose Garden assessing developments abroad and at home in the first half of the year on the eve of the president's month-long break at his Texas ranch. — Posted at 3:02 pm

PANEL TO MEET WITH FBI, CIA ON 9-11 REPORT. In an effort to avoid a congressional confrontation over information contained in a report on the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the leaders of the Senate intelligence committee have asked CIA and FBI officials to meet with them by the end of the week to determine whether there are portions of the report that could still be declassified, according to the Washington Post. The section in question contains information about possible links between Saudi individuals, diplomats, officials and charities with some of the 9/11 hijackers and the al Qaeda terrorist network. — Posted at 2:56 pm

U.S. ACKNOWLEDGES KILLING IRAQI CIVILIANS. Four days after U.S. troops killed several passers-by in Baghdad during the hunt for Saddam Hussein, the U.S. commander in Iraq admitted today that innocent people had died, but stopped short of accepting blame. Until now, U.S. military spokesmen had refused all comment on a raid which was witnessed by many neighbors and whose aftermath, including two bullet-riddled cars being removed by troops, was seen by Reuters and numerous other journalists. — Posted at 2:51 pm

Jul. 30, 2003

AL-JAZEERA STRIKES BACK. The United Kingdom's The Independent reports today that a day after Paul Wolfowitz, the U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary, claimed that the Arabic Al-Jazeera television channel was "inciting violence" and "endangering the lives of American troops" in Iraq, the station's Baghdad bureau chief has written a "scathing" reply, complaining that in the past month his offices and staff in Iraq "have been subject to strafing by gunfire, death threats, confiscation of news material, and multiple detentions and arrests, all carried out by US soldiers." The letter written by the station's Baghdad bureau chief, Wadah Khanfar, to U.S. proconsul Paul Bremer complained that in the past month offices and staff in Iraq "have been subject to strafing by gunfire, death threats, confiscation of news material, and multiple detentions and arrests, all carried out by US soldiers." The Independent's Robert Fisk called the dispute between the Americans and the station "unprecedented," noting that Washington once praised Al-Jazeera for its dedication to democracy in Iraq and its services to regional free speech. Fisk said the United States appears ready to shut down the station over the "incitement" charges. On Monday, ABC News reported Al-Jazeera's claim that U.S. troops arrested one of its cameramen in Mosul in northern Iraq while he filmed an attack on American soldiers. ABC quoted Wolfowitz's claim that the United States is seeking "balance" in the reporting, which he said is highly slanted. — Posted at 6:21 pm

EXECUTIVE ORDER ISSUED ON INFORMATION SHARING. President Bush issued an executive order Tuesday to implement a provision of the Homeland Security Act that is supposed to promote increased sharing of homeland security information throughout the government, including with state and local officials. According to Secrecy News, a publication of the American Federation of Scientists, Executive Order 13311 does not address the definition and handling of "sensitive homeland security information," which is the subject of a separate notification that is to be issued for public comment. Click here for the provisions of the Homeland Security Act concerning information sharing. — Posted at 5:59 pm

ASHCROFT TRIES TO BLOCK PATRIOT ACT "MISINFORMATION." The Department of Justice has been on the offensive over the last month against critics of the USA Patriot Act, the 2001 law that augments the search and seizure powers of the US government. Civil liberties advocates have publicly attacked the measure since its introduction in Congress following the September 11 terrorist attacks. In recent months, state governments have begun passing resolutions condemning the act, or even advising local authorities not to cooperate with federal officers operating under its authority. But PR Week reports that DoJ officials say such actions are based on misinformation and half-truths spread by groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union. Attorney General John Ashcroft and department spokespeople are now aggressively speaking out to the public and the press with an eye toward setting the record straight. "A very vocal minority has been bringing up a lot of controversy over this, so I think it's our obligation to be more proactive in clarifying exactly what the law says," explained DoJ spokesman Mark Corallo. ." Meanwhile, David Tell of The Weekly Standard sticks up for Ashcroft and opines that The New York Times tells "whoppers" about the Patriot Act. — Posted at 5:47 pm

NYT: IT'S TIME FOR POINDEXTER TO GO. Today's New York Times editorial says its time to "send John Poindexter packing and to shut down the wacky espionage operation he runs at the Pentagon." The latest idea hatched by Mr. Poindexter's shop - an online futures trading market where speculators could bet on the probabilities of terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups - was canceled Tuesday by embarrassed Pentagon officials. — Posted at 5:40 pm

DETAINEE VANISHES INTO A "BLACK HOLE." New York attorney Donna Newman serves on a panel of private practice attorneys who occasionally take on indigent clients facing federal charges. She accepts new cases two days a year. In May 2002, instead of taking on someone accused of fraud or drug trafficking, she was assigned Jose Padilla. Padilla, arrested by the FBI at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, had been flown east to appear before a grand jury as a material witness. The subject he supposedly had knowledge of - an al Qaeda plan to detonate a "dirty bomb" in the United States - sounded scarier than most. Still, for Newman, the procedures seemed largely routine - until June 9, 2002, when President Bush declared her client an enemy combatant and Padilla was hauled off to a brig in South Carolina and disappeared into a "black hole." The pivotal question, the Washington Post reports, is: Can an American citizen, arrested on U.S. soil, be held incommunicado in a military prison indefinitely -- without being charged with a crime, without access to a lawyer? — Posted at 5:30 pm

PENDULUM MAY BE SWINGING THE OTHER WAY. The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that the Justice Department's push for expanded terrorism-fighting powers may be waning. An allegedly proposed sequel to the USA PATRIOT Act would have expanded the powers granted to Justice by the original act, but rumors say the proposal is dead. "But the recent release of a joint congressional report investigating the Sept. 11 attacks - and the nearly 900-page document's portrayal of the intelligence community as stunningly inept in tracking down clues before the attacks - has given some members of Congress pause about giving the same agencies much new clout," the Times reported. — Posted at 10:49 am

Jul. 29, 2003

RECORDS? WHAT RECORDS? Librarians across the country have raised their voices in objection to the USA Patriot Act - and those in Boulder, Colo., may have found an end-run around the law. The law allows federal investigators to gain access to records from businesses, including libraries, while conducting investigations. But the Denver Post reports that if a federal agent asks a Boulder librarian for a list of all the books checked out by John Q. Public in the last month, the answer will be "Records? What records?" The library has decided to almost completely stop recording what books patrons have checked out. — Posted at 2:19 pm

AJR SAYS REPORTING ON WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION HAS BEEN "MURKY." The New York Times' Judith Miller has been pummelled unmercifully for her reporting on the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But Charles Layton of the American Journalism Review reports that coverage of this murky subject has hardly been the finest hour for the news media in general. — Posted at 2:15 pm

BUSH REFUSES TO DECLASSIFY REPORT. President Bush refused Tuesday to declassify part of a congressional report on possible links between Saudi government officials and the Sept. 11 hijackers, saying that "would help the enemy" by revealing intelligence sources and methods. The administration's decision was a rebuff to Saudi Arabia, which was upset by the contents of the intelligence report and seeks its declassification. Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal was meeting with Bush later Tuesday to air his concerns. People who saw the classified section have said it focuses on the role foreign governments played in the hijackings, but centers almost entirely on Saudi Arabia. Today's New York Times editorial called for the Bush administration to release the classified portions of the report. — Posted at 2:04 pm

Jul. 28, 2003

CLASSIFIED SECTION OF REPORT TRACES SAUDI FUNDS. Senior officials of Saudi Arabia have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to charitable groups and other organizations that may have helped finance the September 2001 attacks, a still-classified section of a Congressional report on the hijackings says, people who have read it told the New York Times' David Johnston. The 28-page section of the report was deleted from the nearly 900-page declassified version released on Thursday by a joint committee of the House and Senate intelligence committees. The chapter focuses on the role foreign governments played in the hijackings, but centers almost entirely on Saudi Arabia, the people who saw the section said. The Bush administration's refusal to allow the committee to disclose the contents of the chapter has stirred resentment in Congress, where some lawmakers have said the administration's desire to protect the ruling Saudi family had prevented the American public from learning crucial facts about the attacks. The report has been denounced by the Saudi ambassador to the United States, and some American officials questioned whether the committee had made a conclusive case linking Saudi funding to the hijackings. — Posted at 6:08 pm

IRAQIS QUESTION WHETHER PRESS IS REALLY "FREE." As Iraq enters a postwar phase, the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority has lauded the country's newfound press freedom on the one hand, but issued an order entitled "Prohibited Media Activity" on the other. MSNBC reports that Order No. 14 was enacted to stop incitement of attacks on coalition forces and Iraqis working with them. But the edict, which, according to the CPA's Web page, allows "onsite inspections of Iraqi media organizations, without notice," and the confiscation of their property and closure of their premises without compensation, has some Iraqis fearing that the list of prohibitions could be loosely interpreted and used to crush their long-awaited right to free speech. — Posted at 6:00 pm

DHS WON'T BE SUBJECT TO FACA. Noting that the Homeland Security Advisory Council includes representatives of corporations seeking to do business with the new Department, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) proposed that this and other Department of Homeland Security advisory groups should be subject to the open meeting requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). "By requiring that the Department of Homeland Security comply with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, my amendment will ensure that Congress and the American people know how these advisory committees are being used," Sen. Byrd said. But by a party line vote of 50-46 on July 24, the Senate determined to keep the homeland security advisory process beyond the scrutiny of the general public and rejected the Byrd proposal, according to Secrecy News, a publication of the American Federation of Scientists. — Posted at 5:52 pm

BBC V. BLAIR, CONT'D. The chairman of the BBC's board of governors on Sunday accused the government of trying to pressure the broadcaster to change the tone of its coverage of the Iraq war's fallout, according to the Associated Press. The British Broadcasting Corp. and Prime Minister Tony Blair's government have been locked for weeks in a nasty spat over a story in which the BBC quoted an unidentified official accusing the government of exaggerating intelligence on Iraqi weapons to support its case for going to war. The government vehemently denies that accusation. — Posted at 5:45 pm

'EVIDENTLY EVERYTHING IS NOT FINE' PROVOKES PENTAGON REVIEW. A military wife's belief that she could turn to the 400th Military Police Battalion Family Readiness Group for solace and support was apparently misplaced. Susan Peacock of Columbia, Md., tried unsuccessfully for three days to find out if injuries had occurred (they had not) from a blast outside of Baghdad near where her husband was stationed and then went to the family group's chat room to tell what she knew and what she could not find out. The Washington Post reported July 27 that her note that "evidently everything is not fine" provoked group leaders to declare her remarks had "gone far enough!" that they implicated "security violations" in need of Pentagon review and possible e-mail monitoring. Lisa Torey, the family program coordinator for the 220th Military Police Brigade, which oversees the 400th, said later in an interview that the posturing was "hardball" to keep security from being breached and that no one was in trouble with the higher-ups. But she said Peacock' e-mail distressed families who don't watch the news, that they have a right not to be disturbed with troubling news. — Posted at 5:32 pm

WOLFOWITZ V. AL JAZEERA. Arab satellite televisions dismissed Monday U.S. accusations that their coverage from Iraq was biased and incited violence against U.S. troops, saying they just filled a vacuum left by the U.S. media. Officials from Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera networks, which have reported anti-U.S. attacks in Iraq and aired tapes by ousted leader Saddam Hussein were responding to remarks made on Sunday by U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowtiz. They insisted their reports were accurate and reflected events on the ground. "We know that our coverage in Iraq is balanced and unbiased and we are not instigating any violence," Salah Nejm, Al Arabiya's news director told Reuters. Wolfowitz said in an interview on Fox News Sunday the two channels were guilty of "very biased reporting that has the effect of inciting violence against our troops." The two Arabic-language satellite channels on Monday violently rejected "slanderous" U.S. accusations of being unbalanced in their coverage of Iraq, accusing the U.S.-led coalition of aiming to control all media. Al Jazeera said on Sunday U.S. forces had arrested their correspondent and driver in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul while they filmed an attack on American troops. — Posted at 5:20 pm

U.S. INVESTIGATING EXCESSIVE USE OF FORCE AGAINST IRAQI CIVILIANS. Reports are mounting of beatings and sometimes deaths of Iraqi civilians at the hands of U.S. soldiers, according to news agency AFP. On Sunday, five Iraqis were killed during a raid on a home in Baghdad's wealthy Mansur district, witnesses said, as troops searched the house of a relative of Saddam Hussein for the strongman himself. The same day, a demonstration over a nighttime patrol near a holy shrine in the southern Shiite holy city of Karbala, turned ugly, ending with marines firing in the air and a protestor dead. "It's an embarrassment for us. A lot of this has to do with the war being over, and there being not a lot for us to do and soldiers getting killed and then their friends taking it out on regular civilians," said a U.S. military police officer investigating instances of excessive force. The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, vented anger over the army's failure to make a real example of those soldiers doling out their own "Dirty Harry" style of vigilante justice or operating in brutish fashion. "They should do certain things like sting operations and arrest those soldiers like common criminals. A lot of them should be relieved and reassigned ... That's not happening," he said. Meanwhile, Knight Ridder reports that the U.S. military releases little information on Iraqi civilian casualties and overwhelmed humanitarian groups say they cannot investigate every claim. — Posted at 5:11 pm

BASIC RESEARCH WILL REMAIN UNRESTRICTED, DOE SAYS. The Department of Energy (DOE) has reaffirmed the longstanding policy that basic scientific research will remain unrestricted "to the maximum extent possible," and that no new controls other than national security classification will be employed to limit scientific publication and collaboration, according to the American Federation of Scientists. The DOE statement emerged in response to concerns from scientists and others that new information controls, under the loose rubric "sensitive but unclassified," were threatening the vitality of the U.S. national laboratories. In a department-wide memo from Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, dated May 12, 2003, Abraham cited a related letter from National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, dated November 1, 2001. — Posted at 4:53 pm

LYNCH HOMECOMING PAINFUL FOR DEAD SOLDIER'S FAMILY. For millions of Americans, Private Jessica Lynch's return to her home town of Elizabeth, West Virginia, was a moment of high emotion, a happy ending to one of the darkest incidents of the Iraq war. For Arlene Walters, however, the standing ovation and praise lavished on the young woman soldier, who was captured by Iraqi forces and later freed in a dramatic American raid, served only to highlight the contrasting treatment of her dead son, Sgt. Donald Walters, who fought in the same unit. The Telegraph in London reports that Walters believes the U.S. Army (and the media) have not done enough to publicize the fact that her son was the real hero the day Lynch was captured. — Posted at 4:40 pm

Jul. 25, 2003

FOCUS ON MISSING PAGES. The 900-page Congressional report released Thursday on the 9/11 investigation is a damnation of America's failure to avert the terrorist attacks - the missed cues by investigators, the lack of coordination among intelligence agencies. But much of the official criticism is focusing on 28 blanked-out pages that criticize Saudi Arabia. Starting with the early morning talk shows, followed by news conferences and numerous e-mailed and faxed press statements, lawmakers decried the omission of the passage dealing with Saudi Arabia and called for sanctions against the kingdom. The Bush administration said the censorship was imperative to protect national security. Yet USA Today asserts that the real beneficiaries are the Saudis, whose links to terrorism remain hidden, and the Saudi ruling family's feelings. Even Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the panel's former vice chairman, says censored parts "might be embarrassing" but don't threaten security and should be released. The Washington Post's Dana Priest said the Bush administration justified largely on legal grounds, but reports that Democrats said the secrecy was meant to protect Bush from criticism. The Financial Times of London said the detailed narrative of just how much the U.S. knew of their movements before the attacks is more than enough to belie the assertion made to the investigators last year by FBI Director Robert Mueller that "as far as we know, they contacted no known terrorist sympathisers in the US". — Posted by Lucy Dalglish, Executive Director, 1:49 pm

TERRORIST SUSPECTS TURNING ON COLLEAGUES. Terrorist suspects held in Guantanamo, Cuba, have become more compliant and are offering up many more important intelligence tips, says the U.S. Army general who commands the prison where preparations are under way for expected military tribunals. In an exclusive interview with Associated Press reporter Paisley Dodds, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller said that three-fourths of the 660 or so detainees have confessed to some involvement in terrorism. Many have turned on former friends and colleagues, he added. — Posted at 1:43 pm

SCHUMER CALLS FOR LEAKS INVESTIGATION. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., urged FBI Director Robert Mueller on Thursday to investigate government leaks that he said may have unmasked a CIA covert operative amid the political fight over prewar intelligence on Iraq. Schumer said administration officials may have broken federal law in unmasking an operative who had been gathering information on weapons of mass destruction. — Posted at 1:38 pm

Jul. 24, 2003

HOUSE VOTE ON PATRIOT ACT IRKS JUSTICE DEPARTMENT. The Associated Press reports that the Justice Department is raising strong objections to a surprising House vote against covert "sneak and peek" searches in criminal investigations, a move that sponsors said reflected civil liberties concerns raised by the anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act. By a solidly bipartisan 309-118 vote, the House struck the first serious blow against the law, passed shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. — Posted at 6:00 pm

DHS NOT RELEASING PUBLIC COMMENTS ON CII. The Department of Homeland Security recently finished receiving public comments on its proposed rule for the handling of Critical Infrastructure Information. While the June 16th deadline for comments was over a month ago, OMB Watcher reports that DHS is still not providing access to the public comments it received, nor has the agency announced any plans to do so. — Posted at 5:56 pm

PHOTOS OF HUSSEIN'S SONS RELEASED. The U.S. military released graphic after-death photographs Thursday in an effort to prove to Iraqis that Saddam Hussein's feared sons, Uday and Qusay, were killed in a fierce gunbattle this week. Two U.S.-military photos showed the first man, identified as Qusay, with bruises and blood spots around his eyes. That face was far more intact than the other, identified as Uday; the mouth was open and the teeth showing. The face of what appeared to be Uday, the older brother, was severely bloodied. A gash ran from his left eye to the right corner of his mouth, and bruises and blood over his bald forehead. (Washington Post story has link to photos.) — Posted at 5:46 pm

CONGRESSIONAL REPORT CRITICIZES FBI, CIA. A Congressional report released today harshly criticized the performance of the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. in advance of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, saying that the agencies missed numerous opportunities to disrupt the terror plot. The report, issued by a joint panel of the House and Senate intelligence committees, provided the government's most comprehensive assessment to date of lapses and failings by intelligence agencies in the months before the attacks. — Posted at 5:38 pm

PRESS RELEASE ANNOUNCES NEWSPAPER CLOSURE. Read the Coalition Provisional Authority's press release announcing that members of the Special Investigative Unit of the Iraqi Police Service closed the offices of Al Mustaqila newspaper, and took into custody the newspaper's office manager. The Baghdad newspaper published on July 13 a "clearly inciteful" article entitled "Death to all spies and those who cooperate with the US; killing them is religious duty," the press release said. — Posted at 10:15 am

Jul. 23, 2003

RETALIATION FOR CROSSING WHITE HOUSE ALLEGED. A senate speech points to two recent incidents suggest troubling consequences for those who publicly question White House accounts of anti-terrorism efforts. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) accused White House officials of spreading false rumors that he had disclosed classified information related to the flap over Iraqi uranium purchases. According to a Reuters account, Durbin said on the Senate floor, "Sadly, what we have here is a continuing pattern by this White House. If any member of this Senate ... questions this White House policy ... be prepared for the worst." An account in The Hill says that according to Durbin, someone in the White House press office told reporters that senators were disturbed by his statement blaming White House staffers for not removing the uranium claim, and saying that he should be removed from the intelligence committee. And Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) added, "I don't know who is trying to intimidate him, but I know that efforts are being made from various sources to undermine his credibility." In the other incident, according to a Chicago Tribune account, "Durbin suggested the White House may have sought 'political revenge' on the author of an intelligence report questioning claims that Iraq sought to buy nuclear material from the African nation of Niger. He cited a Bob Novak column and TIME magazine article based on information attributed to administration officials that disclosed that the author, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, is married to a CIA operative." Newsday had reported yesterday on the Novak column, and said that it had confirmed Wilson's wife worked for the agency. "This might be seen as a smear on me and my reputation," Wilson told Newsday, "but what it really is is an attempt to keep anybody else from coming forward." — Posted at 7:03 pm

IRAQI EDITOR HELD, NEWSPAPER CLOSED. A Baghdad newspaper has been shut down and its manager arrested over an article that U.S. occupation authorities and Iraqi officials considered an incitement to violence and a threat to human rights in Iraq, the Washington Post reported today. Iraqi police accompanied by U.S. troops raided the offices of Al-Mustaqila newspaper, which means The Independent in Arabic. Neighbors said troops broke down the front door, ransacked the office and detained the newspaper's manager, Abdul Sattar Shalan. — Posted at 4:38 pm

WHITE HOUSE CHANGES ITS STORY (AGAIN). The CIA sent two memos to the White House in October voicing strong doubts about a claim President Bush made three months later in the State of the Union address that Iraq was trying to buy nuclear material in Africa, White House officials said Tuesday. The Washington Post reported that officials made the disclosure hours after they were alerted by the CIA to the existence of a memo sent to Bush's deputy national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, on Oct. 6. The White House said Bush's chief speechwriter, Michael Gerson, on Friday night discovered another memo from the CIA, dated Oct. 5, also expressing doubts about the Africa claims. The information, provided in a briefing by Hadley and Bush communications director Dan Bartlett, significantly alters the explanation previously offered by the White House. The Los Angeles Times reports that Hadley's acceptance of the blame in effect protects National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, his boss and one of Bush's closest confidants, from direct responsibility for the error. — Posted at 4:31 pm

WEAPONS OF MASS REDACTION. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd reacts to reports that tomorrow's release of the 9/11 commission report will be heavily redacted to remove references to Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries to avoid embarrassing those governments. WARNING: Don't read while eating or drinking. You'll choke with laughter. — Posted by Lucy Dalglish, Executive Director, 11:49 am

Jul. 22, 2003

REPORT WILL BE REDACTED. Before the public version of the September 11 congressional investigative report is released soon, a 28-page section on Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments will be redacted, allegedly to avoid embarrassing those governments, Newsweek is reporting. — Posted at 6:58 pm

MISLEADING DEATH TOLL INFORMATION HITS A RAW NERVE. Editor and Publisher Editor Greg Mitchell said today that a news analysis that he wrote last week about military deaths in Iraq has drawn the most number of responses to an article in the four years he has been with the magazine. The original article charged the media with providing a misleading sense of the recent U.S. death toll in Iraq. The press routinely highlights "combat" deaths and downplays all deaths, including accidents, suicides, and other causes (which vastly outnumber the deaths from hostile fire). This apparently struck a raw nerve, Mitchell said. — Posted at 5:51 pm

ASHCROFT CLAIMS NO ONE DETAINED WITHOUT ACCESS TO LAWYER. The Oregonian's David Sarasohn dissects Attorney General John Ashcroft's appearance in Oregon to promote public acceptance of the USA PATRIOT Act. The attorney general firmly rejected suggestions that the act gives the Department of Justice excessive power over people it suspects of involvement with terrorism. "No person has been detained by the Department of Justice without filing charges," Ashcroft said firmly. "No person has been detained without access to a lawyer." To some people, Sarasohn said, the statement depends on what your definition of "no" is. — Posted at 5:29 pm

SECRET SERVICE INVESTIGATING L.A. TIMES CARTOON. The Secret Service is studying a pro-Bush cartoon in the Los Angeles Times, showing the president with a gun to his head, as a possible threat, U.S. officials told Reuters on Monday. Cartoonist Michael Ramirez said the drawing, which ran in Sunday's paper, was only meant to call attention to the unjust "political assassination" of Bush over his Iraq policy. The cartoon, based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph from the Vietnam War, depicts Bush with his hands behind his back as a man labeled "Politics" prepares to shoot him in the head. The background of the drawing is a cityscape labeled "Iraq." The Times reported today that a Secret Service agent attempted to interview Ramirez on Monday and was turned away. — Posted at 5:13 pm

RSF CALLS FOR IRAQ MEDIA REGULATIONS TO BE REPLACED. Reporters Without Borders called today for speedy action to replace restrictive media regulations imposed by the US and British forces occupying Iraq with clear and coherent laws. The Paris-based organization released a report on developments in press freedom in the three months since the US-British takeover of Iraq. RSF said it welcomed the vigorous revival of the media after three decades of grim repression under President Saddam's regime, but expressed fears the new freedoms could be eroded if resistance grew to the occupying forces. It also called for the ill-defined powers and structure of the Iraq Media Network (IMN), set up by the U.S. as part of the post-war media, to be rapidly and clearly spelled out. — Posted at 5:00 pm

Jul. 21, 2003

REPORTER IS CANADIAN -- NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT. The controversy over an ABC news report on morale problems among the troops in Iraq allegedly angered at least one White House official, according to The Washington Post. "So angry, in fact, that the next day, a White House operative alerted cyber-gossip Matt Drudge to the fact that Kofman is not only openly gay, he's Canadian," the Post report said. "Yesterday Drudge told us he was unaware of the ABC story until 'someone from the White House communications shop tipped me to it' along with a profile of Kofman in the gay-oriented magazine the Advocate." "At the end of the day, those kinds of tactics almost always backfire," ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider told Broadcasting & Cable. "But it's pretty sad when somebody feels the need to go after an accurate, truthful report with some kind of personal attack." — Posted at 7:32 pm

INVESTIGATING THE QAEDA-IRAQ LINK. An opinion column in the New York Times examines pre-war claims of "Iraq's supposed links to terrorists." The columnists examine the evidence, much of which has never been substantiated, and remind readers that "Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld promised that the Bush administration had 'bulletproof evidence' of a Qaeda-Iraq link." — Posted at 7:24 pm

DECLASSIFIED RECORDS RAISE NEW QUESTION ABOUT PREWAR RATIONALE Reminding readers that the administration in the fall repeatedly warned in public that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein might give terrorists chemical or biological weapons, Washington Post staff writer Walter Pincus wrote that declassified portions of a still secret National Intelligence Estimate show that the intelligence services regarded that as unlikely and were more concerned that Hussein would provide weapons to al Qaeda terrorists if his government were collapsing after military attack by the United States. Pincus says that portions were recently declassified to rebut allegations that the administration twisted prewar intelligence reports to justify an attack on Iraq, but instead they may raise more questions about whether the administration misrepresented the judgments of the intelligence services on the threat Hussein posed as a source of weapons for terrorists, another basis for going to war. A senior administration official gave a press briefing on declassified portions of the National Intelligence Estimate, explaining how information it contained influenced the President's State of the Union Address in which he made claims, that he now concedes were exaggerated, that Hussein had weapons of mass detruction. — Posted at 7:17 pm

Jul. 18, 2003

FALLOUT EXPECTED FROM SOLDIERS' TELEVISED COMPLAINTS. Several soldiers from the Army's Second Brigade, Third Infantry Division believe their careers are probably over after "Good Morning America" aired their complaints about U.S. operations in Iraq. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the lesson to be learned is: Don't ever talk to the media "on the record" - that is, with your name attached - unless you're giving the sort of chin-forward, everything's-great message the Pentagon loves to hear. — Posted at 12:35 pm

LEGAL ACTION AGAINST BRITISH TERROR SUSPECTS SUSPENDED. The United States has agreed to suspend legal proceedings against British terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay until U.S. and British officials have discussed their cases, Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said Friday. Nine Britons are being held at Guantanamo Bay - two of whom are on an initial list of six detainees who could be tried by the military tribunal. The U.S. government has not identified the men, but the British government has said the two on the initial tribunal list are Moazzam Begg, 35, and Feroz Abbasi, 23. — Posted at 11:42 am

Jul. 17, 2003

ROCKEFELLER SAYS PANEL WILL EXAMINE WHETHER CLAIMS ARE PART OF PATTERN. Sen. John D. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), the ranking Democrat on the intelligence panel examining the CIA's role in making the case for war with Iraq, said that the committee would look into whether the contested Iraqi uranium claim made in the State of the Union speech "was an isolated incident or part of a pattern of misleading by the administration," according to The Washington Post. — Posted at 5:46 pm

REPORT WILL EXCLUDE INFORMATION PEOPLE "DESERVE TO HAVE." The New York Times reports that the "nearly 900-page joint committee report [on intelligence lapses before September 11] is scheduled to be made public on July 24 after months of delays caused by disagreements over how much of it could be declassified." Sen. Phil Graham, who chaired the committee, expressed his displeasure with the amount of information that will be excluded from the public report. "Unless there is a change at the White House between now and the release day of this report, the American people will again be denied access to information that in my judgment they deserve to have." — Posted at 5:40 pm

FEDERAL JUDGE ANNOYED BY U.S. CENSORSHIP IN BAGHDAD. Members of an American delegation sent to Iraq to begin restoring that nation's civilian justice system made little progress and were restricted from publicly discussing their work, said a federal judge who was part of the group. Senior U.S. District Judge Gilbert Merritt of Nashville told USA Today the 25-member delegation's hopes of assessing Baghdad's judicial and law enforcement institutions were hindered by the chaos in the city. But Merritt, the former chief judge of the 6th U.S. Circuit COurt of Appeals, was particularly annoyed by the U.S. occupation authority's attempt to control information by limiting what his group and others involved in rebuilding said to the news media. — Posted at 4:52 pm

FBI INVESTIGATES JOURNALIST'S READING MATERIALS. Atlanta freelance journalist Marc Schultz was visited by the FBI in June. Schultz, soon to be a graduate student in journalism at the University of Georgia, apparently was the subject of a tip from a concerned citizen after he was spotted wearing a beard and reading an article published in an alternative weekly while standing in line at a coffee store. Schultz's experience is chronicled in Creative Loafing Atlanta. — Posted at 12:29 pm

Jul. 16, 2003

MEDIA GIVES BUSH A PRESS PASS. Robert Kuttner, co-editor of The American Prospect, writes that normally the press is not reluctant to challenge the lies of a president. The press hardly shrank from this challenge in the Vietnam and Watergate eras. And much of the press, overzealously, made a crusade of the Whitewater real estate affair, virtually all of which turned out to be a phony. Kuttner writes in an op-ed in today's Boston Globe that Bush gets a free pass time after time. The press holds back partly because of America's vulnerability to terrorism, which Bush's handlers exploit shamelessly, Kuttner says. The administration is also very effective at pressuring and isolating reporters who criticize Bush, so working reporters bend over backwards to play fair. And the administration benefits from a stage-managed right-wing media machine that has no counterpart on the liberal left. — Posted at 6:19 pm

MOUSSAOUI JUDGE SEEMED TO ANTICIPATE STALEMATE. The Justice Department's hopes of salvaging its case against Zacarias Moussaoui in civilian court rest with a no-nonsense federal trial judge who has repeatedly questioned the government's efforts to prosecute Moussaoui with so much of the case against him kept secret from the public -- and from Moussaoui. The New York Times reports today that opinions dating back to last year show that Judge Leonie Brinkema has suspected that the government's insistence on keeping secrets in its case against Moussaoui would lead to the stalemate. — Posted at 5:59 pm

MUSLIM CHARITY FOUNDER DEPORTED The founder of a Muslim charity accused of funneling money to Al Qaeda has been deported, Justice Department officials said Tuesday. Rabih Haddad was returned to Lebanon late Monday. Haddad, a Lebanese citizen who had lived in Ann Arbor, Mich., was arrested for overstaying his tourist visa. He was detained for a year and a half, and his case created a furor because he was well-known among Muslims and because the Justice Department initially barred the public from his immigration hearings. Representative John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and several newspapers sued the government and won a court order requiring the government to open the hearings. — Posted at 5:52 pm

CONGRESSMAN QUESTIONS WHETHER PENTAGON IS BEING TRUTHFUL ABOUT COMBAT DEATHS. Conflicting reports regarding the death this month in Iraq of an Army reservist from Maine have prompted members of Maine's congressional delegration to question whether the military has been truthful about combat deaths. "The case raises a very troubling question, which is, are combat deaths being disguised as accidents . . . so it would appear less harm is being caused by the Iraqi resistance than is the case?" asked Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine. — Posted at 5:41 pm

Jul. 15, 2003

PREWAR CLAIMS OF SADDAM, AL QAIDA LINK DEBUNKED Matt Kelley of the Associated Press reported Saturday that as the President works to quiet the controversy over his prewar claim, now discredited, that Iraq sought uranium in Africa, prewar assertions of a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida are also coming under fire. Two former intelligence officials in the Bush administration said that evidence of a link was always sketchy. Former State Department intelligence official Greg Thielman said there was no significant pattern of cooperation between the two. Another, speaking on condition of anonymity, agreed that there was no clear link, calling any relationships that were plotted "episodic, not continuous." — Posted at 3:48 pm

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT DEFIES COURT ORDER. The Justice Department yesterday refused to produce a key witness in the case against Zacarias Moussaoui, defying a federal court order and acknowledging that the judge will likely dismiss the indictment against the only person charged in the United States in connection with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to the Washington Post. — Posted at 2:09 pm

A PATTERN OF DISHONESTY AND DELUSION. In an Op-Ed in today's New York Times, Nicholas Kristof says that what troubles him about the Bush Administration is not merely how it handled information about intelligence coming from Niger. "What troubles me is not that single episode, but the broader pattern of dishonesty and delusion that helped get us into the Iraq mess -- and that created the false expectations undermining our occupation today. Some in the administration are trying to make George Tenet the scapegoat for the affair. But Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group of retired spooks, issued an open letter to President Bush yesterday reflecting the view of many in the intel community that the central culprit is Vice President Dick Cheney. The open letter called for Mr. Cheney's resignation," Kristof said. — Posted at 2:03 pm

BUSH CONTINUES TO BACK AWAY FROM NIGER INTELLIGENCE CLAIMS. The Bush Administration continues to back away from intelligence claims made prior to the Iraq invasion that Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium from Niger. Agence France Presse reports that the "U.S. State Department, the first agency of any government to publicly identify Niger as a possible target of Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium, admitted it had erred in naming the African country in a fact sheet released late last year." Another report in Sunday's Washington Post reveals that CIA Director George Tenet also had his doubts regarding the enriched uranium story. He "successfully intervened with White House officials to have a reference to Iraq seeking uranium from Niger removed from a presidential speech last October, three months before a less specific reference to the same intelligence appeared in the State of the Union address". Tenet argued that the allegation should not be used because "it came from only a single source, according to one senior official. Another senior official with knowledge of the intelligence said the CIA had doubts about the accuracy of the documents underlying the allegation, which months later turned out to be forged. A news analysis in Monday's New York Times by David Sanger asks why Bush's aides keep coming back to the Africa case as "an emblematic example" of Mr. Hussein's surreptitious activities, as one administration official terms it, if so many in the intelligence world were questioning it? Further, how did it survive so many drafts of the State of the Union speech in January, only to be thrown out, days later, by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who found the evidence so thin that he dared not take it to the United Nations for his own presentation? — Posted at 1:47 pm

Jul. 14, 2003

TENET TAKES BLAME FOR URANIUM INFORMATION. The "yellowcake-gate" story over President Bush's claim about Iraqi uranium purchase attempts continues to make the news, as CIA chief George Tenet took the blame for allowing the information to appear in the State of the Union address. But Bush and his top advisors "insist that the political furor over one line in Mr. Bush's speech obscures what they say is a larger truth: that Mr. Hussein was trying to reconstitute his nuclear program, and had sought to obtain key components for it around the world." But a New York Times editorial also pointed out, "Now the American people need to know how the accusation got into the speech in the first place, and whether it was put there with an intent to deceive the nation. The White House has a lot of explaining to do." — Posted at 6:40 pm

Jul. 11, 2003

U.S. CONTROL OF IRAQI MEDIA QUESTIONED. The Guardian reports on behind-the-scenes efforts by U.S. authorities to control Iraqi Media Network television broadcasts. Meanwhile, the controversies over television broadcasting in Mosul continue. Military officials who helped Iraqis set up the station and who "provide a broadcast news product in Arabic which we've made clear to them they can run or not," tell Behind the Homefront that the Coalition Provisional Authority "is now attempting to take over the station, fire all the employees, rename it as part of its Iraqi Media Network, employ only 25 personnel of their choosing and to basically censor the freedom of choice and freedom of the press the Iraqi people have come to value." An official added, "We are currently looking for non-governmental sponsorship for the station and for someone to continue to care about its evolution to a free and independent outlet with the freedom to provide local news coverage to the residents of Northern Iraq." Anyone with sufficient resources and desire can feel free to contact the Reporters Committee (publisher of Behind the Homefront) and we'll be sure to pass the information along. — Posted at 7:31 pm

JUDGE OBJECTS TO "UNCONSTITUTIONAL" MILITARY GAG ORDER, BUT COMPLIES. Federal appellate judge Gilbert S. Merritt, in Iraq as an official U.S. representative to help rebuild Iraq's judicial system, complained in a column for the Nashville Tennessean that he is now subject to a military gag order: In my opinion, this is a clear violation of the First Amendment to our Constitution, which says that our government may not impose any law, regulation or directive 'abridging the freedom of speech.' . . . It is, to say the least, ironic that, as a federal judge, I was asked to come here to try to help erect and establish constitutional values for the Iraqis, including the rights of free speech and other civil liberties. . . . Yet, irony of ironies, our own citizens here must now clear our own speech with CPA so that our American values and policies, according to the directive, 'are launched in a coherent and coordinated manner' pleasing to the Directorate of Strategic Communication of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Having 'launched' our bombs and won the war quickly, I do not think that this kind of control of free speech is the kind of free speech policy most Americans want us to 'launch' in Iraq. — Posted at 6:01 pm

HAVE PROSECUTORS CRIED WOLF TOO OFTEN? The (Baltimore) Sun reports that the Justice Department's prosecutions of alleged terrorists are not faring as well in the courts these days as they were immediately after September 11, due to shrinking credibility over past prosecutions. "The administration is having something of a boy-who-cried-wolf problem," one law professor told the paper. "The administration has been making these fairly outlandish claims to the public ... and it's caught up with them. The courts are beginning to balk." — Posted at 5:26 pm

Jul. 10, 2003

NEWSPAPER PUBLISHER ACCUSED OF BEING AGENT FOR SADDAM. FBI agents arrested a Chicago newspaper editor Wednesday on charges of being an unregistered agent of the Saddam Hussein's government. The Washington Post reported that "prosecutors allege that Khaled Abdel-Latif Dumeisi produced phony press passes for Iraqi intelligence agents, reported to Hussein's government about the activities of opposition leaders based in the United States, traveled to Iraq to celebrate the former Iraqi leader's birthday and received several thousand dollars in exchange for his assistance." Dumeisi is also alleged to have provided press passes to Iraqi intelligence agents that allowed them to attend news conferences and events. The New York Times added that the FBI said it had obtained an Iraqi intelligence dossier that "described an agent code-named Sirhan who ran a pro-Iraqi, Arabic-language newspaper in Chicago. Investigators said they believe Sirhan was an alias for Mr. Dumeisi." — Posted at 6:39 pm

ACLU DETAILS GOVERNMENT'S FALSE CLAIMS ON PATRIOT ACT. The American Civil Liberties Union announced today that it "has found a consistent pattern of factually inaccurate assertions by the Department of Justice in statements to the media and Congress, statements that mischaracterize the scope, potential impact and likely harm of the now-notorious USA PATRIOT Act." The full report points specifically to statements made by Department of Justice officials that surveillance provisions cannot be used against U.S. citizens. "In fact, the surveillance provisions are applicable to citizens and non-citizens alike," according to the ACLU. "Some of the surveillance provisions can be used even against citizens who are not suspected of espionage, terrorism, or crime of any kind." — Posted at 6:13 pm

Jul. 9, 2003

JESSICA LYNCH REPORT SUMMARY RELEASED A 15-page report on the accident that wounded Jessica Lynch and other American soldiers leaving several dead outlines the details of what happened in the highly publicized -- and miscommunicated -- encounters between American soldiers and Iraqis. According to The (Portland) Oregonian, families received copies of the executive summary report and made them available to news media. The summary is scheduled for disclosure tomorrow. The Associated Press reported that it only lays out what happened from the time that the 507th Mainenance Company left Kuwait behind invading combat forces until the incident March 23 and makes no assessment of fault. — Posted at 6:49 pm

IRAQI URANIUM DISINFORMATION QUESTIONS REMAIN. Following White House revelations that Bush had erred in when he said Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium in Africa, Democrats pressed for deeper investigation of pre-war intelligence efforts. Meanwhile, Bush today "defended his use of prewar intelligence on Iraq, saying he is 'absolutely confident' in his actions despite the discovery that one claim he made about Saddam Hussein's weapons pursuits was based on false information," according to The New York Times, but "did not directly address the misstatement itself, made during his State of the Union address. Instead, he defended his decision to go to war based on a larger body of information. 'There is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the world peace,' the president said. 'And there's no doubt in my mind that the United States ... did the right thing in removing him from power.' And The Financial Times reports that the "US government withheld from United Nations weapons inspectors evidence to back its claim that the Iraqi government had attempted to obtain uranium from Africa, despite repeated pledges to co-operate fully with the inspectors." — Posted at 6:39 pm

SLOW INFORMATION JEOPARDIZES SEPTEMBER 11 PANEL'S WORK Leaders of a panel to examine the causes of the events of September 11 complained that the slow provision of information by government agencies is hampering their investigation, The Washington Post reported. Former New Jersey Republican Governor Thomas Kean, who chairs the bipartisan commission, said that six months into its work, "time is slipping by." The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States must finish its report by next May. The panel also criticized the Bush administration for demanding that a government witness be present when officials are interviewed, with Keen suggesting that the situation amounted to "intimidation" of the witnesses. The commission's status report "singled out government departments, including Defense and Justice, which they said were not cooperating fully," according to an AP report. — Posted at 6:31 pm

Jul. 8, 2003

DHS TO HOST CONFIDENTIAL MEETINGS WITH FINANCIAL COMPANIES ON INVESTIGATIONS. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge today announced a new set of programs designed to share government investigatory information with the financial community in order to "safeguard the nation's financial systems against criminal exploitation," but what is left unsaid, although it is readily apparent from the intent of the program, is that this information will not be disclosed to the public. Also, the news release did not specify which financial institutions would be privy to the confidential data. Ridge announced that under a new program called SHARE (Systematic Homeland Approach to Reducing Exploitation), jointly run by Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Secret Service, "special agents and analysts from the two Homeland Security agencies will share data on specific investigative outcomes from investigations into money laundering, identity theft, and other financial crimes," according to the release. — Posted at 5:44 pm

WHITE HOUSE SAYS PRESIDENT SHOULD NOT HAVE MADE IRAQI URANIUM ALLEGATIONS IN SPEECH. The White House acknowledged Monday that "President Bush should not have alleged in his State of the Union address in January that Iraq had sought to buy uranium in Africa to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program." The statement, reported in Tuesday's Washington Post, came after a British parliamentary commission report was released that raised serious questions about the "reliability of British intelligence that was cited by Bush as part of his effort to convince Congress and the American people that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction program were a threat to U.S. security." The Post also reported that while the "House and Senate intelligence panels have moved cautiously, with Democrats and Republicans divided over the necessity of full-blown public hearings into the administration's use of pre-war intelligence. The House of Commons moved quickly to investigate the matter, with the Blair government battling accusations that it misled Parliament and members of the Labor Party in persuading them to support an unpopular war." Meanwhile the New York Times reports that a number of administration officials have conceded that "Mr. Bush never should have made the claims [on African uranium], given the weakness of the case. One senior official said that the uranium purchases were 'only one small part' of a broader effort to reconstitute the nuclear program, and that Mr. Bush probably should have dwelled on others." — Posted at 3:12 pm

STUDENT DRAWS INFRASTRUCTURE, SETS OFF ALARM A George Mason University graduate student's dissertation mapping the fiber optic network of the nation's business and industrial sector has raised the hackles of companies and government officials who believe al Qaeda operatives would find it a "terrorist treasure map," The Washington Post reports. Sean Gorman, the Post notes, has become part of an expanding field of researchers whose work is scrutinized for reasons of national security. Former White House cyberterrorism chief Richard Clarke told the Post that Gorman should get his grade and burn the dissertation. Others argue that publication of critical targets would force government and industry to protect them. Michael Vatis, who founded the National Infrastructure Protection Center, noted a dangerous time gap between identification of weaknesses and patching them but opined, "I don't think security through obscurity is a winning strategy." At the insistence of the Virginia college, the Post did not publish information from Gorman's paper. — Posted at 12:06 pm

Jul. 7, 2003

BRITAIN WILL ASK FOR DETAINEES TO BE REPATRIATED. The Observer in London is reporting that British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw will call for two British al-Qaeda suspects facing a secret U.S. military tribunal in Cuba to return to be repatriated. Straw will urge United States Secretary of State Colin Powell to allow the pair to return to Britain for trial "under normal judicial process." If convicted by tribunal at the Guantanamo Bay military base, Moazzam Begg, 35, from Birmingham, and Feroz Abbasi, 23, from London, could be sentenced to death. The two men are among six people on a list of al-Qaeda suspects who could face secret trials. But Straw and Home Secretary David Blunkett are to make it clear to the U.S. authorities the U.K. Government will not condone capital punishment, the newspaper says. — Posted at 6:08 pm

SIX SUSPECTED TERRORISTS EXPECTED TO FACE MILITARY TRIBUNALS. Last week, President Bush designated six suspected al Qaeda terrorists as eligible for trial before military tribunals, bringing the United States to the brink of its first prosecution of enemy prisoners since the aftermath of World War II. U.S. government officials who announced the president's action declined to name the six men, to describe the timeline for moving their cases forward or to say where they might be tried, though some officials said the site almost certainly will be the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. While U.S. officials refused to identify the six detainees, British officials said Friday that two Britons were among the six and that there were "serious concerns" in the government about the judicial process, according to the Washington Post. A spokesman for the Foreign Office said Washington had informed British diplomats of the names of the two Britons -- Moazzam Begg, 35, from Birmingham, and Feroz Abbasi, 23, from south London. Their parents were notified by British officials Thursday evening. Separately, the Australian government announced that one of its nationals, David Hicks, was among the six. On Sunday, a Washington Post editorial criticized the Bush administration's claim of authority to unilaterally decide how any captive is legally designated and held -- and to unilaterally change that designation at any time. "This system is convenient for the government, offering all of the legitimacy the criminal justice system can confer without any of its discipline," the editorial said. "As a legal regime, however, it is unacceptable." — Posted at 3:03 pm

U.S. FORCES CLASH WITH JOURNALISTS AT GUANTANAMO. The U.S. military clashed with British journalists in late June at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay after inmates shouted to a BBC Panorama team who had been invited to tour the maximum security camp, according to a report in The Guardian. As the journalists walked through camp four, detainees shouted that they wanted to tell their story and the US soldiers immediately halted the tour, ordering everyone out. An audio recording made by the Panorama team was seized by US forces and BBC reporter Vivienne White was banished to a section of the bay away from Camp Delta. — Posted at 2:52 pm

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS QUESTION USA PATRIOT ACT. When the Justice Department sought greatly expanded powers of surveillance, detention and access to records through the USA Patriot Act immediately after September 11, 2001, there was little opposition. New York Times reporter Adam Clymer writes that concerns about the loss of civil liberties are increasing. Three states and 133 localities have adopted resolutions critical of the USA Patriot Act. These have usually cited the threat of the F.B.I. rummaging through library and bookstore records, a practice for which there is scant, or no, evidence. Some jurisdictions directed their own officials not to cooperate with the feds. The Justice Department dismisses these resolutions as the voice of granola-chomping peaceniks. While Cambridge, Mass., and Berkeley, Calif., were among the early adherents, late-comers like Reading, Pa., and the state of Alaska have no liberal history. For example, Alaska State Representative Lesil McGuire said there had been unprecedented cooperation between Republicans and Democrats in passing her state's resolution with only two dissenting votes. She said it was "too important to screw it up over partisan politics." Alaska's resolution forbids "the recording, filing and sharing of any intelligence information concerning a person or organization, even if authorized by federal law enforcement acting under new powers granted by the USA Patriot Act or Executive orders; this includes collection and review of library lending and research records, book and video store sales and rental records, medical records, financial records, student records and other personal data." — Posted at 2:40 pm

FORMER AMBASSADOR'S ALLEGATIONS MAY LEAD TO SENATE INVESTIGATION. The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee clashed on Sunday over whether to open another probe into alleged White House manipulation of intelligence to make the case for war against Iraq. Michigan Sen. Carl Levin told NBC's "Meet the Press" that new accusations by former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson over claims Iraq bought uranium from Niger added fuel to an investigation he was opening with his own staff. But the committee chairman, Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner, said he favored letting the Senate Intelligence Committee finish its probe before deciding whether his panel should dig further. Meanwhile, Wilson wrote in Sunday's New York Times, "Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." Wilson said on "Meet the Press" on Sunday that "either the administration has information that it has not shared with the public or ... they were using the selective use of facts and intelligence to bolster a decision that had already been made to go to war." — Posted at 2:28 pm

COMMITTEE CLEARS BLAIR GOVERNMENT. Reuters reports today that a parliamentary committee concluded that British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government did not mislead parliament or doctor evidence to justify the war on Iraq. — Posted at 2:17 pm

Jul. 3, 2003

SECRET CIA REPORT SAYS AGENCY WAS "SURPRISINGLY CONSISTENT" IN REPORTING IRAQ WEAPONS CAPABILITY. The CIA was justified in telling President Bush and top aides last fall that Saddam Hussein was still seeking weapons of mass destruction, but the agency often lacked precise, up-to-date information about the threat that those weapons posed, an internal CIA review has found. The report on the internal CIA review, which has not been made public, was delivered to the CIA in draft form in mid-June. Former CIA deputy director Richard Kerr, who is leading the study, said he found that the agency was "surprisingly consistent" in reporting during the year before the U.S. invasion of Iraq that Baghdad was trying to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. But Kerr, in a telephone interview with Knight Ridder's Washington Bureau, said the status and locations of those weapons programs were "harder to conclude." The report, while backing the CIA, is likely to provide ammunition to critics who say the White House exaggerated the Iraqi threat beyond what was known by U.S. intelligence agencies. — Posted at 11:44 am

Jul. 2, 2003

BLAIR SAYS INVESTIGATION RESULTS WILL BE MADE PUBLIC. British Prime Minister Tony Blair challenged critics Wednesday to produce evidence for claims the government exaggerated the scale of the Iraqi weapons threat. An unidentified intelligence official, quoted by the British Broadcasting Corp., has alleged that Blair's office insisted on including a claim that some Iraqi chemical and biological weapons could be deployed within 45 minutes, although the official said experts doubted that was true. The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee has been investigating the preparation of the dossier. Blair said the committee would make its report public, and that another parliamentary committee was also investigating. — Posted at 2:24 pm

REPORT QUESTIONS IMMIGRATION ROUND-UP. In the most comprehensive study to date of "the September 11 detainees," a report released June 26 by the Migration Policy Institute profiles 406 of the roughly 894 people arrested and held in custody. The nonpartisan think tank's report casts serious doubt on the value of that Justice Department roundup. Taken together, the sagas of the 406 detainees depict a largely haphazard approach to rooting out the terrorists in our midst. While the post-9/11 sweep did enhance the enforcement of immigration laws somewhat, it was not the most effective way to marshal the nation's limited terrorist-hunting resources, the report argues. In a news story about the report, GovExec.com reports there are no solid numbers, at least none publicly available, on how many would-be terrorists were caught by the sweep. According to the Justice Department, only one of the 762 immigration-law violators, Zacarias Moussaoui, who was actually detained three weeks before 9/11, counts as a terrorist. But, officials say, "dozens" of the 132 people who faced criminal charges were charged with terrorism-related offenses. — Posted at 2:00 pm

HENTOFF QUESTIONS IMMIGRATION DETENTIONS RULES. Village Voice columnist Nat Hentoff comments on reports in Steve Brill's book, "After," that in post 9/11 strategy sessions at the Justice Department, former Deputy Attorney General Michael Chertoff, agreed that the detainees should be held for long periods of questioning. Chertoff also apparently said that even if some got a hearing, "the hearings could not only be done in secret, but also could be delayed, and that even after the hearings were held and they were ordered deported [usually for only minor immigration violations], there was nothing in the law that said they absolutely had to be deported immediately. They could be held still longer." As for the detainees' right to contact lawyers, Chertoff and the others in the room, reports Brill, knew that under INS rules, the prisoners "were entitled to call a lawyer from jail, but the lists the INS provided of available lawyers invariably had phone numbers that were not in service." — Posted at 11:39 am

PRESS CENSORED IN BAGHDAD. The print press in Baghdad is booming as newspapers rose from five government-run papers during Saddam Hussein's regime to around 150 now. But U.S.-led forces are dampening the mood of the free press by censoring it. The U.S.-led administration here last week threatened to fine or close down any newspapers that incite violence or endanger the security of coalition troops or any ethnic or religious group. They will also shut down any publications supporting Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. The Village Voice reports that Administrator L. Paul Bremer claimed at a news conference last week that Americans were not trying to hamper free speech. "It is intended to stop ... people who are trying to incite political violence, and people who are succeeding in inciting political violence here," he said. — Posted at 11:35 am

Jul. 1, 2003

ASHCROFT ASKS BUSINESSES TO SHARE INFORMATION. Attorney General John Ashcroft called on the business community last week to share information with the government to help fight potential terrorist threats facing the United States, according to a report in Federal Computer Week. "We recognize that citizens and private businesses have information, knowledge and capabilities that can help in the war against terrorism," Ashcroft told a gathering of business and law enforcement officials on June 23. "We also recognize that information sharing is a two-way street." Ashcroft said information sharing has become a critical component of the law enforcement arsenal since September 11, 2001, and private industry has a role to play in helping relay information and intelligence to federal authorities. Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America, said businesses are more likely to cooperate with the federal government since the passage of the Homeland Security Act, which limited release of certain information under the Freedom of Information Act. — Posted at 5:32 pm

PONDERING THE PENTAGON PAPERS. Would the Pentagon Papers case -- a hallmark case for freedom of the press in this country -- be decided the same way today? Reporter Gary Kamiya expresses his doubts in an opinion piece on the subscription-only site Salon.com. Kamiya compares the political climate during the Nixon years, when the case was decided, to the current state of affairs. Both eras involved controversial wars and presidents "obsessed with secrecy." But if today's Supreme Court was forced to choose between press freedom and the government's claim of national security, he says, "a very different ruling" might result. Kamiya writes: "The Pentagon Papers did create a precedent in support of free speech. But it is a murky and shaky precedent, subject to the vicissitudes of history, the willingness of future justices to defer to the executive branch, and the tough-mindedness of journalists ... And optimism is not warranted. Justice [Hugo] Black's argument that the public has the right to all information, because only the marketplace of ideas assures the security of the nation ... may have resonated for the Founders, but it is increasingly out of step with our security-obsessed age. Today, when the president's spokesman tells us we should all 'watch what we say,' John Ashcroft is in charge of law enforcement and the PATRIOT Act in force, Black's statement that the 'guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security for our Republic' sounds positively radical." — Posted at 3:55 pm