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.

Oct. 29, 2004

JOHNS HOPKINS STUDY SHOWS 100,000 IRAQI DEATHS. Rosenthal of the International Herald Tribune reported Thursday that a Johns Hopkins University study reveals an estimated 100,000 civilians have died in Iraq as a direct or indirect consequence of the United States invasion. The U.S. government has issued no tallies of Iraqi dead. The study by a research team at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at the university in Baltimore was scheduled to appear in the London-based medical journal the Lancet but its editors apparently decided the figures should be released before the election. In the study, teams of researchers fanned out through Iraq collecting data. The figures are vastly higher than the 17,000 Iraqi deaths reported in a Northwestern University study but a researcher there said it has only tallied deaths reported in the news media and that he has no trouble believing the high figure. The Johns Hopkins researchers take no position on war issues but criticize the Bush administration for not maintaining a count of Iraqi dead. — Posted at 5:09 pm

WHISTLEBLOWERS CHALLENGE GOVERNMENT, FACE RETALIATION. An Army Corps of Engineers whistleblower has prompted an FBI investigation into the federal government's dealings with Halliburton Co., The New York Times reported today. Earlier this month, Bunnatine Greenhouse, the top contracts officer at the Army Corps of Engineers, sent a letter to U.S. Army Secretary Les Brownlee alleging that the government had given Halliburton a no-bid contract. And according to the Los Angeles Times, after Greenhouse objected to the lack of competition, the Army Corps allegedly retaliated by reducing her role in the contract's oversight. In other whistleblowing news, The New York Times also reported today that Jesselyn Radack, a former Justice Department lawyer, has filed a lawsuit against the government alleging that she was forced out of her job after she questioned the propriety of interrogation techniques used on John Walker Lindh. Lindh, who subsequently pleaded guilty, is now serving a 20-year sentence. — Posted at 2:46 pm

Oct. 28, 2004

U.S. AUTHORITIES POSE A DANGER TO JOURNALISTS IN IRAQ. The U.S. authorities in Iraq have been ranked as one of the biggest dangers to journalists in the world, worse than the regime in Georgia and Afghanistan in a new global survey of press freedom. They have been ranked 108th by Reporters Without Borders, putting them just above Cambodia and only 11 places ahead of the Palestinian Authority in terms of safety. The press freedom organisation said it had given the US its own separate ranking in the war-torn country because of the number of journalists killed by US army gunfire. — Posted at 2:57 pm

BUSH PRESIDING OVER UNPRECEDENTED GOVERNMENT SECRECY. A federal judge recently struck a blow for liberty by ruling that a portion of the Patriot Act allowing the government to poke into people's private lives without judicial oversight has "no place in our open society." U.S. District Court judge Victor Marrero's September 29 decision was straightforward enough, according to Boston Phoenix reporter Dan Kennedy. But Kennedy writes that the case itself is perverse and surreal, standing as a particularly apt metaphor for how George W. Bush has conducted his presidency: in secret, out of public view, with as little oversight and accountability as he can manage. — Posted at 2:39 pm

TWO UNIDENTIFIED SEALS FACE COURT-MARTIAL. Two unidentified Navy SEALs will face court-martial proceedings for allegedly assaulting a detainee who died at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the Navy said Wednesday. The two commandos from a Coronado-based Sea, Air, Land unit known as SEAL Team-7 also are accused of posing in photographs taken while the detainee was subjected to degrading treatment, according to court documents obtained by the Associated Press. Neither of the two SEALs is charged with killing the prisoner. — Posted at 2:36 pm

Oct. 27, 2004

ANTI-TERRORISM LAW PRECEDES ARREST OF IMMIGRANT WORKERS. Police arrested 24 Latino day laborers in suburban Virginia for loitering, three months after passage of a state law aimed at potential terrorists empowering officials to arrest illegal immigrants without a warrant, The Washington Post reports. Eleven of the arrested workers were turned over to immigration officials and now face deportartion because they could not prove their identities. Although local authorities denied that the arrests were linked to the new law, immigration advocates say the mass roundup damages relations bewteen police and the immigrant community, who now may be discouraged from reporting crimes or working with investigators for fear of being turned over to federal agents. — Posted at 1:47 pm

ARMY TORT CLAIM DATABASE SHOWS IMPACT OF WAR ON IRAQI CIVILIANS. A copy of the Army's tort claim database has been obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and provides "a previously unseen portrait of the toll the war has had on civilians in Iraq," The Salt Lake City Tribune reported on Sunday. Although not all alleged acts by American personnel result in claims, the newspaper said, the database does list 4,611 tort claims filed by Iraqi civilian victims and their families. The claims seek compensation for homes destroyed in bombings, confiscated property, and injuries and deaths from shootings and bombings. — Posted at 1:16 pm

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION SHUTS DOWN INTERNET READING ROOM. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission removed its entire massive public reading room from the Internet Monday, CNN reports. The NRC Web site was shut down after nuclear safety advocates noticed some potentially sensitive information there, such as nuclear laboratory floor plans. Although the NRC intends to repost much of the on-line document library once it is evaluated for security implications, until then they have "decided to take to prudent step of closing things up," said agency spokesman Eliot Brenner. — Posted at 12:51 pm

Oct. 26, 2004

EDITORIAL: GHOST PRISONERS HAUNT CIA. The practice of holding so-called ghost prisoners - suspects captured in Afghanistan and Iraq and questioned in secret by the CIA - incommunicado in secret prisons with no oversight "violates basic standards of human rights," not to mention perhaps the Geneva Convention, The Washington Post says in an editorial published today. The detentions and interrogations continued even after the Army, investigating abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, called it "deceptive, contrary to Army doctine and in violation of international law." The Post said it's about time that outraged Congressman made good on their promise to look into this practice. — Posted at 10:48 am

Oct. 25, 2004

SECRET INNER CIRCLE PLANNED NEW JUSTICE SYSTEM. New York Times writer Tim Golden offers a lengthy retrospective on a small and highly secretive group of White House officials who met in November 2001 to devise a new system of justice for terrorists. The group was so exclusive that even national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and secretary of state Colin Powell did not participate. Federal courts could be bypassed, the group speculated. — Posted at 6:02 pm

ACLU SUES FBI, DEMANDS INFORMATION ON INTERVIEW SWEEPS Last Thursday, the ACLU filed a FOI Act lawsuit seeking the FBI's secret criteria for selecting thousands of terror investigation interviewees in the United States. In the past year, approximately 13,000 individuals -- many of them Muslim or of Middle Eastern descent -- have been questioned by FBI agents. On the ACLU Web site, the organization states that it wants to know, among other things, whether the FBI targets interviewees based on their religious beliefs. Upon receiving the ACLU's initial FOI Act request, the FBI said it would not respond for over a year. The ACLU has asked for a court order for an expedited FBI response. — Posted at 10:24 am

Oct. 21, 2004

UNRELEASED 9/11 REPORT BEING HELD FOR AFTER NOV. 2 ELECTIONS, LEGISLATORS ALLEGE. The inspector general's office of the CIA still has not released a report it completed in June on 9/11, according to the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday. Both Democrat and Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee (which specially-commissioned the report) believe that the Bush administration wants the report suppressed until after the Nov. 2 presidential elections because it finds "very senior-level officials responsible" for 9/11. One of the rankled Intelligence Commitee members is Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), who says that the CIA's delay of the report's release "not only disrespects Congress but it disrespects the American people." — Posted at 6:39 pm

Oct. 19, 2004

IRAQI DEATH FIGURES EMBARRASSING. The New York Times reported yesterday that 208 Iraqis and 23 U.S. military members were killed between Oct. 12 and Oct. 17. The Iraqi casualty figures have been difficult to assess after the Health Ministry early this month stopped releasing them. The Times reported that the government adopted a new policy to streamline release of the figures, which have been a clear embarrassment both to it and to the Americans. Only the Secretariat of the Council of Ministers is now allowed to release casualty figures for Iraqis. — Posted at 5:46 pm

Oct. 18, 2004

BILLIONS IN IRAQI RECONSTRUCTION FUNDS UNACCOUNTED FOR. A United Nations audit raises questions about how the U.S.-led Provisional Coalition Authority spent billions of dollars in international reconstruction funds in Iraq from January to June 2004, The Boston Globe reported Saturday. Among the most egregious recordkeeping errors was a lack of accountability for a $1.4 billion disbursement to Kurdish officials in northern Iraq; after the disbursement, no follow-up information was collected as to how the money was actually spent. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said that the U.N.'s report demonstrates a need for an independent congressional investigation. — Posted at 6:46 pm

Oct. 15, 2004

SECRET REPORT PROMPTS SENATOR TO CLOSE OFFICE. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has circulated a "top-secret intelligence report" that prompted Senator Mark Dayton (D-Minn.) to close his Capitol Hill office on Tuesday out of concern for his staff's safety. Dayton's office will remain closed through November, The New York Times reports. Predictably, Dayton was quoted by The Washington Post as saying he could not disclose the contents of the secret intelligence report. Other senators were similarly tight-lipped. — Posted at 3:54 pm

Oct. 14, 2004

REPORTERS SENTENCED TO JAIL NOT BEHIND LEAK OR DISCLOSURE Columnist Clarence Page points out that the only ones being sentenced to jail in the investigation into who leaked a CIA operative's identity are reporters who didn't even make the disclosure. "The New York Times' Judith Miller has been sentenced to jail in connection with a story that she reported and researched but, for whatever reason, never got around to publishing," Page writes. "Earlier, Time magazine's Matt Cooper also was sentenced to jail for refusing to discuss his sources for a story ABOUT a story that already had broken elsewhere. Welcome to the latest outrages foisted on Americans in the name of 'national security.'" — Posted at 2:48 pm

Oct. 13, 2004

COOPER TO RESIST SECOND SUBPOENA USA Today reports that Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper is scheduled to appear in court today to contest his second subpoena in the Valerie Plame leak investigation. In August, Judge Thomas Hogan of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., sentenced Cooper to jail and a $1000-a-day fine until he testified under a subpoena issued by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Cooper avoided jail when an agreement was reached where he would testify only about conversations he had with Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Libby voluntarily waived his confidentiality agreement with Cooper. But three weeks after Cooper testified, Fitzgerald subpoenaed him again regarding his conversations with other confidential sources. — Posted at 1:29 pm

Oct. 12, 2004

TIMES OFFICIALS CALL FOR FEDERAL SHIELD LAW. New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and chief executive Russell Lewis called for a federal shield law in an opinion column in their paper, finding that the courts and Justice Department are too willing to subpoena reporters and even have them sent to jail just for doing their jobs as they are supposed to. — Posted at 7:22 pm

DOCUMENTS REVEAL INFO ON GOVERNMENT\'S NO-FLY LIST. Redacted documents filed in U.S. District Court Friday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request give limited information on the government's secret no-fly list, which swelled from 16 names on Sept. 11, 2001, to 594 three months later, the Associated Press reports. — Posted at 3:19 pm

HAMDI GOES BACK TO SAUDI ARABIA Yaser Esam Hamdi, the US citizen held for nearly three years as an "enemy combatant" before the military decided to release him, returned home to Saudi Arabia yesterday, The Washington Post reports. His release had been delayed for about two weeks after Saudi officials questioned its terms, including travel restrictions on Hamdi, who was never charged with a crime. What broke the impasse was unclear. Sources told the Post that a federal judge had secretly ordered that Hamdi be brought to a hearing today, but canceled the proceeding when he learned Hamdi was in Saudi Arabia. — Posted at 12:16 pm

Oct. 8, 2004

POLICE CHIEF\'S FIRING FOR DISCUSSION WITH REPORTER UPHELD The federal government's Merit Systems Review Board upheld the firing of National Capitol Parks police chief Teresa Chambers after Chambers talked to a Washington Post reporter about constraints upon her ability to guard national monuments in the wake of new security needs after 9/11. Administrative Law Judge Elizabeth Bogle said she had gone outside the chain of command in her responses to media questions and also that she had failed to follow a supervisor's instructions and had misused a government vehicle. The decision is posted on the MSPB Web site.Chambers take on the decision and plans to appeal are on her Web site. — Posted at 7:40 pm

U.S. RECIPIENTS OF HUSSEIN OIL-VOUCHER PROGRAM SHIELDED. The names of U.S. companies and individuals who received vouchers to buy Iraqi oil under Saddam Hussein are secret under order of CIA lawyers, The Washington Post reports. The CIA says disclosure is barred by the 1974 Privacy Act and "other applicable law." — Posted at 10:13 am

Oct. 7, 2004

DUELFER REPORT: NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION Charles Duelfer, selected by the Bush administration to investigate Iraq's weapons programs reported to two congressional committees yesterday his findings that contradicted claims by administration officials before the war regarding weapons of mass destruction. Among Duelfer's conclusions reported by Dana Priest and Walter Pincus of The Washington Post are that an Iraqi "crash" program for nuclear weapons was not successful and the program had "progressively decayed" (despite administration claims of "surprise" at the advanced state of the weapons); that there was no evidence of a mobile biological weapons production system (despite claims by Colin Powell that trailers found in 2003 were "almost certainly" related to the generation of hydrogen gas). Post staff writer Mike Allen noted the willingness of the administration to make the report public so close to election and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice's insistence that no parts of the report be classified. However Allen noted that a two-page "Talking Points" sent to GOP congressmen said that the report "provides extensive new documentation that Saddam Hussein was a threat to international peace and security, and was in violation of U.N. resolutions." — Posted at 6:51 pm

REPORTER ORDERED TO JAIL The Associated Press reports that New York Times reporter Judith Miller has been ordered jailed for refusing to testify in the Plame leak investigation about conversations with her confidential sources. U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan rejected Miller's argument that the First Amendment provides a privilege from testifying, but stayed the sentence while Miller pursues an appeal. If the appeal is not successful Miller could be jailed for up to 18 months. Other reporters have agreed to testify in the investigation under limited circumstances where they had been released from promises of confidentiality by their sources, but Miller, who researched but never wrote a story on outed CIA agent Valerie Plame, has refused to testify even under those circumstances. Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who subpoenaed Miller in the Plame investigation, has also subpoenaed her telephone records in an unrelated leak investigation in Chicago. — Posted at 4:49 pm

GOVERNMENT APPEALS TO KEEP AIRLINE PASSENGER ID RULES SECRET The Justice Department is appealing a U.S. Court of Appeals (9th Cir.) decision that the government cannot file documents under seal in case involving a secret rule requiring airline passengers to show ID, reports The Washington Post. "We had never head of the government asking to submit secret briefs ... when it wasn't based on some secret criminal investigation that needed to be protected," said Susan E. Seager, a lawyer who filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of media organizations. — Posted at 3:45 pm

Oct. 6, 2004

GUANTANAMO HEARINGS GO UNCOVERED. Lawyers for Guantanamo detainees pressed their case Tuesday for a federal court ruling on the legitimacy of the hearings the U.S. military is conducting at the remote naval base in Cuba, The Associated Press reported. Defense attorneys, who are excluded from the proceedings, say the hearings do not satisfy a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing detainees to challenge their detentions in civilian courts. The hearings are open to the press, but journalists cannot stay on the base for extended periods so many cases go uncovered. The U.S. government provides neither the names nor nationalities of the men whose cases go before the three-member panel. However, journalists may report a prisoner's nationality if it is mentioned during the proceedings. — Posted at 5:46 pm

ISLAMIC SCHOLAR REFUSED VISA TO TEACH AT NOTRE DAME. Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan was to have taken up residence in August as the Henry Luce professor of religion, conflict and peace building at the University of Notre Dame. But nine days before his family's scheduled departure for the United States, Ramadan, 42, a Swiss theologian of Egyptian descent who is probably Europe's best-known Muslim intellectual, received an urgent message from the American consul in Switzerland: Washington had just revoked the visa granted him after a security review last spring. Neither Ramadan, a preacher of self-empowerment to European Muslims, nor Notre Dame was offered any explanation, according to The New York Times. They have since learned that the government received some information that caused it to "prudentially revoke" the visa pending an investigation, which has yet to occur. But the nature of that information - is Ramadan accused of a link to terrorism, of espousing terrorism, of terrorism itself? - has not been revealed. — Posted at 5:41 pm

EDITORIAL DECRIES TREATMENT OF US SOLDIERS AT GITMO. Military officials who claimed there was a spy ring at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "now have some explaining to do," says an editorial in The Washington Post. Over the past few months, the Post points out, spy cases against three US military personnel - Army Capt. James Joseph Yee, Army Reserve Col. Jackie Duane Farr, and Senior Airman Ahmad I. Halabi - have collapsed. The military should not be detaining people and accusing them of being traitors "without evidence that will eventually hold up in court." — Posted at 11:40 am

Oct. 5, 2004

ENERGY INTELLIGENCE FIGURES NOW SECRET. Secrecy News reports that the Department of Energy, one of the 15 members of the intelligence community which has routinely made its budget public has decided not only to classify its intelligence budget but to retroactively classify its old intelligence budgets that it has published. Newsletter writer Steven Aftergood, who routinely sues the CIA for its intelligence budget (and has both won and lost those suits), notes the irony of the Energy Department's move which occurs shortly after the recommendation of the 911 Commission that all intelligence budgets be made public. Monday the U.S. Senate defeated a measure proposed by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) to require the government to continue keeping the total intelligence budget secret. That amendment would have scratched a provision in another bill by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) to make the total figure public, following the recommendations of the commission. — Posted at 6:00 pm

PROFESSOR BRINGS FOI ACT SUIT FOR COFFIN PHOTOS. Ralph Begleiter, a journalism professor at the University of Delaware, brought a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit Monday against the Department of Defense and the Air Force for access to photographs depicting soldiers' caskets at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. The Pentagon has acknowledged but not granted or denied Begleiter's FOI request for the photos, calling the request "complex." The Boston Globe reported on the lawsuit today. The brief filed by Begleiter's attorney, Daniel Mach of Washington, D.C., cites earlier reports that the Pentagon regarded an initial release of the photos by the Air Force to TheMemoryHole Web site as a mistake because of the privacy concerns of bereaved families. — Posted at 12:49 pm

SECOND SUSPECT CHARGED IN SHOE-BOMB CONSPIRACY. A British man has been charged by U.S. authorities with plotting to act in concert with convicted "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, The New York Times reports. Sajid Mohammed Badat was charged with conspiracy to destroy an aircraft in a seven-count indictment unsealed on Monday. A grand jury in Boston actually indicted Badat more than a month ago. Attorney General John Ashcroft denied that the timing of the publication of the charges was politically motivated, saying that the delay followed discussion with the British. — Posted at 11:28 am

PAPER PRAISES JUDICIAL REVIEWS. The Seattle Times has an editorial praising courts that have recently struck down secret tactics taken by law enforcement officials in the name of fighting terrorism. The paper cites the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions earlier this year regarding unlawful detention of enemy combatants, as well as U.S. District Court Judge Victor Marrero's ruling last week that the FBI's use of secret "security letters" to demand internet users' information violated the First and Fourth Amendments. "Judges have to be mindful of consequences, but their job is also to defend the Constitution," the paper noted. — Posted at 11:24 am

Oct. 4, 2004

JOE AND THE ALUMINUM TUBES. A weekend article in The New York Times takes an in-depth look at how the White House used intelligence data to formulate its justification for invading Iraq, focusing on the analysis of a junior CIA analyst - identified by the CIA only as "Joe" - who insisted that aluminum tubes found in Iraq were used in uranium centrifuges, not merely for conventional rockets. The authors show that the evidence of uranium enrichment was not believed by others in the government, yet was embraced by the White House long after others had rejected it. — Posted at 6:55 pm

STEWART CASE EXAMINED. Attorney Lynne Stewart doubtlessly violated prison restrictions by helping to pass messages from her imprisoned client, convicted terrorist Shiek Omar Abdel Rahman, reports The New York Times. It remains to be seen whether the jury will convict her of "aiding terrorism." The prosecution is expected to wrap up its case against Stewart this week in a trial that began June 22. The sheik was forbidden from communicating with anyone outside the prison except his lawyers and close family members -- "and especially not with the news media." — Posted at 6:10 pm

NO TALLY OF FRIENDLY FIRE VICTIMS SINCE APRIL 2003. Washington Post columnist Jefferson Morley wrote that wounds of war are not likely to heal when the truth of friendly fire is considered "an internal Pentagon matter" or confined to "whispers among survivors." He notes that no friendly fire deaths have been recorded since April 2003 but provides details of the Army's finding in May that Army 1st Lt. Leif E. Nott was shot and killed accidentally by fellow U.S. soldiers in August 2003 in the Iraqi city of Balad Ruz. A press release at the time attributed the death of the 24-year-old West Point graduate to hostile fire and no subsequent press release has corrected that misinformation. Nott's father, a retired Army sergeant living in Cheyenne, Wyo., has asked for a re-investigation. — Posted at 4:48 pm

Oct. 1, 2004

HAMDI DEPORTATION DELAYED. The New York Times reports that the deportation of former "enemy combatant" Yaser Hamdi, who was supposed to be sent back to Saudi Arabia no later than Thursday, has been delayed because Saudi officials balked at having to "babysit" him when he has not been charged with a crime. Part of the plea agreement, which was made public last week, calls for Saudis to monitor Hamdi and not let him leave the country for five years, although Saudi officials had no part in negotiating the deal. The State Department says the disagreement should be cleared up in a few days. — Posted at 10:50 am