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.

Feb. 28, 2005

POT, MEET KETTLE. In yesterday's New York Times, Maureen Dowd commented on the hypocrisy of President Bush's recent criticisms of Russian failure to foster a strong free press. Bush's self-congratulations on the comparative transparency of the American system were "remarkably brazen," Dowd said, considering Dick Cheney's secret meetings with energy lobbyists and the administration's "trumped-up" justifications for war with Iraq. — Posted at 4:37 pm

Feb. 25, 2005

PLAME GAME GETS ANOTHER NAME. Editor and Publisher reports that two House Democrats have asked special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to subpoena reporter James Guckert in the Plame investigation. Guckert reported for conservative Web sites under the pseudonym "Jeff Gannon" and drew criticism for asking President Bush loaded and innacurate questions at press conferences. Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) believe that Guckert may have information useful to the grand jury investigation into who leaked CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity to reporters and may have been given access to a White House memo identifying Plame. "It is clear that a primary obstacle to the ... investigation is uncovering a precise chronology of when, and to whom, classified information was leaked," Conyers told E&P. "The revelation by Editor & Publisher that Mr. Guckert kept contemporaneous records of his 'reporting' activities could well be a major step forward in developing such a chronology." Noting that Guckert may be writing a book based on his notes, Conyers and Slaughter wrote to Fitzgerald, "It would be unfortunate if Mr. Guckert published information that would be useful to your investigation, such as the identity of the person who gave him the memo, without your office having the benefit of its contents." In an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Guckert denied having access to the White House memo, which he mentioned in an interview with Plame's husband Joseph Wilson, saying that he read about the memo in The Wall Street Journal. — Posted at 2:27 pm

Feb. 24, 2005

REPORTER\'S PRIVILEGE UPHELD IN ISLAMIC CHARITY INVESTIGATION. A federal judge in New York has ruled that telephone records of two New York Times reporters may not be disclosed to federal prosecutors in Chicago. U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who is also the special prosecutor in the unrelated Valerie Plame investigation, subpoenaed the phone records of reporters Judith Miller, who is also under subpoena in the Plame investigation, and Philip Shenon in a grand jury investigation into whether government agents leaked a planned raid on an Islamic charity suspected of funding terrorists. Prosecutors contend, and the Times denies, that the charity was alerted to the raid when the reporters who received the leak called the charity for comment. U.S. District Judge Robert W. Sweet ruled that Miller and Shenon's telephone records were protected by a qualified reporter's privilege under the First Amendment and federal common law, and that prosecutors had failed to overcome the privilege. — Posted at 6:53 pm

IRAQ CHAPTER WOULD RUIN \'FEEL GOOD\' REPORT. The "Feel Good" tone of last week's Economic Report of the President would be sullied by the chapter on Iraq's economy against its backdrop of continuing violence, and so, at the National Security Council's request, the White House excised that chapter from the report, accorting to The Washington Post. Conservative and liberal critics alike said the removal hurts the reputation for independence of the reports author, the Council of Economic Advisers, and the credibility of the White House, according to the report. — Posted at 6:52 pm

APPEALS COURT RULES CLOSED ARMY HEARING VIOLATED LAW. An Army officer illegally closed to the public a hearing to investigate charges against four soldiers accused of killing an Iraqi air force commander during interrogation, the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals ruled Wednesday. The Denver Post had challenged the closure of the so-called Article 32 hearing, investigating the death of Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, in December. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed an amicus brief in support of the Post's appeal. — Posted at 6:38 pm

NEWSWEEK INVESTIGATES SECRET CIA \'CHARTER\' FLIGHTS. Previously unpublished flight plans indicate the CIA has been using a Boeing 737 as part of a "top secret" charter service shuttling detainees in the war on terror to interrogation facilities, Newsweek reports in its Feb. 29 issue. Other flights plans of a smaller jet provide further evidence that the spy agency is running a "global 'ghost' prison system," according to the the magazine. — Posted at 6:07 pm

REPORT: AT LEAST 232 CIVILIAN CONTRACTORS KILLED IN IRAQ. Few Americans seem aware of it, but a report issued to Congress last month shows that more than 230 civilian contractors have been killed while working in Iraq, the Chicago Tribune reports. Some 20,000 to 30,000 contractors, many of whom work in supply, logistics and even combat roles, have been deployed to the war-torn country, yet when one of them dies, survivors say, it doesn't earn the public attention or sympathy that military deaths do. Experts say the death toll is hard to track, and it is likely many more than the reported 232 have been killed. — Posted at 4:56 pm

STATE WOULD HALT ACCESS TO HAZARDOUS MATERIALS INFO. The Kentucky House of Representatives has unanimously passed a bill that will deny the public access to state records describing the locations of hazardous materials, the Lexington-Herald Leader reported yesterday. State legislators are reserved the right to inspect the documents under the bill. — Posted at 3:46 pm

Feb. 23, 2005

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE ... A Wall Street Journal editorial blames The New York Times for the current subpoena controversy in the Plame investigation. According to the editorial, the Times' call for former-Attorney General John Ashcroft to remove himself from the investigation into who leaked CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity to reporters and appoint a special prosecutor led to subpoenas to get Times reporter Judith Miller and Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper to reveal their confidential sources. "This is what happens when liberals let their partisan disdain for a President obscure their interest in larger principles," the Journal wrote. "The idea that there might be some First Amendment equities at stake was overlooked amid the partisan frenzy, and in any case Mr. Novak was expendable because he was a conservative." According to the Journal, the leak of Plame's identity was almost certainly not a crime, and was the fault of her husband, Joseph Wilson, not the "senior administration officials" cited by columnist Robert Novak when he first reported her identity. The Journal also criticized recent attempts to enact a federal reporter's shield law, writing that "The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press wants to protect not just reporters from established news organizations but everyone who writes anything, which means that almost anyone with a laptop and a Web site could claim to be protected from having to provide grand jury testimony. This Congress will never pass such an expansive shield, and we aren't sure it should." The Reporters Committee actually supports a shield law that protects all journalists, but not anyone with a computer. — Posted at 6:31 pm

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CAPITULATES TO CHALLEGE TO RETROACTIVE CLASSIFICATION. The Justice Department reversed its decision to retroactively classify government records less than a day before a federal court was due to hear arguments challenging the secrecy, the Project on Government Oversight reported on its Web site yesterday. POGO brought the lawsuit that prompted the Justice Department's reversal, alleging that the retroactive classification abrogated its First Amendment rights to publish information already in the public sphere. "POGO faced the threat of prosecution if it disseminated the information," an attorney for Public Citizen Litigation Group commented. The information, which had been public for two years prior to the retroactive classification, related to government translator Sibel Edmond's charges of wrongdoing within an FBI translation unit. — Posted at 3:29 pm

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT PAYS LITTLE MIND TO DOCUMENTED ABUSE AT \'BROOKLYN\'S ABU GHRAIB.\' Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine has said that video surveillance tapes from a federal prison in Brooklyn substantiate 9/11 detainees' allegations of abuse there, and yet the Justice Department has not prosecuted any of the perpetrators, The New York Daily News reported. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn blamed the failed criminal investigation on ex-detainees' unavailability as witnesses once they were deported. The News was somehow able to surmount this obstacle, securing interviews with 11 of the "unavailable" deportees for its article. — Posted at 1:40 pm

Feb. 18, 2005

AGENTS CLASSIFY SCOOP JACKSON RECORDS CLASSIFIED. Five government agents searched library archives at the University of Washington for records donated by the late Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson (D-Wash.) and have removed and classified 10 as "top secret." The Bush amendment to the Executive Order on Classification (E.O. 12,958) allows reclassification of records but only under "the personal authority of the agency head or deputy agency head" and only if the material may be "reasonably recovered." Jackson's records have been open at the library since the mid-1980s. The agents at the library included three from the CIA, one from the Department of Defense and one from the Department of Energy, according to the Everett Daily Herald . — Posted at 5:12 pm

FOI RESULTS SHOW MORE ABUSES. More prisoner abuse records were released yesterday to the American Civil Liberties Union in response to a court order in its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Files from the Army Criminal Investigation Command files document previously unknown abuses including medical files showing the broken leg, broken nose and other injuries of a questioned and released Iraqi in Tikrit and records showing that digital images of soldures abusing detainees at Fire Base Tycze in southern Afghanistan exist. Other documents show that after the publicity of Abu Ghraib abuses, soldiers destroyed photos and videos of abuse. Records showed probable cause that eight more soldiers were in photographs jokingly pointing weapons at bound detainees. A platoon of military police took so many "trophy photos" of abuses in Afghanistan a soldier planned to catalogue them into CD-ROMs. — Posted at 11:26 am

SUPPLEMENTAL BUDGET REQUEST UNVEILS INTERESTING TRUTHS ABOUT IRAQ. Fred Kaplan, writing for the Slate Web site on Tuesday, said that the Bush administration's recent supplemental budget request is full of information about the Iraq war that the White House is otherwise loath to admit. For instance, approximately $600 million is requested to reimburse "coalition partners" for war-related expenses. The document also reveals the true preparedness of the Iraqi security forces that are ultimately meant to supplant American troops: so far, only one of 90 battalions is properly equipped and ready to fight. — Posted at 11:21 am

SECRECY MOTIVATED BY POLITICS, NOT SECURITY, ARTICLE SAYS. An opinion piece by Robert Scheer in Tuesday's Los Angeles Times criticized the White House's politically motivated suppression of the 9/11 Commission's report detailing the administration's indifference to terrorist attack "alarms" in early 2001. The Bush White House sat on the report for months despite Commission members' repeated statements that no national security information justified the secrecy. This recurring tactic, Scheer said, renders the public "incapable of making informed decisions on the most crucial decisions we face." — Posted at 11:20 am

DETAILS OF IRAQI PRISONER\'S DEATH REVEALED. The Associated Press has seen secret documents revealing the grisly details of an Iraqi detainee's homicide, it reported yesterday. The prisoner, well-known from his corpse's appearance in Abu Ghraib photos that were splashed around the globe, died in a prison shower room where he had been suspended from his wrists, which had been shackled behind his back. In 1996, an international court found Turkey guilty of torture for employing the same "interrogation method." — Posted at 11:12 am

OVERSIGHT OF PRIVATE FIRMS\' IRAQ OPERATIONS POOR. Private American companies engaging in combat activities in Iraq operate under far less public scrutiny than the U.S. military, The Providence Journal reported yesterday. The problem is highlighted by recent allegations that employees from the security firm Custer Battles shot at unarmed Iraqi civilians and crushed others with a truck. — Posted at 11:12 am

Feb. 17, 2005

RUMSFELD MUM ON INSURGENT NUMBERS. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to give a public estimate of the size of Iraq's insurgency despite persistent questioning from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), according to a report by Associated Press writer John Lumpkin today. The numbers change, Rumsfeld said before the Senate Armed Services Committee. — Posted at 5:28 pm

Feb. 16, 2005

D.C. CIR RULES AGAINST MILLER, COOPER. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. has ordered two reporters to testify about their confidential sources, rejecting arguments that the First Amendment, the common law or Department of Justice Guidelines provide a privilege not to testify before a grand jury investigation, The Washington Post reports. Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine were subpoenaed by Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitgerald in the Valerie Plame investigation into who leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent to columnist Robert Novak and other reporters. According to the Times, Miller and Cooper both said that they will appeal. Miller said, "A case like mine is a warning to people not to talk because the government will come after you, and that's what we're fighting. That's what the press ought to be concentrating on: the threats to the First Amendment and the free press." Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. and Time editor-in-chief Norman Pearlstine issued statements decrying the ruling and committing further support for Miller and Cooper. Numerous media groups, including The Washington Post , The Radio-Television News Directors Association, The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and others, said that the ruling underscores the need for a federal reporter's shield law like the bills introduced in both houses of Congress earlier this month. Columnists Jack Shafer of Slate.com and William E. Jackson, Jr. of Editor & Publisher blamed the unfavorable ruling on Miller and Cooper's attorney, Floyd Abrams questioning his reliance on a privilege based in the First Amendment. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in a press conference that "the President has made it clear that he wants to get to the bottom of this matter, and that anyone who has information that relates to this that can help the prosecutors move forward and get to the bottom of it should provide that information to the prosecutors." When asked if President Bush believes that there is no First Amendment privilege, McClellan replied, "No, that's not what I said. I said I don't know the facts regarding the circumstances of these two reporters. That's a matter before the courts." Excerpts from the opinion are available online from Editor & Publisher , and the full text of the opinion is available on the court's Web site. — Posted at 4:36 pm

Feb. 15, 2005

LEVIN: JUSTICE ARBITRARY IN WITHHOLDING INFORMATION. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said yesterday that the Department of Justice arbitrarily denied information relevant to Michael Chertoff's nomination as Secretary of the Homeland Security Department. Pledging to vote for Chertoff nonetheless, Levin said in a lengthy written statement that the FBI continues to refuse a memo of May 2004 referring to discussions, at which members of the Justice Department's Criminal Division were present, involving abuses at Guantanamo when Chertoff headed the unit, going beyond any previous assertion of executive privilege by any administration ever. He said: Congress cannot sit idly by while the Executive Branch asserts sweeping authority to frustrate Congress' exercise of our Constituional responsibilities. Broad Executive Branch assertions of privileged information and its distortion of the Privacy Act threaten to reduce the Senate's role in advising and consenting on senior level appointments to anb exeercise in rubber stamping the admnistration's nominees. Levin complained that fresh revelations of abuse allegations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo resulted not from congressional oversight, but from Freedom of Information Act requests and media initiatives. — Posted at 3:59 pm

NEWSPAPER CHALLENGES CLOSURE OF ARMY PRETRIAL HEARING. The Denver Post filed a brief Monday challenging the Army's closure of a pretrial hearing investigating the alleged murder of an Iraqi general during interrogation by U.S. soliders. Four Army personnel are charged in the November 2003 death of Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, who suffocated inside a sleeping bag. An investigating officer had ordered the so-called Article 32 hearing closed in December, but the newspaper has asked the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals to order that the hearing be open to the public. — Posted at 2:58 pm

MILITARY LAWYER FORMALLY OBJECTED TO INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES. A JAG officer formally objected to aggressive Guatanamo Bay interrogation techniques in a previously undisclosed Jan. 15, 2003 memorandum, the New York Daily News reported Sunday. The lawyer's objections questioned the use of battlefield methods to interrogate prisoners who had already been captured and housed at Gitmo for an extended period. — Posted at 2:22 pm

Feb. 14, 2005

IRAQI \"NEWS\" NETWORK MOUTHPIECE FOR U.S. PROPAGANDA. The Iraqi Media Network, created in 2003, became "an irrelevant mouthpiece for the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq," a journalist who advised creators of the broadcast network, told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee Monday, The Associated Press reported: The network was given "a laundry list of CPA activities" to cover instead of stories on security, the lack of electricity and jobs, said [Don] North, an independent journalist who has reported for National Public Radio and NBC. — Posted at 6:28 pm

GONZALES RECUSES HIMSELF FROM PLAME CASE. A01:The Associated Press reports that newly-appointed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has recused himself from the Valerie Plame investigation. Before heading the Department of Justice, Gonzales served as White House legal counsel and coordinated the Bush administration's response to the DOJ investigation into who leaked Plame's status as an undercover CIA agent to reporters. Gonzales also testified in the investigation. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft had also recused himself from the investigation. — Posted at 6:26 pm

THE GOVERNMENT CAN ONLY ANSWER AN FOI ACT REQUEST IF YOU MAKE IT. After counterterrorism official Richard A. Clarke's top secret Jan. 25, 2001 White House memorandum was declassified last week, it was disseminated to ... one person: Barbara Elias, a researcher from the National Security Council, the Congressional Quarterly Web site reported on Friday. Why was Elias the sole recipient? Despite the fact that gallons of ink have been spilled over the memorandum, she was the only person who ever bothered to actually make an FOI Act request for it. — Posted at 3:28 pm

MILITARY INVESTIGATION INTO WHISTLEBLOWERS\' DEATHS UNDERWAY. In 2003, civilian contracting company Ultra Services lost two employees who had claimed the U.S. Army was corrupt in its dealings in Iraq; the military is investigating whether they were killed for whistleblowing, The San Francisco Chronicle's Web site reported yesterday. One employee has gone missing in Iraq since 2003, and another was killed that same year. Both had alleged a kickback scheme whereby reconstruction services companies paid off Army officials who helped them to land lucrative government contracts. — Posted at 3:22 pm

MOUSSAOUI\'S LAWYERS FIGHT GOVERNMENT\'S PLANNED RELEASE OF 9/11 REPORT. A federal judge presiding over Zacarias Moussaoui's trial in Alexandria, Va., will decide his lawyers' motion to keep a Justice Department inspector general's report classified, The Washington Post reported yesterday. The report discusses the FBI's investigatory failures leading up to September 11, 2001's terrorist attacks. Moussaoui figures prominently in the report, as he was arrested more than three weeks before the attacks; his lawyers claim the report's release would mar his chance for a fair trial. — Posted at 2:15 pm

CNN EXECUTIVE RESIGNS OVER REMARKS. Two weeks after apparently suggesting that U.S. troops had deliberately targeted journalists in Iraq, CNN's chief executive has resigned. No transcript of Jordan's Jan. 27 remarks in Davos, Switzerland, has been released, but the panel's moderator, David Gergen, editor at large of U.S. News & World Report, told The New York Times: Jordan had initially spoken of soldiers, 'on both sides,' who he believed had been 'targeting' some of the more than four dozen journalists killed in Iraq. In his resignation letter, Jordan wrote that after 23 years at CNN he decided to resign "to prevent CNN from being unfairly tarnished." — Posted at 11:58 am

Feb. 11, 2005

PRESSURE MOUNTS FOR COMPLETE, UNREDACTED RELEASE OF 9/11 COMMISSION\'S FAA REPORT. The Bush administration is under pressure to release the full 9/11 Commission report on the Federal Aviation Administration's response to terrorism warnings it received prior to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, The New York Times reported today. Although the administration recently declassified a version of the report after many months of stonewalling, heavy redactions appear throughout. Commission members, victims' families, and congresspersons comprise the chorus calling for complete release, sans redactions. U.S. Reps.Henry A. Waxman, D-Cal., and Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, have requested a Congressional hearing to determine whether the administration abused the classification process by withholding the report for so long. — Posted at 2:09 pm

CLARKE TERROR MEMORANDUM FINALLY RELEASED. The first terrorism strategy paper of the Bush administration, written by former counter-terrorism official Richard A. Clarke, has been disclosed to the National Security Archive, a private library of declassified documents released pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, CNN reported on its Web site today. The memorandum, dated January 25, 2001, played a central role in last year's 9/11 Commission hearings on the United States' intelligence failures prior to September 11, 2001; the document discussed the sizable threat Al Qaeda presented to the world, and particularly to the U.S. — Posted at 2:08 pm

SENATORS QUESTION MILITARY SPENDING MISINFORMATION IN FEDERAL BUDGET. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has alleged that the Bush administration has withheld anticipated military spending from its initial 2006 budget request to intentionally avoid the especially intense congressional scrutiny that occurs at the budget's first introduction, the Los Angeles Times reported today. Instead, the military spending proposals will be presented in a supplemental bill. Another member of the committee, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., agreed: "This budget shorts what the actual costs will be for our military in '06." When asked at a press conference earlier this week whether he engaged in such diversionary budget games, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld grinned and said "No, that would be wrong. And we wouldn't do that." — Posted at 2:01 pm

COLORADO LAWMAKERS CONFRONT SECRECY IN INVESTIGATION OF STATE EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS As Colorado gears up for special legislative hearings on its emergency preparedness, the executive branch has balked at providing full access to lawmakers' requests for documents, The Denver Post reported yesterday. The special congressional committee will investigate allegations that the state has grossly underdeveloped terrorism response plans, perhaps due to the fact that more than half of a $137 million federal homeland security grant has gone undistributed to local emergency service providers that need it. Legislators are asking for complete, uncensored records relating to this area of state policy from the executive branch, but have encountered opposition. "There are some things that will be of a sensitive nature... that will be impossible to share" even with legislators, the governor's spokesperson said. — Posted at 1:47 pm

Feb. 10, 2005

NYC FIRE DEPARTMENT\'S 9/11 RESPONSE RECORDS AT ISSUE IN FOI LAWSUIT. New York City fire department records relating to its 9/11 response are the subject of a state freedom of information lawsuit heard by the New York Court of Appeals on Wednesday, The New York Times reported today. The Bloomberg administration wants to redact portions of the records, such as critical statements fire personnel made about the department's performance. Judge Victoria A. Graffeo seemed taken aback by the city's position that critical statements are not subject to open records requirements. "It's not in line with the purpose of Freedom of Information," she said. — Posted at 5:04 pm

CIVIL AVIATION SYSTEM RESPONDED POORLY TO TERRORIST THREAT, COMMISSION REPORT SAYS. A 9/11 Commission report that has been suppressed by the Bush administration for more than five months has finally seen the light of day (with redactions), and it recites the Federal Aviation Administration's shortcomings in the months leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, The New York Times reported today. The report says the FAA received 52 intelligence reports (half of all intelligence reports received in that same period) mentioning Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in the six months leading up to the attacks. The FAA's response was inadequate despite such warnings, the commission wrote, and the agency continued to occupy itself primarily with issues like congestion and flight delays. — Posted at 4:45 pm

PIERCING THE VEIL OF SECRECY WITH... SUBTRACTION? The Senate Appropriations Committee is rethinking a plan - already approved by the Senate - to create an intelligence subcommittee after realizing that people with basic subtraction skills would be able to calculate the nation's classified intelligence budget, The Washington Post reported today. Because all appropriations subcommittees release their budget figures, industrious citizens could simply subtract those numbers from the nation's total, and the classified intelligence budget would remain. — Posted at 4:30 pm

FUDGING NUMBERS MAKES BUDGET MORE PALATABLE, ARTICLE SAYS. The organization of President Bush's budget proposal prevents a clear picture of actual military spending, Fred Kaplan reported in an article, "Rummy's Got a Secret," on Slate's Web site Tuesday. The military budget total is $419.3 billion for FY 2006, but that leaves out money that goes to the Department of Energy for nuclear weapons development and maintenance. Another "clever bookkeeping trick" is that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld withheld tens of billions of dollars in Army Operations and Maintenance requests for a supplemental budget. The Bush Administration has relegated these military requests to a supplement, Kaplan speculates, because if the information were integrated in one document, the public would see a sharp rise in military spending juxtaposed with a slash in domestic spending. — Posted at 3:55 pm

DETAINEES: FEMALE INTERROGATORS USED SEXUAL TACTICS. A secret military investigation confirms allegations by devout Muslim detainees at the US prison at Guantanamo Bay that female interrogators used sexually suggestive tactics to "humiliate and pry information from" them, The Washington Post reports. Scattered accounts of such instances have emerged in recent weeks but the Pentagon investigation, which has not yet been made public, shows sexually oriented tactics by the women - such as wearing skimpy clothes, making sugegstive remarks and rubbing against the detainees - "may have been part of the fabric" of Gitmo interrogations, the paper reports. — Posted at 11:56 am

Feb. 9, 2005

IRAQI REPORTER FOR U.S.-FUNDED TV STATION KILLED. An Iraqi journalist working for a U.S.-funded television station and his son were killed by gunmen in the southern city of Basra Wednesday, The Associated Press reported. — Posted at 6:12 pm

NO CLEAR PICTURE OF DEATHS IN IRAQ. Unless embedded reporters witness and report on civilian deaths in Iraq, the military is loath publicize the casualties, which it labels "collateral damage," Newsday reports: And no one at the Pentagon nor at the U.S. Central Command keeps a comprehensive tally of the incidents, according to senior officials in both locations, who say that all operations in general are periodically reviewed. — Posted at 5:56 pm

RUMSFELD\'S CRITICISM OF PAPERS WRONG, MAGAZINE SUGGESTS. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was off-base in December when he said major newspapers did not provide full context of his remarks about an alleged lack of adequate armor on military vehicles for soldiers stationed in Iraq, an analysis by Editor & Publisher magazine has found: Rumsfeld complained to NBC's Tim Russert that the press had harped on two of his statements, notably, "You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time," without proper context or capturing his assertion that the Pentagon was on top of the problem. However, a look at the main stories about the exchange published in The New York Times, , the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post the following day shows that while reporters did give major play to the "with the Army you have" remark, they also allowed Rumsfeld, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita, and others to offer a spirited defense of the military's armoring efforts. — Posted at 5:53 pm

CAMERAS ALLOWED IN SADDAM LOYALIST TRIALS. Reporters and video cameras will be allowed into the courtroom for trials of members of the Saddam Hussein regime, The New York Times reported today. There will also be some public seats in a viewing gallery behind bulletproof glass. — Posted at 4:14 pm

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT HAS TAKEN A BEATING UNDER BUSH. The Center for Public Integrity's Web site has published an excerpt from the book "The Buying of the President 2004," which compiled a detailed laundry list of the Bush administration's secrecy shenanigans. — Posted at 11:19 am

MAPPING DATA TO BE WITHHELD DUE TO COPYRIGHT, TERRORIST CONCERNS. The Monday online edition of Federal Computer Week included an article about the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's nascent plan to shut down public access to its navigational products due to copyright complications and terrorist concerns. NGA records involve airport layouts, coasts, and harbors worldwide, and their compilation relies a great deal on shared information from foreign countries. Last year, Australian government officials informed NGA that they would no longer share their copyrighted materials with the agency, citing NGA's subsequent publication of the materials in public databases; Australia's withdrawal-motivated by copyright concerns has significantly hindered the agency's Pacific Rim operations, according to one source. — Posted at 10:47 am

COALITION PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY PUMPED IRAQI OIL FROM UNMETERED PIPELINES, ARTICLE ALLEGES. An article by George Monbiot, posted on Guardian Limited's Web site yesterday, chronicled the secrecy and inefficiency of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. More than half of the money the CPA spent on reconstruction belonged to the Iraqi people, generated by the sale of their oil. Monbiot noted that there was almost no metering of the oil that the CPA tapped from Iraqi pipelines, though, leading to the suggestion that some $500 million of oil money was misappropriated. "If you think the UN's oil-for-food programme was leaky, take a look at the [CPA's] oil-for-reconstruction sheme," Monbiot implored. Monbiot also discussed that the recently-released Volcker report revealing that the U.S. had longstanding knowledge of countries regularly violating Iraq oil-for-food program sanctions, but that successive presidential administrations did nothing to address the problem. — Posted at 10:44 am

Feb. 8, 2005

LACK OF MEDICAL CARE, EQUIPMENT LED TO \"ANOTHER KIND OF ABUSE\" AT ABU GHRAIB. The scarcity of adequate medical care at Abu Ghraib prison created a different kind of detainee abuse that has been uncovered by a medical journal's independent investigation, Time magazine reported on Monday. In April 2004, for instance, Iraqi insurgents shelled the prison, injuring 60 prisoners. Because there were so few medical personnel, nonphysicians assumed responsibility for amputating prisoners' limbs. And as a result of the dearth of medical equipment, chest tubes were freely used on multiple patients; "when somebody died, we just took out their chest tube and inserted it into another, living person," one physician's assistant said. — Posted at 2:13 pm

SECRET SENATE INVESTIGATION WILL FACT-CHECK UNCLASSIFIED CIA REPORT\'S VERACITY. The Senate Intelligence Committee has plans to conduct a secret independent investigation of a recent unclassified CIA report that Iran is "vigorously pursuing programs to produce nuclear, chemical and biological weapons," the Chicago Tribune reported on Sunday. The committee's investigation signals members' hesitance to take all information presented to it "at face value," especially after their experience with Iraq war intelligence, said Sen. John Rockefeller, D-W.Va. Another member of the committee, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., stated that the investigation will take place behind closed doors, and that the findings would not be made public. — Posted at 12:44 pm

NORTH DAKOTA BILLS WOULD HIDE FEEDLOT RECORDS. New bills in North Dakota would withhold livestock feedlot information from the public for fear of terrorism, an article on FindLaw reported on its Web site. One of the bills was sponsored by state Rep. Jon Nelson, whose concern was that public feedlot records "would make it very easy for terrorists to come into this country and upset our food supply." Jack McDonald, a media lawyer from Bismarck, argued that the information should remain public due to North Dakotans' keen interest in feedlot waste disposal and odor prevention programs, especially when they live nearby. — Posted at 12:32 pm

CNN NEWS BOSS CLARIFIES COMMENTS. Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive, clarified controversial comments he made Jan. 27 in Davos, Switzerland, about the U.S. military and journalist deaths in Iraq, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe reported. In an interview with the Post, Jordan said: "I have never once in my life thought anyone from the U.S. military tried to kill a journalist. Never meant to suggest that. Obviously I wasn't as clear as I should have been on that panel." The Globe also reported Jordan's clarification and set the record straight on the number of journalist deaths in Iraq: The Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit organization based in New York, says nine journalists and at least two media support workers have been killed by fire from US forces in Iraq, according to the organization's Middle East program coordinator, Joel Campagna. Campagna said that the group has not concluded that any deaths resulted from deliberate targeting of journalists but that some cases raised issues of ''fire discipline and indiscriminate fire." — Posted at 12:25 pm

TERROR SUSPECT WANTS GAG ORDER LIFTED An accused Lebanese terrorist with alleged ties to Osama bin Laden has asked a federal judge in Miami to lift a gag order that prevents him from talking about the wiretap evidence against him, Dan Christensen of the Miami Daily Business Review reports. Then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft discussed the evidence against Adham Hassoun at a news confernce last year. According to Hassoun's new lawyer, the order prevents him from responding publicly to the charges. The prosecution argues that the gag order should remain in force to protect witnesses in the government's broader, long-running terrorism investigation involving other targets besides Hassoun. — Posted at 11:55 am

JUDGE TO INQUIRE INTO SECRET TAPES IN TERROR CASE. A New York federal judge will hold a hearing on how secret videotapes of government interviews with a key witness may have affected a 2001 terror case, The New York Times reports. Wadih El-Hage, who was convicted of conspiracy in the deadly bombings of two United States embassies in East Africa in 1998, has asked for a new trial, claiming the tapes of interviews with witness Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl should have been provided to the defense before the trial. In early 2003, prosecutors told defense lawyers that after the trial, they discovered that unbeknownst to them, the marshals protecting Fadl had secretly videotaped prosecutors' videoconferences with him. Fadl is now in the witness protection program. — Posted at 11:51 am

Feb. 4, 2005

CIA BLOCKS MEDIA ACCESS TO SEALED EVIDENCE. Attorneys for The Denver Post sought an order today from the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals allowing it to see sealed evidence in the case against Fort Carson soldiers in the suffocation death of Maj. Gen. Abed Mowhoush. The CIA has denied the newspaper access to documents introduced in a closed evidentiary hearing in December involving four soldiers, as well as access to exhibits belonging to the CIA, whose personnel were involved in the deadly interrogation of the Iraqi general, the paper reported. The appeals court is deciding whether to open the proceedings to the public. — Posted at 8:36 pm

PENTAGON LAUNCHES INQUIRY INTO POSSIBLE PAYOLA. The Pentagon's chief PR man asked the Defense Department to look into whether the department has any contracts with journalists, The Washington Times reported. Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita asked for the inquiry in a letter to Pentagon Inspector-General Joseph Schmitz. "In light of recent press reports alleging that other departments of govenrment have used public funds to pay journalists for various purposes, it seems prudent to review the use of Department of Defense funds that might possibly have led to such activity through department or non-DoD contracting activities." CNN reports that the defense department plans to create more Internet sites geared toward foreign audiences, but critics question whether that will violate President Bush's pledge to not pay journalists to support administration policies. — Posted at 8:35 pm

JUDGE: GITMO DETAINEES SHOULD SEE CLASSIFIED PAPERS The federal judge who refused earlier this week to throw out lawsuits by 54 Guantanamo Bay detainees said Thursday they should have access to some classified materials, such as the reasons for their detention, the Associated Press reports. Judge Joyce Hens Green also agreed that the government should appeal her ruling, which directly conflicts with another decision by a different federal judge in a similar case, to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. — Posted at 8:34 pm

DO THE RIGHT THING, MR. CHERTOFF? Whistleblower Jesselyn Radack, fired from the Justice Department "couldn't believe her ears" at Homeland Security nominee Michael Chertoff's testimony at his nomination hearing that: "If you are dealing with something that makes you nervous, you'd better make sure that you are doing the right thing. And you'd better check it out.... You had better be very careful to make sure that whatever it is you decide to do falls well within what is required by the law." Writing in today's Los Angeles Times, Radack recounts that after she served as a legal adviser to the Justice Department where Chertoff served as head of the Criminal Division in 2001, she did "the right thing" in noting improper interrogation of Taliban supporter John Walker Lindh and was subsequently fired from her job, fired from her next private-sector job on the advice of the department, placed under criminal investigation with no charges brought, referred for disciplinary action in the states where she holds bar registration, and placed on airline "no-fly" lists. Radack has filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the department. — Posted at 8:32 pm

INFORMATION WARFARE SPECIALISTS WRITE \"NEWS\" A Pentagon Web site of "news" written by "information warfare" specialists to counter "misinformation" in foreign news media is deceptive in that it is formatted to look like an independent news site with an unobtrusive link to information showing that it is government sponsored, according to CNN writers. Although the Pentagon has called the news true, Defense Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz directed that only writers who would not discredit the U.S. government could be hired. — Posted at 7:40 pm

GOVERNMENT IGNORES CONTRACT DISCREPANCIES SHOWN BY ITS OWN AUDITS In his article on the Project On Government Oversight's Web site, "Contractor Responsibility: Government Ignoring Its Own Cries," Scott Amey expressed frustration at the government's continuing failure to act on three of its own agency audits indicating a contractor, Halliburton's KBR subsidiary, is "unable to support billions of billing dollars." Government procurement rules permit withholding "taxpayer money until the company can justify what costs it is charging the government," Amey stated. Thursday's Houston Chronicle printed a similar story on the U.S. Army's refusal to withhold 15 percent of payment on the disputed bills. — Posted at 4:29 pm

Feb. 3, 2005

JOURNALISTS COMPLICIT IN GOVERNMENT SECRECY, ARTICLE SAYS Governmental transparency is on the decline in America, and it is the fault of politicians and journalists alike, Charles Lewis argued in his article "A Culture of Secrecy," which The Center for Public Integrity posted on its Web site today. Journalists are increasingly willing to limit their role to stenographer of government spin, resulting in what Lewis called "culture of lying." As an example of government secrecy in action and how the media looks the other way, Lewis chronicled how The Center for Public Integrity devoted 20 researchers, writers, and editors to a six-month project to uncover Iraq and Afghanistan contract information that the government should have made easily accessible in the first instance. Seventy-three FOI Act requests later, the Center revealed a web of cozy political relationships behind what are frequently no-bid contracts. The result was almost no "interest by Congressional oversight committees," Lewis said, and so the "cautious and sometimes deferential national news media" reported on it once but didn't give it the "second-day story" necessary to mount public awareness and concern. — Posted at 8:27 pm

Feb. 2, 2005

VIDEOTAPE SHOWS GITMO RIOT SQUADS IN ACTION Guantanamo Bay riot squads were videotaped in action and a secret military report summarizes the contents of those records, The Associated Press reported yesterday. Despite footage of Immediate Response Force (IRF) personnel punching and restraining detainees, the authors of the military report found no evidence of systemic detainee abuse on the tape. The report did note, however, an all-female IRF team, and warned the government to be "prepared with talking points to refute or diminish the charge that we use women (against) the detainees' culture or religion." — Posted at 7:28 pm

CHERTOFF\'S ROLE AT JUSTICE EXAMINED. Michael Chertoff is expected to be easily confirmed as the new Secretary of Homeland Security, but questions about his tenure at the Department of Justice are being raised before his confirmation hearing. The Washington Post notes that Chertoff "gave the Senate conflicting answers last spring when asked whether a government ethics office had warned against interrogating John Walker Lindh ... without a defense attorney present." Ethics lawyer Jesselyn Radack says she was retaliated against for not dropping the issue. During the hearing today, Chertoff defended the department's post-Sept. 11 actions, but according to a Bloomberg news account, "Chertoff conceded that a Justice Department strategy to arrest illegal immigrants on minor charges to gain information on possible terrorist threats 'had not always been executed perfectly.'" — Posted at 7:13 pm

Feb. 1, 2005

FOI ACT REQUEST SEEKS IDENTITIES OF The Center for Constitutional Rights is attempting to use the Freedom of Information Act to identify CIA "ghost detainees," an article on Yahoo's Web site reported. CIA ghost detainees are off-the-books prisoners; so little is known about their identities and locations, the U.S.'s treatment of them has been effectively insulated from legal review. The CCR made its FOI Act request in December to get some data out of what has been an "information black hole." A CCR lawyer interviewed for the story predicts that the organization will have to take the U.S. government to court to force compliance with the request. — Posted at 4:47 pm

PENNSYLVANIA SAYS PUBLIC HAS NO RIGHT TO INFORMATION ABOUT $280 MILLION IN SECURITY EXPENDITURES. The Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency has refused to produce documents in response to The Associated Press's request for public records documenting state expenditures on anti-terrorism materials and programs, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported on Sunday. In the 2003 to 2005 federal fiscal years, Pennsylvania has been the recipient of $280 million in federal anti-terror money. In announcing their intention to withhold the information, state officials said that its release could help terrorists uncover security vulnerabilities. Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, pointed out something else that the information might uncover: "Secrecy typically hides inefficiency, mismanagement and sometimes corruption." — Posted at 4:27 pm

AUSTRALIAN DETAINEE ALLEGES TORTURE DURING CUSTODY. Mamdouh Habib, the Australian Islamic radical held without charge for more than three years before his release last week, alleges he was tortured in Egypt while in American custody, The New York Times reports. Officials were tight-lipped about the sudden release of the so-called enemy combatant, who was returned home to Australia shortly after four Britons were freed from the prison at Guantanamo Bay. One of them, Moazzam Begg, also claims he was tortured while in US custody, the British newspaper The Independent reports. — Posted at 3:50 pm

CIA CORRECTS ITSELF ON IRAQ WMD FINDINGS. Intelligence officials say that a new, classified CIA report concludes that Iraq halted its weapons programs in 1991, after the first Gulf War, the Los Angeles Times reported today. Previously, the CIA had found that Iraq continued developing and stockpiling weapons until the current Iraq war. One official commented on the novelty of the report, saying that he couldn't recall any other instance in which the CIA had similarly owned up to the falsity of its previous findings. "The situation is rather unique," he added, because "ordinarily, you're never proven wrong in a clean, neat way." — Posted at 11:14 am

PROCESSING FOI ACT REQUEST WOULD COST ABOUT $400,000 GOVERNMENT SAYS. The Department of Justice told a Washington public interest group that processing a Freedom of Information Act request for information about secret legal proceedings involving detainess since Sept. 11, 2001, will cost almost $400,000, Daily Business Review of Miami reported. People for the American Way Foundation called the $372,799 fee "outrageous." "The government should not be able to levy that kind of fee as a precondition for getting information," said Elliot Mincberg. "We regularly file these requests against not only the Department of Justice but other federal agencies, and we've never had a situation like this before. It's hard to reach any other conclusion than they're stonewalling." Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller, however, said, "FOIA fees are all based on how much work goes into getting the records." Advance payment of the fee does not guarantee that information found will be released, The Associated Press reported. — Posted at 11:12 am