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.

Aug. 25, 2005

JOURNALISM GROUPS PROTEST JAILING OF REPORTER. Media rights groups demanded on Thursday that U.S. forces immediately release a Reuters journalist held in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq unless they could explain why he is being held without charge. Reporters Without Borders said it had written to top U.S. Middle East commander General John Abizaid to demand the release of 36-year-old Ali Omar Abrahem al-Mashhadani. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists also urged the release of Mashhadani, unless the U.S. military could offer an explanation for his detention. — Posted at 4:27 pm

FAMILY WRONGLY IDENTIFIED AS TERRORISTS BY CABLE CHANNEL. For the last 2 1/2 weeks, a California family has been plunged into an unsettling routine of drivers shouting profanities, stopping to photograph their house and - most recently - spray-painting a slogan on their property after the Fox television network wrongly identified the suburban fixer-upper as the home of a terrorist. — Posted at 3:38 pm

L.A. TIMES EXAMINES WHITE HOUSE 2003 RESPONSE TO WILSON\'S CLAIMS. An extensive examination by the Los Angeles Times of events inside the White House two summers ago, and interviews with administration officials, offers new insights into the White House response to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's column refuting its WMD claims, which ultimately led to the jailing of New York Times reporter Judith Miller. The story also looks at the people who shaped the response, the deep disdain Cheney and other administration officials felt for the CIA, and the far-reaching consequences of the effort to manage the crisis. — Posted at 3:28 pm

Aug. 24, 2005

REUTERS ASKS REASONS FOR JOURNALIST\'S DETENTION. Reuters called on the U.S. military on Wednesday to explain the detention of an Iraqi journalist working for the agency, who has been held incommunicado for two weeks, or release him immediately. U.S. military spokesmen have refused to say why they are holding Ali Omar Abrahem al-Mashhadani, a 36-year-old freelance cameraman and photographer who has worked for the international news organization for a year in Ramadi, capital of Anbar region. — Posted at 5:37 pm

CONTACTS BETWEEN REPORTERS AND SOURCES AS CRIMINAL \"OVERT ACTS.\" While the news media have been worrying this summer about the Valerie Plame leak investigation, a potentially far more dangerous threat to the press has emerged in a federal criminal indictment that lists contacts between reporters and sources as "overt acts" in an alleged conspiracy to commit espionage, according to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. The case involves two former officials of a pro-Israel lobbying group, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, and their alleged dissemination of classified information that they received from a former Defense Department analyst named Lawrence Franklin. The Aug. 4 indictment charged that the three disclosed secret information about U.S. policy toward Iran and terrorism to an unnamed foreign power, identified by sources as Israel. If the prosecution succeeds, Ignatius says, it could change the way business is done in Washington. — Posted at 5:31 pm

TRUTH IS THE TRUTH. Army Reserve Brigadier General Janis Karpinski in an extensive interview with Marjorie Cohn on the blog "truthout" discusses sworn statements that she says refute what the Pentagon reports on prisoner torture at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. — Posted at 5:27 pm

Aug. 23, 2005

ANOTHER TILLMAN PROBE BEGINS. The Pentagon's inspector general is reviewing the Army's probe into the friendly fire death of former pro football player Pat Tillman, a spokesman told The Associated Press. Tillman's parents welcomed the decision. The Defense Department has already completed an investigation into Tillman's death that was aimed at concerns raised about whether the Army held back information, but its findings weren't made public. — Posted at 6:01 pm

PENTAGON ALLOWS MORE MEDIA ACCESS TO SOLDIERS. Facing sagging public opinion polls and an increasingly spirited antiwar movement, the Bush administration and its allies this week launched a broad public relations offensive, with a presidential defense of the warand a caravan of supportive military families carrying their message to the Bush ranch in Texas. Meanwhile, The Boston Globe reports, the Pentagon is increasing media access to soldiers in the field in an attempt to highlight their successes in Iraq. Administration officials fear that the deadly insurgency and reports of U.S. deaths have overshadowed the progress made on the ground. — Posted at 5:55 pm

PENTAGON SAYS \"NO EVIDENCE\" OF SECRET PROGRAM. The Pentagon said Monday that Defense Department investigators have found no evidence to support allegations by a GOP congressman and others that a secret program had identified lead hijacker Mohamed Atta more than a year before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The Washington Post reported that the findings by the Pentagon further challenge assertions by Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) and two military officers that a small data analysis program called "Able Danger" had identified Atta and three other hijackers as early as 1999, but that Defense Department lawyers prevented the information from being shared with the FBI. — Posted at 5:53 pm

Aug. 22, 2005

SEPT. 11 REPORT (FINALLY) ISSUED. Nearly two years after its congressionally set deadline, the CIA inspector general has issued a report on the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, The Washington Post reported today. The report has not yet been delivered to Congress. It is being reviewed by agency director Porter Goss. Part of the delay has come from reviews by individuals named in the report. — Posted at 4:26 pm

Aug. 18, 2005

NON-PROFIT SUED FBI FOR EXPEDITED FOI ACT RESPONSE The Maine Civil Liberties Union has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the FBI for expedited processing of its request for records pertaining to the agency's surveillance of peaceful domestic activists, the organization's Web site reported last week. The FBI turned down the expedition request, but the non-profit organization insists in its litigation that a hastened response is needed. — Posted at 3:24 pm

Aug. 16, 2005

JUDGE ORDERS U.S. TO DISCLOSE ARGUMENTS IN ABU GHRAIB PHOTOS CASE A federal judge in New York ordered prosecutors Monday to disclose parts of their arguments opposing the release of photos and videotapes taken at Abu Ghraib prison, Newsday reports. Following a closed-door session with lawyers, U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said he largely "ruled in favor of public disclosure" in ordering revelation of the arguments, which are based on redacted statements by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard B. Myers and a state department official. Hellerstein will hear oral arguments Aug. 30 in the ACLU's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Defense Department seeking the release of 87 photos and four videotapes from Abu Ghraib. — Posted at 3:09 pm

Aug. 15, 2005

CONVICTED LAWYER REQUESTS MISTRIAL OVER SECRECY Lynne Stewart, the criminal defense lawyer convicted six months ago of aiding terrorism, is seeking a new trial based on revelations about members of the anonymous jury that sat on her case, The New York Times reports. The trial judge recently unsealed motions by Stewart, who represented bombing conspirator Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, for a mistrial, as well as the government's responses. The identities of the jurors, who are referred to by numbers, remain secret. — Posted at 4:35 pm

Aug. 12, 2005

THE INSIDE STORY ON THE WAR IN IRAQ At least 200 active-duty soldiers keep Web logs documenting what's really going on in the war in Iraq, The Washington Post reports. Two years ago when the U.S. invaded Iraq, there were only about a dozen similar blogs. Written in the casual, sometimes profane language of the barracks, the entries give readers an unfiltered perspective on combat largely unavailable elsewhere. But they are also drawing new scrutiny and regulation from commanders concerned they could compromise security. Among the blogs the Post reports on are "Life in this Girl's Army," "My War," and "The Mudville Gazette," a clearinghouse of information on military blogging administered by an Army veteran who goes by the screen name Greyhawk. — Posted at 6:38 pm

GONZALES: YEA ON PATRIOT ACT, NAY ON SHIELD LAW. The Chicago Sun Times reports that U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales urged support for the USA PATRIOT Act but balked at the idea of a federal reporter's shield law. He said the the government needs the powers provided by the act and would not abuse them. "We are not interested in the reading habits of ordinary citizens," he said of the PATRIOT Act at a convention of the American Bar Association. When questioned about the shield law pending before Congress, Gonzales said "There is a competing interest here and that is the ability of prosecutors to get information that [is] needed to lock up bad guys." Reuters reports that ABA president-elect Michael Greco has called parts of the PATRIOT Act offensive to civil liberties. The ABA supports the shield bill. — Posted at 6:33 pm

DESPITE CRITICS\' CLAIMS, NAMING PLAME COULD BE A CRIME. According to a Los Angeles Times op-ed by former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega, the disclosure of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity may have been a crime. wo authors of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act -- the statute supposedly violated when Plame was identified to reporters -- and other critics have said that revealing her identity could not have violated the act. According to de la Vega, the statute only requires that for the government officials who supplied the leak to have committed a crime, they must have intentionally identified her knowing that the government was trying to keep her covert. The law does not require prosecutors to prove that the leakers intended to harm Plame, as critics have contended. — Posted at 3:33 pm

ORAL HISTORIES DETAILING 9/11 RELEASED IN NEW YORK. Twelve thousand pages of oral histories concerning the September 11 attacks will be made public today in New York after a recent ruling by the state's highest court that they are public information, The New York Times reported today. The mother of a firefighter who has not been seen since that day told the Times that she hoped the oral histories might reveal information about his engine company's whereabouts. For the past four years, "no one can tell me what happened to him," she said. "Not even the smallest detail." — Posted at 2:48 pm

CONTINUING FOI ACT DISPUTE INDICATES HIGH-LEVEL GOVERNMENT FEAR OF RECORDS\' RELEASE. The fact that the government's recent eleventh hour argument that Abu Ghraib prison records should be kept secret was accompanied by an affidavit from Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Richard B. Myers reveals high-level government officials' "alarm at the prospect that the photos might become public," The New York Times reported today. In his statement, Myers testified that the ACLU should not get Freedom of Information Act access to Abu Ghraib prison abuse photos because their release could incite violence against troops and civilians overseas. The Reporters Committee filed an amicus brief last week in the long-running lawsuit on behalf of a number of media organizations and companies. — Posted at 2:45 pm

Aug. 11, 2005

CIA PREPUBLICATION REVIEW DRAGS ON. Former CIA operations officer Gary Bernsten has filed a lawsuit charging that the agency's prolonged prepublication review of his forthcoming book, "Jawbreaker," constitutes the imposition of an unlawful prior restraint on his right to free speech, the Federation of American Scientists' Web site reported Monday. According to the article, the book alleges that "the U.S. knowingly allowed Osama bin Laden to escape from Tora Bora during the war in Afghanistan." FAS also posted the complaint on its Web site. — Posted at 2:21 pm

SCHWARZENEGGER\'S EMAILS WITH STATE MILITARY ON DOMESTIC SPYING TO BE RELEASED. Emails between California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and a National Guard official concerning the state military's domestic surveillance of anti-war groups will be released to a Sen. Joe Dunn, D-Garden Grove, despite earlier indications that the records would not be released due to Schwarzenegger's executive privilege, the (San Jose) Mercury News reported. Dunn is investigating the alleged spying and has been fighting to gain access to government documents for about three months. — Posted at 2:19 pm

PARTISANSHIP GUIDES DISTRIBUTION OF HOMELAND SECURITY FUNDS IN NEW JERSEY, REPORT ALLEGES. Using internal government correspondence, recent reports allege that New Jersey Gov. Richard J. Codey, a Democrat, and former Gov. James E. McGreevey, also a Democrat, channeled much of the state's federal homeland security money to districts controlled by fellow Democrats, the Asbury Park Press reported Tuesday. "Republican lawmakers have called for... a more open process in doling out security grants," the newspaper said. — Posted at 2:18 pm

EXPERT: GOV\'T CLAIM OF \'STATE SECRETS\' PRIVILEGE ON THE RISE. The federal government is invoking the "state secrets" privilege more and more in lawsuits filed against it, the director of a Washington-based think tank told the Metro West Daily News. Steven Aftergood of the Project on Government Secrecy said the feds are encouraged to keep using the defense with each new successful invocation. The U.S. has claimed the privilege in response to a civil suit by Maher Arar, a Canadian who alleges he was detained at JFK Airport and shipped to Syria where he was tortured as a suspected Al Qaeda member. Federal lawyers told a U.S. District Court judge that "clear and unequivocal" but classified information links Arar to the terrorist network, The New York Times reported. — Posted at 10:16 am

Aug. 8, 2005

FOI ACT LAWSUIT SETTLED, PUBLIC GETS ACCESS TO COFFIN PHOTOS. Service members' coffin photos are to be released "as expeditiously as possible" pursuant to a settlement agreement the Defense Department has struck with Freedom of Information Act plaintiff Ralph Begleiter, The New York Times reported last week. Begleiter, a professor at the University of Delaware, first sued the government in October 2004 to challenge the Pentagon's policy - in place since 1991 - of suppressing photos of coffins containing America's war dead. Many already-released photos can be seen at the National Security Archive's Web site. — Posted at 4:10 pm

STATE SECRETS PRIVILEGE SHOULD GET SUPREME COURT LOOK, ACLU SAYS. The Supreme Court should clarify the scope of the state secrets privilege as used against Sibel Edmonds in her recent whistleblower retaliation lawsuit against the U.S. government, the ACLU's Web site urged last week after the organization filed a certiorari petition. Edmonds' lawsuit was improperly dismissed after the government claimed that its prosecution would leave vulnerable too many state secrets, the organization said. State secrets "should be used as a shield for sensitive evidence, not a sword the government can use at will to cut off argument in a case before the evidence can be presented," ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson said. — Posted at 4:08 pm

CDC PUBLISHES POLICY ON \'SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED\' MARKINGS. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "is the latest agency to articulate a policy on so-called Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU) information that is to be withheld from disclosure," the Federation of American Scientists reported on its Web site recently. The SBU stamp does not necessarily mean the information is exempt from public release requirements, the CDC said. The Federal of American Scientists links to the CDC's full policy here. — Posted at 4:06 pm

SOLDIER BLOGS CLASSIFIED INFORMATION, GETS DEMOTED. An Arizona National Guardsman has been demoted for blogging classified information, the Associated Press reported. It was unclear what classified information Leonard Clark, a kindergarten teacher, had posted, but soldiers are barred from posting information about Army movements or a comrade's death before his family has been notified. — Posted at 4:05 pm

DETAINEES\' DESIRE FOR PRIVACY NOT FOR GOVERNMENT TO GUESS, JUDGE SAYS. The government should ask Guantanamo Bay detainees whether they want their names to be public before it can claim that their privacy concerns justify information withholding, a federal judge in Manhattan suggested at a July hearing considering how much information the government must release on 558 detainee tribunals conducted in the past year, The Associated Press reported. The government's detainee privacy argument was "an excuse by the government... to keep the public from knowing what they are doing," an AP attorney arguing for more access said. U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff said he would rule in August. — Posted at 4:03 pm

CIA DELAYS BOOK PUBLICATION WITH PROLONGED CLASSIFICATION REVIEW. The CIA's classification review of a former officer's soon-to-be published book on Osama bin Laden's 2001 escape from Tora Bora has lasted so long the author is planning to file a lawsuit, CNN's Web site reported recently. CIA regulations give the agency 30 days to review the book for classified information, and the CIA has already taken more than 60 days. — Posted at 4:02 pm

Aug. 5, 2005

FRIEND-OF-THE-COURT BRIEF ASKS JUDGE TO ORDER RELEASE OF PRISON PHOTOS. The Department of Defense is improperly refusing to release documents detailing prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison pursuant to an ACLU Freedom of Information Act request, according to a friend-of-the-court brief filed by a media coalition with the Southern District of New York this week. The government is arguing that the photos of prisoner abuse are so incendiary they could motivate violence against military personnel and civilians overseas. There is no such FOI Act exemption, the media coalition's brief counters, and to create one would undermine the very purpose of federal freedom of information principles. The Reporters Committee spearheaded the amicus effort, and was joined by 13 news media organizations. — Posted at 5:25 pm

Aug. 4, 2005

FRIEND-OF-THE-COURT BRIEF CHALLENGES FBI GAG ORDER. An FBI policy prohibiting National Security Letter recipients from speaking with anyone about the documents' content should be found unconstitutional under the First Amendment, according to a friend-of-the-court brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit yesterday, the National Security Archive's Web site reported yesterday. The FBI issues National Security Letters, which are a sort of administrative subpoena, pursuant to investigations pertaining to national security. "While there is no doubt that there is a social cost to sharing highly sensitive information that can be used by a terrorist," the brief says, "there also are real costs associated with keeping unnecessary secrets," i.e. wise policy choices informed by public debate. — Posted at 2:42 pm

SLAIN JOURNALIST WAS \"INTREPID NEWSMAN.\" Steven C. Vincent, the first American journalist attacked and killed in the war in Iraq, is remembered in The New York Times as "an intrepid newsman" who was " committed to shoe-leather reporting." Vincent was investigating the burgeoning influence of extremists and alleged corruption when he was kidnaped and shot Tuesday in the southern city of Basra, the Los Angeles Times reported. The world editor of The Christian Science Monitor was quoted in The Washington Post as saying that Vincent's wife wondered whether a piece by Vincent published in The New York Times Sunday or any of his other reporting led to his murder. The Monitor, to which Vincent frequently contributed, editorialized that his death will affect not only his family, but "Iraqis who want honest journalism and indeed anyone who knows that a key plank of a free society is press freedom." — Posted at 11:49 am

Aug. 3, 2005

SECRET DOCUMENTS DETAIL DEADLY INTERROGATION. Secret court records and other classified documents examined by The Washington Post reveal more details surrounding the 2003 death of Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, allegedly at the hands of CIA and Army interrogators. Two soldiers at Ft. Carson, Colo. are charged with killing Mowhoush, 56, who was stuffed inside a sleeping bag and bound with electrical cord in an attempt to make him talk. The Denver Post, which fought to open the pretrial hearings to the public, reported on the contents of the transcript last week. — Posted at 5:58 pm

MASKED GUNMAN KIDNAP, KILL AMERICAN JOURNALIST. Freelance journalist Steven Vincent, whose work about the rise of fundamentalist Islam has appeared in The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, became the sixth journalist to die in Iraq this year after he and his Iraqi translator were abducted and shot by masked gunmen in Basra Tuesday. Vincent is the first American reporter to be attacked and killed in the war in Iraq, The New York Times reported. He had been dumped outdoors after being shot several times, and his hands were tied with a plastic wire, and a red piece of cloth was wrapped around his neck. Vincent has been added to a list compiled by The Associated Press of journalists who have died in Iraq since the war started in March 2003. — Posted at 11:40 am

Aug. 2, 2005

ARMY TIMES REPORTER WOUNDED IN IRAQ. Army Times reporter Matthew Cox was wounded Monday evening in Iraq after a bomb from a suicide bomber sent three pieces of shrapnel flying into his left leg, Navy Times, an Army Times sister publication, reported. Cox was not seriously injured in the attack which occurred west of the Iraqi town of Rahweh, about three miles from the Iraq-Syria border. — Posted at 9:43 pm

ARMY TIMES REPORTER WOUNDED IN IRAQ. Army Times reporter Matthew Cox was wounded Monday evening in Iraq after a bomb from a suicide bomber sent three pieces of shrapnel flying into his left leg, Navy Times, an Army Times sister publication, reported. Cox was not seriously injured in the attack which occurred west of the Iraqi town of Rahweh, about three miles from the Iraq-Syria border. — Posted at 9:43 pm

Aug. 1, 2005

GONZALES SAYS JUSTICE DEPARTMENT STRIKES A BALANCE WHEN SUBPOENAING REPORTERS. In an interview last week on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said that while he respects the role of the media in U.S. society as a watchdog, that interest is sometimes outweighed by a competing interesting, "that is the ability of prosecutors to get information that may be absolutely essential to assist them in the investigation of illegal wrongdoing." Gonzales said he thinks the Justice Department gets that balance right when it decides whether to subpoena a reporter to reveal confidential sources. — Posted at 5:21 pm

STATE TERRORISM ACTIONS DESCRIBED. The National Conference of State Legislatures has published an on-line summary of actions state legislatures and state executives have taken since September 11, 2001 to address terrorism. — Posted at 5:17 pm