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.

Dec. 29, 2005

DASCHLE REBUTS ADMINISTRATION\'S SPY PROGRAM DEFENSE. In a letter to Congress last week, President Bush argued that the National Security Agency's domestic spying program is consistent with FISA and the Authorization to Use Military Force passed by Congress after Sept. 11. Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle responded in a Washington Post op/ed that none of the 98 senators who voted to authorize force against al Qaeda believed they were voting for warrantless domestic surveillance. — Posted at 3:05 pm

CONGRESS EXTENDS PATRIOT ACT TO FEB. 3. The House accepted a one-month extension for lawmakers to resolve disagreements about the controversial surveillance law, rejecting the Senate plan for a six-month extension, The Washington Post reported. "A six-month extension, in my opinion, would have simply allowed the Senate to duck the issue until the last week in June," Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) told the Post. — Posted at 3:04 pm

GOODBYE, HI. A U.S. government-funded English-Arabic magazine for young readers in the Arab world and Africa - hi - stopped publishing after two years of attempting to promote a positive image of America, The Associated Press reported. The State Department recently ended the glossy magazine's run after questioning the cost-effectiveness of spending $4.5 million a year distributing 55,000 copies a month in 18 countries. — Posted at 3:02 pm

OOOPS, THEY DID IT AGAIN. By concealing its new spy program the NSA has regenerated old stereotypes of itself, a former NSA counsel told The New York Times. In the 1970's, the NSA was exposed for running programs that abused American's privacy - one of which kept watch lists of American activists against the Vietnam War. Congress responded to these domestic surveillance abuses, The Times reports, by creating FISA and the court responsible for overseeing it. — Posted at 3:01 pm

BUSH BULLIES THE PRESS. President Bush has summoned newspaper editors to urge them not to publish stories he believed damaging to national security, The Washington Post reported. Sources told The Post that George W. Bush met with The Post's executive editor before it published an article about secret prisons and met with the New York Times' executive editor before it published an article about warrantless domestic spying. — Posted at 11:44 am

YOO STANDS FIRM ON HIS DOMESTIC SPYING POSITION. John Yoo believes that a memo he wrote as a mid-level Justice Department adviser urging that the White House was not bound by a federal law prohibiting warrantless eavesdropping within the U.S. is correct, The Washington Post reported. Yoo is considered the architect of the Bush administration's claim to seemingly unfettered Presidential power. — Posted at 11:42 am

ALITO ARGUED WIRETAP IMMUNITY FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL. Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito Jr. argued that the attorney general must be free to take steps to protect the country from terrorism without fear of personal liability, even if the actions involve illegal wiretapping of American citizens, documents released Dec. 23 show. — Posted at 11:41 am

Dec. 22, 2005

PATRIOT ACT GETS 6-MONTH EXTENSION. Senators agreed last night to extend the hotly-debated Patriot Act for six months to permit further House and Senate negotiations over its rewrite, The Washington Post reports. The extension, if agreed to by the House, will prevent major provisions of the Act from expiring Dec. 31. — Posted at 4:03 pm

FISA JUDGES TO LEARN ABOUT SPY PROGRAM. FISA court judges will get a classified briefing to question top-ranking officials about the legality of the NSA spy program that bypasses the FISA court, The Washington Post report. Most of the judges first learned of the program from last week's New York Times article, and some worry that the secret program produced legally suspect information that was then used to obtain FISA warrants. At least one judge questions whether the FISA Court should be disbanded since President Bush believes he can bypass it, according to the story. — Posted at 3:21 pm

CONGRESS MAY EXEMPT DEFENSE FILES. "Operational files" of the Defense Intelligence Agency may be the next to be withheld under the Freedom of Information Act, the FAS Project on Government Secrecy reported, calling Congress "poised" to exempt them. — Posted at 2:11 pm

Dec. 21, 2005

I SPY - BUT WITH WHAT? Tech pundits suspect that some new technology not covered by FISA that involves "some kind of high-volume, automated voice recognition and pattern matching system" is the root of the secret spy program. President Bush explained at Monday's press conference that, "There is a difference between detecting so we can prevent, and monitoring . . . . We used the [FISA] process to monitor. But also, we've got to be able to detect and prevent." — Posted at 6:16 pm

FISA COURT JUDGE RESIGNS OVER SECRET SURVEILLANCE. U.S. District Judge James Robertson resigned without explanation late Monday, The Washington Post reports. Robertson questioned whether President Bush's warrantless surveillance program was legal, close colleagues told The Post. — Posted at 6:10 pm

Dec. 20, 2005

BUSH WRONG - SPY PROGRAM LACKS OVERSIGHT. Contrary to President George W. Bush's claims, "the administration never afforded members briefed on the program an opportunity to either approve or disapprove" of the eavesdropping program, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) told The L.A. Times. Rockefeller told Cheney in a July 2003 letter that he had serious concerns about the program and the restrictive conditions that prevented the few lawmakers apprised of the program from conducting a thorough review of it. — Posted at 3:50 pm

BUSH SENSITIVE ABOUT SENSITIVE-BUT-UNCLASSIFIED INFO? Just after the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy pointed out that a Congressional order to the president to protect unclassified sensitive information had effectively gone ignored, Bush has told executive branch agencies to develop procedures to "handle" such information. The White House memo does not consider that some sensitive information should be disclosed, regardless, to promote government accountability, the Project on Government Secrecy reported. — Posted at 3:02 pm

FBI MONITORS JUST ABOUT EVERYONE. The FBI has monitored traditionally peaceful activist groups including the environment-centered Greenpeace, People for the Ethical Treatment for Animals and the Catholic Workers, which promote anti-poverty efforts, according to documents released to the ACLU. FBI officials say their investigations stemmed from evidence of criminal or violent activity, but civil rights advocates say the government is going too far and that these groups have no involvement in illegal or terrorist activity. — Posted at 3:00 pm

OPPONENTS DEBATE SIDESTEPPING FISA. President George W. Bush cites a 2001 Congressional resolution, a 2004 Supreme Court opinion, and the president's constitutional powers as commander-in-chief as three sources for his authority to institute a warrantless domestic spying program, The Washington Post reports. But critics doubt whether the President's constitutional powers permit him to apparently violate a statute such as FISA and question why giving FISA the run-around was needed to accomplish the Administration's goals. — Posted at 2:58 pm

BUSH SOUGHT TO PREVENT EAVESDROPPING STORY. On Dec. 6, President George W. Bush summoned Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Executive Editor Bill Keller to the White House to urge The New York Times not to run the 10-page story that revealed the President's secret surveillance program, several papers reported. — Posted at 2:56 pm

HOUSE DEMS SEEK DOMESTIC SURVEILLANCE RESTRICTIONS. Responding to a Washington Post article about the FBI's use of national security letters, House Democrats introduced a bill Friday that would restrict the FBI domestic surveillance tool that has been used with increasing frequency since the Patriot Act was passed, The Washington Post reported. The bill would require the FBI to show a specific connection to a terrorist or foreign power before demanding an individual's records and get pre-approval by a judge or magistrate. — Posted at 2:55 pm

BUSH RAILS AGAINST PATRIOT ACT FILIBUSTER. President Bush said it was inexcusable for senators to block renewal of key provisions of the Patriot Act at a press conference Monday, during which he also defended his secret surveillance program, The Washington Post reported. "The Senate must vote to reauthorize the Patriot Act," Bush said. "In the war on terror, we cannot afford to be without this law for a single moment." Patriot Act critics, however, drew ammunition from the President's secret surveillance program: How can I "say that under the Patriot Act we protect the rights of American citizens if, in fact, the president is not going to be bound by the law?" Senator Dianne Feinstein asked a Post reporter. — Posted at 2:53 pm

PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY OVER PLANTED PROPAGANDA. Several current and former employees of the Washington-based Pentagon contractor that pays Iraqi newspapers to publish positive stories about the war told the Los Angeles Times that U.S. military officials in Iraq were fully aware of the program. The contractors said military officials made clear to the Times that none of the stories planted by Lincoln Group should be traced to the United States. The story, by Mark Mazzetti and Kevin Sack, contrasts assertions from military officials in Baghdad and Washington. — Posted at 2:49 pm

Dec. 19, 2005

UPROAR OVER EAVESDROPPING LEAK. President Bush defended a secret eavesdropping program as "crucial to our national security" in a weekend radio address, the AP reported, and criticized the leak that led to a 10-page story in The New York Times Friday. "The unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk," Bush said. Senator John Cornyn also slammed the leak, citing The Times article as "part of a marketing campaign for selling a book" about secrecy in the Bush administration by the article's author. The Times refused to back down, however, asking Congress to act on the unlawful secret spying program in a Sunday editorial, which it has. Lawmakers from both parties called Sunday for a congressional review to determine whether Bush's secret order violated federal law. — Posted at 12:04 pm

Dec. 16, 2005

SENATORS PREVENT VOTE ON PATRIOT ACT. A Democrat-led filibuster today prevented voting on a proposed renewal of the Patriot Act, key provisions of which expire Dec. 31, The Washington Post reported. Bill opponents claim it fails to adequately protect civil liberties. — Posted at 5:30 pm

NOW YOU SEE THEM, NOW YOU DON\'T . . . NOW YOU CAN. Thousands of unclassified reports initially posted on the Los Alamos National Laboratory Web site and then removed are now available on the Federation of American Scientists site, Secrecy News reported. The reports, which total 8.5 gigabytes of data, have both scientific and historical value. — Posted at 4:39 pm

BUSH DIDN\'T GIVE CONGRESS THE FULL (PRE-WAR) STORY. A congressional report concluded that President Bush and his advisers had access to intelligence information and sensitive material that was not shared with Congress when Congress gave approval to go to war in Iraq, The Washington Post reported. Bush has repeatedly contended that he and Congress saw the same intelligence. — Posted at 4:07 pm

PERMISSION GRANTED, JOURNALISTS SAY. Two journalists for the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va., who had their embedding credentials yanked over photos of shot-up military vehicles had permission to take photos of the battered vehicles, the paper reports. — Posted at 4:06 pm

MILITARY EMBED RULES NEED REVAMPING, MRE SAYS. The U.S. military's expulsion of two embedded journalists in Kuwait for photographing a battle-damaged military vehicle has sparked Military Reporters and Editors to call for a change in embed rules that apparently led to the credential yanking, reports Editor & Publisher. MRE President Sig Christenson, a military writer with the San Antonio Express-News, told E&P that no rule barring photographs of damaged vehicles existed when he first embedded in 2003. — Posted at 3:14 pm

PRESIDENT SIGNED SECRET SURVEILLANCE ORDER. President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens without required court-approved warrants, all in the name of national security, The New York Times reports. Such actions are "both illegal and unconstitutional," the ACLU told Bloomberg, and called for further investigation. — Posted at 3:13 pm

Dec. 15, 2005

FBI IGNORES FISA OVERSIGHT. An FBI memo revealed Tuesday by the Electronic Privacy Rights Information Center discusses the FBI's bypassing of FISA oversight, and attributes it to the Patriot Act. — Posted at 3:54 pm

THE PATRIOT ACT: THEY LOVE IT, THEY LOVE IT NOT. The House voted yesterday to renew the Patriot Act, but Senate opponents threaten to filibuster, Reuters reports. Will it pass? It's tough to tell, but expect a showdown if Dems have enough votes to sideline the bill. — Posted at 3:53 pm

PRESS CREDENTIALS OF EMBEDDED JOURNALISTS YANKED. Photographing battle-damaged military vehicles in Kuwait and then publishing them in the Norfolk, Va., Virginian-Pilot newspaper led the military to yank the press credentials of a reporter and photographer embedded in Kuwait, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. — Posted at 3:52 pm

SENATE WANTS INFO ON CIA SECRET PRISONS. The Senate is preparing to approve a measure that would require disclosure of information on the CIA's secret prison system - a system whose existence the Bush administration has yet to acknowledge, The New York Times reported. The measure would require the director of national intelligence to give Congress regular, detailed updates about the secret facilities and to account for the treatment and condition of each prisoner, the Times article said. The locations of these prisons remain secret. — Posted at 3:50 pm

HOUSE SUPPORTS TORTURE BAN. The House gave strong support in a resolution to ban "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment" of anyone in U.S. custody, backing Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in his push to ban U.S. torture, The Washington Post reported. In a 308 to 122 vote, the House measure instructs negotiators to include McCain's verbatim language in the fiscal 2006 defense appropriations bill, the article said. McCain's provisions would eliminate the flexibility in changing rules of intelligence gathering methods, putting into law the Army's interrogation rules. — Posted at 3:48 pm

PENTAGON WILL REVIEW TERROR DATABASE. Amid complaints that a Defense Department program intended to counter terrorist attacks had compiled information on persons who posed no threat, the department will review the program and remove non-threatening information within 90 days, The Washington Post reported. The review will center on whether the Pentagon broke the strict rules Congress had set forth as to what kinds of information it can collect. — Posted at 3:47 pm

AT LEAST AMERICA IS NOT NO. 1 ON THIS LIST. Among countries that jail journalists, the U.S. ranks sixth, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, The New York Times reported. Judith Miller's jailing did not make the list, since she was not behind bars on Dec. 1 when the survey was done. The U.S. is holding journalists in detention centers in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, making America sixth, along with Burma, on CPJ's list. — Posted at 3:44 pm

U.S. STILL WITHOUT COMPLETE LIST OF TERRORIST TARGETS. A secret list of potential terrorist targets in the U.S. - compiled in order to provide protection for those sites - was to be completed a year ago and is still not expected to be finished until next year, USA Today reported. Intended to identify sites vulnerable to terrorist attacks, the list initially included mini-golf courses, water parks and bowling alleys. But even only partially complete, the database is not useless, and the bowling alleys have been removed, the Homeland Security Infrastructure Protection chief told USA Today. It has been helpful in identifying chemical plants, refineries and bridges when New Orleans flooded, he said. — Posted at 3:41 pm

Dec. 14, 2005

NOVAK: BUSH KNOWS SOURCE OF CIA LEAK. Columnist Bob Novak, speaking at a luncheon at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh on Tuesday, said "I'm confident the president knows who the source is. I'd be amazed if he doesn't," according to the Raleigh News & Observer . "Don't bug me," Novak said. "Don't bug Bob Woodward. Bug the president as to whether he should reveal who the source is." Novak first revealed that Valerie Plame, wife of ambassador Joseph Wilson, was a CIA agent. His revealation led to the investigation by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald into who leaked the Plame's identity to the media. This investigation has led to the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, for perjury and obstruction of justice. The investigation appears to be ongoing as Fitzgerald has since presented further evidence to another grand jury. — Posted at 10:21 am

UNCLASSIFIED SENSITIVE HOMELAND SECURITY INFO STAYS UNPROTECTED. Despite a Congressional directive ordering the President to protect it, unclassified sensitive homeland security information remains freely available and no measures seem to be in place to provide protection, the FAS Project on Government Secrecy reported. Information that is "sensitive but unclassified" is required to be protected under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, and responsibility for that protection was assigned to the Department of Homeland Security, but "they have done nothing with it," an anonymous government official told FAS, "I think it's fair to say it's dead." — Posted at 10:19 am

COMING SOON TO COUNTRIES EVERYWHERE. Pro-American messages would be placed in media outlets - not to mention "novelty items" such as T-shirts and bumper stickers-- in allied nations and in countries where the U.S. is not involved in military conflict, USA Today reports. The Pentagon's $300 million psychological warfare plan calls for not disclosing that the U.S. government is the source of the information, a military official told the paper. The official also said that the Pentagon "will respond truthfully" to inquiries from journalists about the "products." — Posted at 10:18 am

ARMY APPROVES NEW SECRET INTERROGATION METHODS. Specific interrogation procedures and circumstances for their use are detailed in a new 10-page classified addendum to an Army field manual, submitted for approval this week just as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., negotiates with Congress and the Bush administration to prohibit cruel treatment of prisoners, The New York Times reported. Army officials said the manual requires compliance with the Geneva Conventions, but declined to give examples of the interrogation techniques detailed in the manual. This is the most specific set of guidelines Army interrogators have had, the article said. — Posted at 10:16 am

Dec. 13, 2005

PATRIOT ACT CRITICS CALL FOR NON-RENEWAL. Citing bizarre amendments that have nothing to do with intelligence, Declan McCullagh of CNET News questions whether the Patriot Act really must be renewed. The "larded-up" legislation now includes provisions about tobacco smuggling, donating equipment to fire departments, combating methamphetamine abuse, and letting Secret Service forensics experts help find missing kids, a Washington Post editorial scorns. — Posted at 2:48 pm

COMPARING NUMBERS. The Pentagon's effort to flood Iraq with pro-America propaganda has cost American taxpayers nearly $60 million, writes CJR Daily. To put things in perspective, $57.6 million -- $25 million, plus $27.6 million plus $5 million -- is more than the annual newsroom budget allotted to most American newsrooms to cover news from everywhere for an entire year. — Posted at 2:46 pm

Dec. 12, 2005

THE SAME, ONLY DIFFERENT. Former Knight Ridder Baghdad Bureau Chief Hannah Allam isn't surprised by recent news that the U.S. military pays Iraqi journalists for positive stories, Editor & Publisher reported. Her own stories, sans the negative news, were even reprinted in a tabloid-style newspaper published by U.S. officials, said Allam, who left Baghdad in September to move to Cairo for Knight Ridder. — Posted at 4:51 pm

RUMMY IN A RIFT WITH REPORTERS. It's no secret that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and American journalists are at odds over coverage of the war in Iraq. The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz takes the latest look at the rift and whether journalists' work is unduly macabre as Rumsfeld claims. — Posted at 4:51 pm

THE WHOLE STORY? In an interview with PBS' Jim Lehrer, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said American journalists are not telling the entire story of what's going on in Iraq. In a Department of Defense press release on Rumsfeld's appearance on the "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," Rumsfeld is highlighted as saying that enemies of a free Iraq "lie" and use the media to circulate their misinformation. — Posted at 4:38 pm

LYING, DIRTY TRICKSTERS? The Lincoln Group, which has a contract to pay for and place positive articles in the Iraqi media, is part of a vast, secretive information war being waged by the U.S. military, The New York Times reports. "We call our stuff information and the enemy's propaganda," said Col. Jack N. Summe, then the commander of the Fourth Psychological Operations Group, during a tour in June. Even in the Pentagon, "some public affairs professionals see us unfavorably," and inaccurately, he said, as "lying, dirty tricksters." USA Today reports that the Baghdad Press Club, created and paid for by the U.S. military in its information war, is being investigated was part of a U.S. probe into the buying of positive news coverage in the Iraqi media. — Posted at 4:01 pm

DANGEROUS ASSIGNMENT. American Journalism Review looks into the deaths of media workers in the two and a half years since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, noting that more journalists and their aides have been killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom than in the Vietnam War. The article highlights the tension between the military and journalists covering the conflict in Iraq. Among the journalists killed was Mazen Dana, a Reuters cameraman who was gunned down in broad daylight in August 2003. Dana's wife, Suzanne, grief-stricken and enraged at what she considered a cold-blooded attack, told Reuters: "He was intentionally killed as he was doing his job. I demand that President Bush personally order his soldiers to stop killing journalists." — Posted at 4:00 pm

PATRIOT ACT CRITICS QUESTION THEIR OWN EFFORTS AS TIME RUNS OUT. Critics who have petitioned Congress to curb parts of the Patriot Act question whether they should have focused their efforts on a provision that facilitates the use of National Security Letters instead of a section called "the library provision," the Los Angeles Times reports. The goverment has rarely used the library provision, while it has issued thousands of national security letters, according to the story. — Posted at 10:45 am

FRENCH REPEATEDLY TOLD U.S .THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF IRAQI NUKES. For more than a year before President Bush's 2003 State of the Union announcement that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear weapons materials in Africa, French counterintelligence secretly warned the CIA that no such evidence existed, the Los Angeles Times reported. A French official told the Times that the CIA had requested the investigation in Niger, but the French found nothing to support U.S. claims, the article said. French companies control uranium mines in Niger and other former French colonies in Africa. — Posted at 10:43 am

U.S. CONTINUES TO DENY ACCESS TO DETAINEES. The U.S. government said Friday that it will not grant the Red Cross access to prisoners held in secret around the world, claiming that the prisoners are terrorists who lack rights under the Geneva Conventions and their secrecy is needed to protect national security, The New York Times reported. Meanwhile, the United States continues to deny interviews with individual Guantanamo prisoners. The government has rejected the Red Cross's efforts over the past two years to get greater access to the detainees and, the AP reports that, while the Pentagon invited a representative from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to visit the detention facility, she will not be permitted to interview detainees. — Posted at 10:41 am

PEACEFUL PROTESTORS\' IDENTITIES HELD IN FBI TERRORISM FILE. Documents kept as part of an FBI file detail two nonviolent protests in Colorado in 2002 and 2003, identifying persons involved with the peaceful protests and equating the acts with "domestic terrorism," an ACLU spokesman told the Rocky Mountain News. The ACLU alleges that the FBI engaged in improper spying, but an FBI spokeswoman said the agency only investigates when it has information that a crime will be committed, the article said. The FBI had opened investigations into the protests, keeping files on the activities and on persons involved. The ACLU plans to release the FBI documents on its Web site. — Posted at 10:40 am

Dec. 9, 2005

PATRIOT ACT DEAL SEALED. After a long and contentious debate about provisions that critics allege compromise privacy interests, Congress agreed to put to vote a bill that will renew the Patriot Act's most controversial provisions for four years. The Washington Post reports an uncertain outcome when the bill is voted on next week, since neither House nor Senate negotiators embrace it. — Posted at 11:50 am

AMERICANS WARNED OF BIN LADEN AIRCRAFT THREAT THREE YEARS PRIOR TO 9/11. Newly declassified State Department documents show that American diplomats warned Saudi officials more than three years before Sept. 11, 2001 that Osama bin Laden may target civilian aircraft in a terrorist act, The New York Times reported. The documents, released to the National Security Archive at George Washington University, said the warning followed a bin Laden interview on ABC News. In addition to the cable oulining the al Qaeda leader's potential threat, a memorandum prepared by then CIA director George Tenet was also released, declaring "a worldwide war against al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations" that would require "our absolute and total dedication," the Times article said. — Posted at 10:43 am

Dec. 8, 2005

MEMO INDICATES PENTAGON HAS CONSIDERED TORTURE. A classified Pentagon memorandum indicates that the department has considered sending a suspected terrorist to be interrogated abroad in a country that employed torture methods, the Los Angeles Times reported. The March 2004 memo, which remains secret, was summarized in a case involving a Guantanamo Bay detainee with whom American officials became frustrated in attempts to extract information, according to the article. The memo was described in a petition filed by the detainee's attorney as an indication that the Pentagon has considered torture abroad in this case. Neither the attorneys for the government nor the judge who read the memo has disputed the attorney's description, the Times report said. — Posted at 6:04 pm

NOVAK DEPOSED BY FITZGERALD. Time Magazine reporter Viveca Novak gave sworn testimony today before special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald regarding conversations she had with Robert Luskin, attorney for White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, according to CNN. Fitzgerald is investigating the leaking of the covert identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame. — Posted at 3:43 pm

OPERATION PROPADANDA CONTINUES AMID INVESTIGATION. The U.S. military's controversial "information operations" program that pays Iraqi newspapers to run favorable stories continues amid a U.S. military investigation into the practice, Agence France Presse reports. — Posted at 3:23 pm

THE BURDENS OF COMMITTING JOURNALISM IN IRAQ. Former Washington Post Baghdad Bureau Chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations that there's a good reason why Americans aren't getting "good" news about school construction and other rebuilding projects in Iraq. You know, as a bureau chief there, I wasn't going to risk putting my people's lives on the line to go down for a photo op. As nice as it might have been, it's simply too unsafe to get around and tell a lot of these stories. And so a lot of the coverage is, unfortunately, skewed by the fact that the on-the-ground realities of committing journalism in Iraq are such that you really can't get out and do much of anything. — Posted at 3:21 pm

CONGRESS STILL NEGOTIATING OVER PATRIOT ACT RENEWAL. With 16 provisions set to expire December 31, the House and Senate still have not come to an agreement over the Patriot Act's most controversial provisions, The Washington Post reports. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter told Post reporters that the latest deal "is as good as it's going to get": House members had agreed to allow provisions that give the FBI broad access to library and business records to expire after four years instead of the seven year sunset the House originally fought for. — Posted at 11:12 am

Dec. 7, 2005

COMMISSION DECRIES UNNECESSARY SECRECY. In finding that Congress deserves an "F" for keeping its intelligence budget secret despite a recommendation to declassify that information, the 9/11 Commission hoped to move the government toward less secrecy, the Project on Government Secrecy reported. The Commission stated that if able to review the overall intelligence budget, "Congress can judge better how intelligence funds are being spent." It said that unnecessary secrecy undermines the performance of U.S. intelligence, according to the report. — Posted at 3:57 pm

STATE DEPARTMENT ENDS COVERAGE OF FOREIGN NEWS REPORTS. The government will no longer post international coverage of U.S. foreign policy decisions on the Department of State's Web page, a Washingtonpost.com writer has reported. The department has not stopped monitoring foreign media reaction, but will no longer make that information available through its Office of Research and Media Reaction. The Web address now triggers a "page not found" message and the main page notes that the site is "undergoing significant design changes," the report said. Information previously posted to the site covered foreign media reaction to the Iraqi constitutional referendum, the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and the Abu Ghraib photos. Archives detailing that information are also no longer available. — Posted at 3:50 pm

FITZGERALD APPEARS BEFORE NEW GRAND JURY. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald presented evidence to a new grand jury today, according to the Washington Post. Today's presentation was the first time Fitzgerald had gone to a grand jury since the Oct. 28 indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. Fitzgerald is considering additional charges in his investigation over the leaking of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame in 2003. — Posted at 3:02 pm

FORMER FLORIDA PROFESSOR ACQUITTED. Sami al-Arian was acquitted yesterday of conspiring to aid a Palestinian group in killing Israelis through suicide bombings, The Washington Post reports. Al-Arian's indictment was hailed by the government as a victory for the Patriot Act, which permits intelligence agencies to share secretly gathered information with prosecutors, because the prosecution relied heavily on material gathered using Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants. Al-Arian was found not guilty on eight of 17 counts; the jury deadlocked on the others. — Posted at 12:39 pm

AP CAREFUL ABOUT USING MILITARY HANDOUT PHOTOS. The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Atlanta Journal-Constitution are among the newspapers that have used photos shot by military personnel not journalists. The director of photography for The Associated Press explained to NPR's "On the Media" that the wire service is judicious about using such images and applies journalistic standards before moving them on the wire. — Posted at 12:38 pm

MILITARY MISLEADS MEDIA, FAMILIES OF 10 MARINES KILLED. The U.S. military misled the media and the families of 10 Marines killed near Falluja last week about the circumstances surrounding their deaths, Editor & Publisher reports. — Posted at 12:37 pm

Dec. 6, 2005

POST RESPONDS TO DOJ\'S COMPLAINTS ABOUT NATIONAL SECURITY LETTERS ARTICLE. The Washington Post posted an article on its Web site yesterday seeking to respond to 17 complaints raised by the Justice Department about a Post article on the FBI's use of national security letters. The response, which is only available online, states that the government did not authorize interviews for the article before it appeared or respond to questions sent by email. — Posted at 3:01 pm

MEDIA FOCUSING TOO MUCH ON NEGATIVE, RUMSFELD SAYS. U.S. news coverage of the war in Iraq is focusing too much on deaths and military mistakes, preventing Americans from getting a full picture of what's going on in Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in a speech Monday. Listen to the speech or read a copy of Rumsfeld's remarks as prepared. We have arrived at a strange time in this country where the worst about America and our military seems to be so quickly taken as truth by the press and reported and spread around the world - with little or no context or scrutiny - let alone correction or accountability - even after the fact. Speed it appears is often the first goal, not accuracy, not context. — Posted at 1:45 pm

PROPAGANDA: IT\'S NOT JUST FOR DICTATORSHIPS. Walter Jajko, a retired Air Force brigadier general who is a professor of defense studies at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., says in the Los Angeles Times that it's not a bad thing that the U.S. military has been shelling out millions of dollars to plant pro-American propadanda disguised as news in Iraqi newspapers. But in my opinion, it's about time. Information is a critical part of any war, and the U.S. has for too long - to its own detriment - ignored this powerful and essential tool, a tool especially well-suited to the globalized Information Age. — Posted at 1:42 pm

MILITARY ADMITS, RETHINKS PLANTING NEWS IN IRAQ. The U.S. military admits that it is paying the Iraqi media to print favorable stories and says it may change its campaign, which has been sharply criticized. President Bush is troubled by the campaign, Stephen Hadley, Bush's national security adviser, said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." Agence France Press reports that Iraqi journalists express shock at the program, the legality of which remains unclear, according to The Associated Press. — Posted at 1:40 pm

AL-JAZEERA: HARASSMENT IS THE PRICE FOR REPORTING THE TRUTH. Harassment facing the Arab TV network al-Jazeera, including the recent revelation that President Bush discussed with British Prime Minister Tony Blair bombing the network's headquarters, has been "a worthwhile price" for the network's "professional commitment to reporting the truth," Wadah Khanfar, the director general of al-Jazeera, writes in The Guardian of London. — Posted at 1:39 pm

EIGHT-PAGE MYSTERY. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in a motion filed on Friday that he had no objection to the unsealing of parts of eight redacted pages of Judge David S. Tatel's Feb. 15 concurring opinion, according to The New York Times. Tatel's decision ruled that the testimony of New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper was needed to determine if a crime had been committed in identifying Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. However, Fitzgerald did object to unsealing other parts of the analysis. Theodore Boutrous, the lawyer for Dow Jones Co., which filed a motion asking for the eight pages to be unsealed, said, "We are hopeful we can persuade the court to release the rest," according to the Times . — Posted at 1:36 pm

CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS OVER TAL AFAR BATTLE. There are conflicting accounts about who led the assault on the Iraqi city of Tal Afar. President Bush offered an account in his speech to Naval Academy graduates and another comes from embedded Time magazine reporter Michael Ware, who witnessed the Tal Afar battle from inside and discussed it with CNN's Anderson Cooper. Watch that interview here. Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) also appeared on CNN and said: "I respect those journalists that embed themselves and I accept as a credible description what you've just put forward." — Posted at 1:34 pm

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET: BUSH\'S AL-JAZEERA BOMB PLOT NO JOKE. An unnamed senior official at Britain Prime Minister Tony Blair's residence, 10 Downing Street, told Newsweek that Blair took very seriously the threat by Bush last year to bomb the headquarers of Arabic TV news station al-Jazeera. "I don't think Tony Blair thought it was a joke," the official told Newsweek. — Posted at 1:33 pm

Dec. 1, 2005

MIXED MESSAGE FROM U.S. MILITARY ON PROPAGANDA EFFORT. The U.S. military sent a mixed message about one of its own programs that the Los Angeles Times reported paid a consulting form and Iraqi newspapers to plant favorable stories about the U.S. mission in Iraq, The Associated Press reports. A military spokesman in Iraq told AP that the program is "an important part of countering misinformation in the news by insurgents," while a spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumseld called the Times report "troubling" and vowed to look into the matter. Knight Ridder, meanwhile, reported that in addition to secret payments to Iraqi journalists for positive news stories, U.S. psychological warfare officers are writing news releases and influencing media strategies of top commanders, Knight Ridder reports. The New York Times describes one of the planted articles while The Washington Post reports that U.S. soldiers assigned to psychological warfare have reported erroneous information for military gain. — Posted at 10:55 am

\"NEWS\" IN DISGUISE. The U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops as part of a campaign to bolster the image of the U.S. occupation in Iraq, the Los Angeles Times reports. Many of the articles are presented as unbiased news accounts, despite being written by U.S. military "information operations" troops before bring translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, the Times reports. The military's effort to disseminate propaganda in the Iraqi media is taking place even as U.S. officials are pledging to promote democratic principles, political transparency and freedom of speech in a country emerging from decades of dictatorship and corruption. — Posted at 10:19 am