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.

Sep. 29, 2006

WOODWARD'S BOOK DESCRIBES SECRECY IN GOVERNMENT REPORTS OF IRAQI RESISTANCE. Washington Post editor Bob Woodward's new book on the Bush Administration's handling of the Iraq war uncovers instances of governmental secrecy in detailing the resistance faced by U.S. troops, according to the flurry of news reports on the book's upcoming release. In an interview to be aired Sunday on "60 Minutes," Woodward said the Bush Administration is classifying attack statistics as secret. While the U.S. military reported 34 daily attacks in July, Woodward said the number is closer to one hundred a day. — Posted at 6:20 pm

Sep. 28, 2006

LIBBY'S LAWYERS ARGUE FOR ACCESS TO CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS. In a private hearing Wednesday, the judge overseeing the I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby perjury case heard arguments from prosecutors not to release sensitive intelligence reports. Libby's defense lawyers have argued the reports will demonstrate any misstatements Libby made to a investigators were due to how busy he was with national security matters around the time he had conversations with journalists about Valerie Plame. The hearing is expected to last into next week. — Posted at 2:22 pm

DEMOCRATS WANT TO SEE AN IRAQ INTELLIGENCE REPORT AHEAD OF ITS SCHEDULED 2007 RELEASE. With debate still raging over access to the National Intelligence Estimate, portions of which were declassified this week, arguments have sprung up over an intelligence report on the Iraq war due to be released in 2007. The report will be the "first comprehensive assessment on the state of the Iraqi insurgency and the sectarian violence in the country since the summer of 2004," reports The New York Times. Democrats have accused the White House of completing a draft of the report but withholding it for political purposes until after the November elections. — Posted at 2:20 pm

PORTIONS OF INTELLIGENCE REPORT RELEASED. Four pages of a classified high-level intelligence study were released Tuesday, days after portions were leaked to the newspapers. President Bush said he was releasing part of the 30-page report because he said the leaks painted a misleading picture of the entire National Intelligence Estimate report. Bush suggested the leak was politically motivated but did not say who might have leaked it. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales indicated that his department could investigate the leak once it is reported by the director of national intelligence, according to the Los Angeles Times. The section released Tuesday states the Iraq war has contributed to Islamic extremism, though it does not explicitly say the war has increased the threat of terrorism in the United States. — Posted at 2:19 pm

HOUSE AND SENATE UNLIKELY TO REACH COMPROMISE ON WIRETAP BILL BEFORE RECESS. The House and the Senate are unlikely to work out differences on legislation regarding the President's warrantless wiretapping program before Congress goes out of session this week. Congress is not scheduled to reconvene until after the election. Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) warned that the bill could still be voted on before the end of the week, perhaps attached to other legislation. But Harman added that if it doesn't pass this week, "it will become much harder for them to pass a bad bill." — Posted at 2:18 pm

BUSH: CLASSIFIED REPORT ON IRAQ WILL BE RELEASED. President Bush said he will declassify key parts of a major intelligence report after portions were leaked to the media. According to news reports, the National Intelligence Estimate found that the Iraq war increased the threat of terrorism and helped create a new generation of Islamic extremists. Bush said the leaks were meant to confuse voters before the midterm elections and said it is wrong for administration officials to "declassify every time there's a leak." — Posted at 2:16 pm

Sep. 25, 2006

PLAN TO FUND STUDY ON HOW STATES HANDLE SECURITY INFORMATION DRAWS QUESTIONS. An Air Force plan to fund a study of how states protect infrastructure and cyber securty information is raising eyebrows among open government advocates. The St. Mary's University Center for Terrorism Law will receive a $1 million grant to "assist government employees (and the Air Force) in safeguarding critical infrastructure and information systems while also assuring the fullest level of public access to information." The ACLU has written to St. Mary's University in San Antonio demanding to be a part of the study. — Posted at 5:55 pm

AGENCY'S SECRECY HAMPERED REPORTING. The Washington Post 's former Baghdad bureau chief, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, has written a book detailing political patronage in the Coalition Provisional Authority. But he said the agency's hiring practices took years to uncover because "the CPA was run much like the Bush White House." Staffers could not speak to reporters without a "minder," and journalists needed an escort to walk around the agency. It was only after the workers returned home that they felt more comfortable talking, Chandrasekaran said in response to a reader's question about the delay in reporting the issue. — Posted at 5:54 pm

Sep. 22, 2006

WHITE HOUSE AND SENATE REPUBLICANS REACH TENTATIVE AGREEMENT ON TREATMENT OF TERRORISM SUSPECTS. Republican Party infighting over the treatment of suspected terrorists may be over soon. Key Republican leaders in the Senate, including Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, had joined with Senate Democrats to oppose President Bush's plans regarding the interrogation and prosecution of alleged terrorists. Thursday both the White House and Senate Republicans said they had reached a tentative agreement. McCain said, "The integrity and letter and spirit of the Geneva Conventions have been preserved." Critics of the deal claim that it would allow continued abuse of detainees. — Posted at 11:42 am

LIBBY MAY HAVE MORE ACCESS TO CLASSIFIED INFORMATION TO MOUNT PERJURY DEFENSE. After a federal court ruling yesterday, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby may have greater access to classified information as he fights perjury charges. Federal Judge Reggie B. Walton decided he will not impose the strict standards suggested by prosecutors in evaluating what classified information Libby will be allowed to see in mounting his defense. — Posted at 11:41 am

Sep. 21, 2006

SENATE COMMITTEE APPROVES FOIA REFORMS. The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a bill that would enact the first significant change to the Freedom of Information Act in 10 years. Among other reforms, the bill would allow for easier tracking of FOIA requests by phone or Internet and would create a "FOIA ombudsman" to review agency compliance and hear disputes over specific requests. — Posted at 3:46 pm

JUDGE ORDERS RELEASE OF DETAINEE IDENTIFICATION INFORMATION TO THE AP. A federal judge has ordered the Department of Defense to release documents that identify which detainees have been mistreated in Guantanamo Bay. Judge Jed Rakoff rejected the government's claim that releasing identifying information about the detainees would violate their privacy. The judge gave the government one week to turn over the documents, which should also provide information on who has been released from the prison camp in Cuba. — Posted at 12:16 pm

Sep. 20, 2006

REPUBLICANS JOIN IN CALL FOR REVIEW OF CLASSIFIED MATERIAL LEFT OUT OF PRE-WAR INTELLIGENCE REPORT. Republican Kit Bond of Missouri and Orrin Hatch of Utah have joined some of their Democratic collegagues on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in criticizing the high amount of classified information in a recent report on pre-Iraq war intelligence. According to ABC News.com, the now bipartisan group is asking an independent board to review the classified information to determine if any could be released to the public. — Posted at 4:49 pm

Sep. 19, 2006

PENTAGON DEFENDS DETENTION OF AP PHOTOGRAPHER. The Pentagon defended its months-long detention of an Associated Press photographer in Iraq, asserting that it has authority to imprison him indefinitely without charges because it believes he had improper ties to insurgents. But journalism organizations said that covering all sides in the Iraq war sometimes requires contacts with insurgents. They called on the Pentagon to either bring charges against photographer Bilal Hussein so he can defend himself, or release him. — Posted at 6:02 pm

ACLU SEEKING DETAILS ON HOW INTELLIGENCE CENTER IS HANDLING PRIVATE INFORMATION. The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts has filed an FOIA request with that state seeking information on how a new intelligence center there is safeguarding the information it is collecting on private citizens. The so-called "fusion center" is one of many intelligence collection and analysis points set up or planned by state law enforcement agencies around the country in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The ACLU is trying to determine the center's policies for protecting privacy and civil rights, reports stateline.org. — Posted at 5:08 pm

FORMER OFFICIAL SAYS TSA OVERUSES SSI TO CONCEAL PRE-9/11 VULNERABILITIES. Brian F. Sullivan, a former government official whose duties involved classifying information related to the aviation system, has criticized the Transportation Security Administration's "abusive overdesignation of documents as Sensitive Security Information." Sullivan says the TSA's continued refusal to release information about airline vulnerabilities prior to the September 11 attacks "is not based on legitimate anti-terrorism grounds but rather on evading accountability." — Posted at 5:07 pm

TV JOURNALIST KILLED IN IRAQ. An Iraqi journalist working for Baghdad TV was killed Saturday in the town of Ramadi. Ahmed Riyadh al-Karbouli, 25, had received death threats from insurgents in recent months. His death brings the number of journalists killed in Iraq to 80, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. — Posted at 4:58 pm

WHITE HOUSE ANNOUNCES WILLINGNESS TO COMPROMISE ON TERROR PROPOSAL. The number of Republican lawmakers refusing to back President Bush's proposal for the handling of terror suspects has continued to grow, prompting the White House to tell lawmakers that Bush will be sending a new draft of the legislation to the Hill. — Posted at 4:58 pm

Sep. 18, 2006

U.S. MILITARY DETAINS AP PHOTOGRAPHER FOR FIVE MONTHS. Military officials in Iraq have held Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi native who started working for The Associated Press in 2004, since April 12 without filing charges or holding a public hearing. In that time, AP executives said, the military has provided no concrete evidence that the photographer has "close relationships" with insurgents responsible for kidnapping and attacking coalition forces, as the military has claimed. The AP says its journalists are regularly detained by coalition forces but never for this long. Through his attorney, Hussein has said he believes the military is targeting him because of his photos from Ramadi and Fallujah. — Posted at 10:39 am

Sep. 15, 2006

REID CALLS FOR SENATE ACTION TO DECLASSIFY PORTIONS OF REPORTS ON PRE-WAR INTELLIGENCE. Senate Minority Leader Henry Reid (D-Nev.) has joined the criticism of the Bush administration for over-classifying portions of Senate Intelligence Committee's two recent reports on pre-war Iraq intelligence. In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), Reid said the Senate should act to declassify some information in the reports. "Unfortunately, the Administration chose to classify certain important portions of these reports that should have been released to the public," Reid wrote. — Posted at 4:19 pm

REPUBLICANS DIVIDED OVER BUSH'S PLAN FOR INTERROGATIONS AND MILITARY COMMISSIONS. The Senate Armed Services Committee rejected Bush's bill regarding the interrogation and prosecution of alleged enemy combatants. The President's bill would limit the CIA's obligations under the Geneva Conventions and allow alleged enemy combatants to be convicted using classified information not shared with the suspects. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), a former POW, and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a former Air Force judge advocate general, led Republican efforts against the bill. All of the committee's Democrats also opposed the plan. — Posted at 12:15 pm

ELLSBERG CALLS FOR LEAK TO AVERT WAR. The defense analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971 is calling on government insiders to leak the 'Pentagon Paper of the Middle East,' according to Editor & Publisher. Daniel Ellsberg believes that while analysts are aware of plans for a war with Iran, the public is left in the dark. Ellsberg laments that his leak came too late to prevent the Vietnam War but said his contemporaries could stave off another conflict by distributing hard evidence to the media. — Posted at 12:14 pm

Sep. 14, 2006

GUNMEN KILL TWO JOURNALISTS IN IRAQ. A freelance photographer was shot in a Baghdad print shop, while another Iraqi journalist was ambushed in the eastern province of Diyala. The deaths occurred days after the killing of an editor at Iraq's state-run newspaper, al-Sabah. — Posted at 5:03 pm

DOCUMENT DISPUTE HOLDS UP NOMINATION FOR NATIONAL SECURITY POST. A senator is holding up President Bush's nominee for assistant attorney general for national security because of a dispute over documents first revealed in response to an ACLU FOIA request. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) has blocked a vote on the nomination of Kenneth L. Wainstein because the Justice Department has not turned over FBI documents connected to the abuse of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The documents would have passed through Wainstein's office when he worked at the FBI, The Washington Post reports. The ACLU received the documents in question in redacted form in response to its FOIA request. Sen. Levin now wants to see the original documents without redactions before allowing a vote on Wainstein. — Posted at 12:19 pm

COLUMNIST NOVAK GIVES "REAL STORY" BEHIND ARMITAGE LEAK. Columnist Robert Novak has responded to the public relevation that State Department offical Richard Armitage was the original source for Novak's 2003 column that outed undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame. In today's Chicago Sun-Times , Novak wrote that he wanted "to set the record straight based on firsthand knowledge" and that Armitage has "obscured" the events that led to Novak's infamous 2003 column. "Armitage did not slip me this information as idle chitchat, as he now suggests," Novak wrote. "He made clear he considered it especially suited for my column." — Posted at 12:18 pm

FACTS ON ADMINISTRATION'S USE OF ATTA MEETING HELD FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES, DEMOCRATS ALLEGE. Newsweek reports that the Senate Intelligence Committee report on pre-war Iraq intelligence had muted criticism on one crucial point because of intelligence community's refusal to declassify information. Proponents of the Iraq war claimed that terrorist leader Mohamed Atta met with Iraq intelligence officer in Prague just prior to 9/11. Attempts by committee Democrats in last week's report to shed more light on the Bush Administration's reliance on the unsubstantiated anecdote were defeated when a CIA cable laying out the controversy was not declassified. Democrats charge that there is no legitimate security purpose for keeping the continuing secrecy. — Posted at 12:15 pm

NBC NEWS PULLED PHOTOGRAPH AT MILITARY'S REQUEST. Confusion over whether a U.S. military photograph of Taliban militants was classified caused NBC News to pull the photograph from its website and later repost it. NBC news correspondent Kerry Sanders provides details in a column on NBCnews.com. — Posted at 12:14 pm

DISSENSION ON CAPITOL HILL REGARDING BUSH'S WARRANTLESS WIRETAPPING PROGRAM. In a partyline vote, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee backed President Bush's proposal to allow, but not require, a secret court to review the President's controversial warrantless domestic spying program. The court that would review the program is called a "FISA" court, created by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to provide for secret judicial review of classified or sensitive information. Democrats opposed the bill, arguing that certain measures would expand presidential powers and violate Americans' civil liberties. Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) pushed through an alternative bill that affirms that the FISA court is the exclusive authority for approving terrorist-related wiretaps. Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee unexpectedly cancelled a vote on its version of the law due to Republican dissent. — Posted at 12:09 pm

Sep. 13, 2006

MAGAZINE DETAILS NEW YORK TIMES DECISION-MAKING REGARDING NATIONAL SECURITY CASE. President Bush personally met with New York Times editors in an attempt to persuade them not to publish an expose on the NSA's efforts to monitor phone calls without court-approved warrants. An article in New York magazine provides a detailed report of the Times's decision to disregard the President's warnings and publish the story. — Posted at 5:19 pm

FROM THE "AGE OF TERROR" TO THE "AGE OF THE FOILED PLOT." What explains the absence of major terrorist attacks in the U.S. since 9/11? A New York Times story examines the debate surrounding this question. Some argue that the government's actions have made the country safer. Others contest that the terrorist threat within the US is less than previously feared. "The idea that we are surrounded by terrorists who could strike anywhere, anytime, is a complete misconception," said Karen J. Greenberg, Director of the Center on Law and Security at New York University. — Posted at 4:55 pm

PLAME AND WILSON PLAN TO ADD ARMITAGE AS DEFENDANT IN CIVIL LAWSUIT. Former CIA operative Valerie Plame and her husband Joe Wilson say they plan to include former State Department official Richard Armitage in the civil lawsuit that they originally filed against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney and Karl Rove in July. The suit alleges that the defendants conspired to reveal Plame's identity to the media. Armitage admitted last week that he was the government official who first disclosed Plame's status as an undercover agent to reporters in 2003. — Posted at 4:39 pm

DOCUMENTS SHED LIGHT ON QUESTIONABLE AIRPORT SECURITY MEASURES IN MISSISSIPPI. An FOIA request by a Mississippi newspaper uncovered questionable security measures at a local airport. The (Jackson) Clarion-Ledger launched the investigation in May when it learned that local Mayor Frank Melton was posing as a law enforcement officer in order to carry guns on commercial airline flights. It subsequently uncovered allegations that Transportation Security Administration managers tipped off airport screeners when undercover tests to ensure security would be conducted. The newspaper is appealing the decision of the TSA to withhold hundreds of other documents related to the case. — Posted at 4:37 pm

REPORTERS LEARN TO BE MORE CAUTIOUS WITH CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION. Reporters in a post-9/11 world, especially those covering national security issues, are learning new ways to protect confidential information. In the wake of the CIA leak investigation, The New York Times is holding legal seminars for its reporters on how to protect the information they gain during the newsgathering process, including the identities of anonymous sources. Attorneys have advised reporters to dispose of story drafts, limit phone and email contact with sources, and avoid meeting with sources at the office, where their presence might be detected by surveillance cameras or sign-in sheets. — Posted at 4:36 pm

WHO EXACTLY ARE THESE DANGEROUS "ENEMY COMBATANTS" AT GITMO? In an article in the Columbia Journalism Review Daily, Eric Umansky examines reporters' efforts to uncover the true backgrounds of Guantanamo Bay detainees. — Posted at 4:32 pm

DEMOCRATS UNRECEPTIVE TO NSA'S WIRETAPPING TALKING POINTS. Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee bristled at the National Security Agency's suggestions for what the lawmakers could say about the agency's warrantless wiretapping program without violating secrecy laws. Some of the agency's suggestions, according to a letter obtained by the Associated Press: "I have personally met the dedicated men and women of the NSA. The Country owes them an enormous debt of gratitude for their superb efforts to keep us all secure." And "I can say that the program must contine. It has detected plots that could have resulted in death or injury to Americans both at home and abroad." — Posted at 4:31 pm

US STILL HIDING DOZENS OF TERROR SUSPECTS IN UNKNOWN LOCATIONS. The UK-based Sunday Times reported that the U.S. is still detaining suspected terrorists in undisclosed locations, despite the Bush administration's claim that the CIA is no longer operating secret jails. According to Reprieve, a UK legal organization that provides legal support for death row prisoners, dozens of terrorists suspects have "disappeared completely." — Posted at 11:17 am

DOCUMENT DETAILS ALLEGATIONS AGAINST ARIZONA'S FORMER TOP AIRPORT SECURITY OFFICIAL. Newly released documents shed light on the circumstances behind the resignation of Arizona's top airport security official last year. The Arizona Republic used a Freedome of Information Act request to obtain documents showing how investigators for the Department of Homeland Security substantiated 10 allegations of department ethical and security violations committed by Marcia Florian. Those allegations included using cellphones to discuss state security procedures while she was out of the country. The Transportation Security Administration still has not answered a Republic request for documents concerning other alleged violations. — Posted at 10:57 am

ARCHIVIST SUGGESTS DECLASSIFICATION INITIATIVE HAS 'STOPPED' THE RECLASSIFICATION OF OPEN DOCUMENTS. Allen Weinstein, archivist of the United States, assured researchers last week that the National Declassification Initiative is progressing toward its goal of speeding up and making more transparent the declassification process, according to a National Archives press release. The NDI began after a April 2006 audit by the National Archives detailed the practice of previously unclassified documents being reclassifed in the name of national security. "The practice of withdrawal of documents from the open shelves has been stopped in its tracks," Weinstein said at the Sept. 6 meeting. "Today, withdrawals are extremely rare and must demonstrate a compelling case." — Posted at 10:54 am

TARGET INDIANA? MEDIA ASKS TO REVIEW POTENTIAL TARGET LIST THWARTED BY OPEN RECORDS LAW EXCEPTION. A post-9/11 exception to Indiana's open records law has prevented newspapers from examining a list of potential terrorist targets in Indiana. The credibility of the list was called into question after state officials in Indiana reported to the National Asset Database more potential targets - 8,591 - than any other state. (New York had 5,687 potentially targeted sites) The (Jeffersonville) Evening News (Ind.) reports that the secret list helps decide how federal homeland security funding is allocated. Or misallocated, as the case may be. — Posted at 10:53 am

CIA AND FBI CLASH OVER INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES. According to the New York Times, the CIA and FBI heatedly debated whether to use extremely harsh methods in the interrogation of Al Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah. Anonymous former intelligence officials claim that, despite protests from the FBI, the CIA employed overly harsh tactics. President Bush defended the CIA's interrogation methods in the Abu Zubaydah case. — Posted at 10:52 am

Sep. 12, 2006

POST-9/11 SURVEILLANCE OF AMERICANS IS UNPRECEDENTED. Although the U.S. government has been intercepting phone calls and email messages for years with the stated purpose of monitoring terror threats, domestic surveillance of Americans post-9/11 is at an unprecedented level in the country's history. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, the government secretly enters homes to access physical file cabinets and personal computer hard drives, looking for any information indicating that the owner might be linked to terrorists. The government also monitors travel, school and credit card records, in addition to instant messages, emails and voice calls made over the internet. Thanks to technology, internet and phone records to create "digital footprints" of American citizens that can be easily tracked. Additionally, government officials can even secretly collect large amounts of personal data and run the information through software that predicts the likelihood of that person becoming a terrorist. — Posted at 5:57 pm

JOURNALIST RELEASED FROM SUDANESE PRISON. The government of Sudan freed Chicago Tribune correspondent Paul Salopek on Saturday after jailing him for almost five weeks on charges of espionage, writing "false news" and illegally crossing the border from Chad. Last month, a government-allied militia detained Salopek, a Pulitzer-Prize winner who was on assignment for National Geographic, along with his driver and interpreter. Salopek's arrest comes at a time when journalists in Sudan are struggling with increasing harassment and censorship in the country, which has refused to let United Nations peacekeepers into the war-torn Darfur region. — Posted at 4:41 pm

WYDEN CALLS REPORTS ON PRE-WAR INTELLIGENCE OVER-CLASSIFIED. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) criticized members of the intelligence community for excessively using "black highlighters" on information in two reports on pre-war intelligence released last week. "This is a textbook case of abuse of the classification system," Wyden said in a press release. Wyden promised to ask the Public Interest Declassification Board to investigate the classifications to determine if material that was not sensitive was improperly withheld from public view. The reports were the first and second of five planned by the Senate Intelligence Committee on what the government knew in the months leading up to the war. — Posted at 4:38 pm

Sep. 9, 2006

OREGON JUDGE ALLOWS ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE LAWSUIT TO CONTINUE. A federal judge in Oregon Thursday allowed an Islamic charity to proceed with a suit challenging the surveillance program in which the government, without warrants, monitors some international communications of people in the United States. The suit is similar to actions pending in Detroit and New York, but with a wrinkle: the charity says it has seen a classified document confirming that its communications with its lawyers were actually intercepted. In the other suits, according to the New York Times, the plaintiffs face the preliminary hurdle of establishing that they have standing to sue based only on the risk that there has been interception. The charity, Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, says the government inadvertently provided it the document in an unrelated lawsuit. The document includes a log, the charity says, of communications between its officials and its law firm that were obtained by the National Security Agency through electronic surveillance for which the government had no warrant. — Posted at 11:44 am

DETENTION MEMOS STILL NOT PUBLIC. In defending the CIA's secret network of prisons this week, President Bush said the detention system had used lawful interrogation techniques, was fully described to select members of Congress and led directly to the capture of a string of terrorists over the past four years. Bush described the interrogation techniques used on the C.I.A. prisoners as having been "safe, lawful and effective," and he asserted that torture had not been used. But the New York Times says the Bush administration has yet to make public the legal papers prepared by government lawyers that served as the basis for its determination that those procedures did not violate American or international law. — Posted at 11:39 am

DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS SHOW WHITE HOUSE KNEW PRE-WAR INTELLIGENCE WAS FLAWED. A Senate panel has found that Saddam Hussein rejected overtures from al-Qaida and believed Islamic extremists were a threat to his regime, a reverse portrait of an Iraq allied with Osama bin Laden painted by the Bush White House. The administration's version was based in part on intelligence that White House officials knew was flawed, according to Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, citing newly declassified documents released by the panel. The report, released Friday, discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's government ''did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward'' al-Qaida operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or his associates. — Posted at 11:32 am

CBS GETS INTO NATIONAL COUNTER TERRORISM CENTER. CBS New correspondent David Martin had an unusual problem when he was working on the network's story, shown this week, called, "Five Years: How Safe Are We?. He wanted access to the National Counter Terrorism Center. "It was new, it was secret and it was directly relevant to 9/11. It was created specifically to correct the intelligence failures of 9/11." With lots of legwork, he was able to get it in. — Posted at 11:26 am

Sep. 8, 2006

BRITISH LAW PREVENTS DETAILED NEWS REPORTING. The complete story of how suspected terrorists planned to blow up U.S.-bound airplanes may take a year or so to tell because of British reporting restrictions that keep journalists from publishing details before a trial. Britain's tough contempt laws and reporting restrictions on covering court cases - intended to protect suspects' rights - mean key facts are hidden from the public even as terror plots multiply, leaving international media struggling to respect the law of the land while reporting the news to global audiences. — Posted at 5:24 pm

ARMITAGE ACKNOWLEDGES HE WAS NOVAK'S SOURCE. Richard L. Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state, confirmed Thursday that he was the primary source who first told a columnist about the intelligence officer at the center of the C.I.A. leak case. "It was a terrible error on my part," Armitage said in an interview with the New York Times. — Posted at 5:09 pm

Sep. 7, 2006

DHS LISTS "SENSITIVE SECURITY INFORMATION" TITLES. In an attempt to limit unnecessary controls on unclassified information, Congress last year required the Department of Homeland Security to identify by title all DHS documents that were marked as "Sensitive Security Information" (SSI) that may not be publicly disclosed. In response, the first DHS report to Congress listed approximately one thousand titles that had been marked as SSI between October 1 and December 31, 2005. A copy of that report has just been released with minor redactions in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Federation of American Scientists. Links to the report can be found on the Secrecy News web site. — Posted at 5:51 pm

PROFILES OF 14 FORMERLY SECRET AL QAEDA PRISONERS POSTED. CNN has posted profiles of the 14 al Qaeda prisoners in CIA custody have been transferred to the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for trial before a military tribunal. The suspects have been linked by U.S. Officials to myriad terrorist plots - successful and thwarted - including the 2002 bombings on the resort island of Bali, the September 11, 2001, attacks, the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen and the 1998 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania. The list starts off with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks on Washington and New York, was captured in Pakistan in 2003. — Posted at 5:33 pm

CLOSED HEARINGS ORDERED IN LIBBY CASE. A federal judge has ordered a series of closed hearings to determine if Vice President Cheney's former top aide, I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, can use certain classified information as a defense during his trial in the CIA/Leak case. MSNBC reports that Judge Reggie Walton ordered two sets of closed door hearings. The first, to begin on September 25th, and "continue everyday thereafter until completed," will be to make all determinations concerning the use, relevance, or admissibility of classified information that would otherwise be made during the trial. The second set of closed hearings, set to begin October 10th, will deal with classified information the judge has determined to be admissible at trial. The judge also ordered that the government's declassification team be present at both hearings. — Posted at 5:31 pm

MILITARY LAWYERS WARN OF FLAWS IN TERROR PROSECUTION PLAN. The Pentagon's top uniformed lawyers took issue today with a key part of a White House plan to prosecute terrorism detainees, telling Congress that limiting the suspects' access to evidence could violate treaty obligations. Their testimony to a House committee marked the latest time that military lawyers have publicly challenged Bush administration proposals to keep some evidence - such as classified information - from accused terrorists. In the past, some military officials have expressed concerns that if the U.S. adopts such standards, captured American troops might be treated the same way. The Associated Press reports that the lawyers' testimony contrasted with the panel chairman's assertion that the United States must take a harder line when prosecuting terrorists. — Posted at 4:30 pm

FORMER CLINTON ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS IN AN UPROAR OVER ABC MINISERIES. Former Clinton administration officials are demanding that ABC correct or not air a miniseries about events leading to the Sept. 11 attacks that blames President Clinton's policies for the attacks. But in a statement released this afternoon in apparent response to the growing uproar, ABC said, ''No one has seen the final version of the film, because the editing process is not yet complete, so criticisms of film specifics are premature and irresponsible.'' Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Clinton Foundation head Bruce Lindsey and Clinton adviser Douglas Band wrote in the past week to Robert Iger, CEO of ABC's parent The Walt Disney Co., to express concern over ''The Path to 9/11.'' The two-part miniseries, scheduled to be broadcast on Sunday and Monday, is drawn from interviews and documents including the report of the Sept. 11 commission. ABC has described it as a ''dramatization'' as opposed to a documentary. — Posted at 3:12 pm

Sep. 6, 2006

INTELLIGENCE DIRECTORS DON'T HAVE TO DISCLOSE OPS TO CONGRESS. The directors of U.S. intelligence agencies have discretion over which of their activities are reported to Congress, according to newly disclosed guidelines. The law governing the 16 agencies and departmental offices that are called the U.S. Intelligence Community by insiders requires them to keep both the House and Senate intelligence committees "fully and currently informed of all intelligence activities," except so-called covert actions "including any significant anticipated intelligence activity and any significant intelligence failure." But United Press International reports guidelines from the new Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte say that it is up the directors of each agency to decide what programs or other activities are covered by the requirement. — Posted at 3:43 pm

NEW ARMY MANUAL BANS TORTURE. A new Army manual bans torture and degrading treatment of prisoners, for the first time specifically mentioning forced nakedness, hooding and other procedures that have become infamous during the five-year-old war on terror. Delayed more than a year amid criticism of the Defense Department's treatment of prisoners, the new Army Field Manual was being released Wednesday, revising one from 1992. It also explicitly bans beating prisoners, sexually humiliating them, threatening them with dogs, depriving them of food or water, performing mock executions, shocking them with electricity, burning them, causing other pain and a technique called "water boarding" that simulates drowning — Posted at 3:38 pm

BUSH ACKNOWLEDGES SECRET CIA PRISONS. President George W. Bush today acknowledged the existence of previously secret CIA prisons around the world and said 14 high-value terrorism suspects - including the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks - have been transferred from the system to Guantanamo Bay for trials. He said the "small number" of detainees that have been kept in CIA custody include people responsible for the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 in Yemen and the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, in addition to the 2001 attacks. — Posted at 3:35 pm

Sep. 5, 2006

FITZGERALD IDENTIFIED THE LEAKER; INVESTIGATED ANYWAY. An enduring mystery of the C.I.A. leak case was solved last week, but the New York Times reports a new twist: Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, knew the identity of leaker Richard Armitage from his very first day in the special counsel's chair, but kept the inquiry open for nearly two more years before indicting I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, on obstruction charges. — Posted at 5:58 pm

SOLDIER'S PARENTS USE FOIA TO INVESTIGATE SON'S DEATH. The parents of a Wisconsin soldier killed in Iraq have filed a Freedom of Information request for military documents about their son's death. Stephen and Kay Castner are hoping to find evidence backing their claim that Humvees are unsafe for use in Iraqi convoys. Stephen Castner, 27, died in July when the Humvee he was riding in was hit by a roadside bomb. — Posted at 5:48 pm

TERROR PROSECUTIONS DECLINING, STUDY SAYS. The federal government has fallen back to prosecuting international terrorists at about the same rate it did before 9/11, according to a study based on Justice Department data. The decline followed a sharp increase in such criminal prosecutions in the year after the attacks, according to a study released by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data research group at Syracuse University. A Justice Department spokesman told The Associated Press, "There are many flaws in the report." — Posted at 3:38 pm

SECRECY REPORT CARD RELEASED. OpenTheGovernment.org has issued its third annual report that shows a continued expansion of government secrecy across a broad array of federal agencies. The report says the current administration "has exercised an unprecendented level of restriction of access to information about, and suppression of discussion of, the federal government's policies and decisions." — Posted at 3:22 pm

Sep. 1, 2006

SECRET PROGRAM REVIEWED COLLEGE FINANCIAL AID RECORDS. Searching for terrorists, the FBI and the Education Department's investigative arm have secretly reviewed the records of people applying for college financial aid, documents obtained by the Medill School of Journalism. The secret effort began right after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. The program was shut down this June, nearly five years later, according to documents obtained through Medill's Freedom of Information Act request. Under the program, the FBI gave names to the Education Department's Office of Inspector General, which ran them through databases of millions of financial aid applications to determine whether student aid had been sought. — Posted at 2:29 pm