Keyword: Leaks
Items: 16 (1 pages)
QUICKLINK Maryland · April 15, 2010 · Newsgathering
Former NSA official charged in newspaper leak investigation
Federal prosecutors on Thursday charged a former high-ranking National Security Agency official with lying and obstruction of justice relating to an investigation into leaks made to an unidentified newspaper, The Associated Press reported.
According to the charges in the Maryland District Court indictment, Thomas Drake sent both classified and unclassified information to an unnamed reporter at a national newspaper . . . [more]
— Cristina Abello, 5:08 pm · Comments: 0
NEWS MEDIA UPDATE Michigan · February 9, 2010 · Reporter's privilege
Court reaffirms reporter's Fifth Amendment right
A Michigan federal court today ruled that Detroit Free Press reporter David Ashenfelter properly asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege against self incrimination, allowing him to keep the identities of confidential sources a secret.
The plaintiff, former U.S. prosecutor Richard Convertino, had been seeking the names of Ashenfelter's Justice Department sources since 2006 for a Privacy Act lawsuit.
A Michigan district court denied Convertino's motion to reconsider the April 21, 2009 ruling that accepted Ashenfelter’s Fifth Amendment objections. That ruling came after Ashenfelte's counsel met with the judge in chambers to discuss facts that substantiated his assertion of possible self-incrimination.
“The court finds at least minimally sufficient facts to support such conclusion that Ashenfelter’s silence, maintained through the protections claimed under the Fifth Amendment, is a valid assertion of . . . [more]
— Cristina Abello, 4:44 pm · Comments: 0
QUICKLINK U.S. · January 4, 2010 · Reporter's privilege
Homeland Security withdraws subpoena to travel journalist
The Department of Homeland Security has withdrawn the administrative subpoena it served to travel journalist Christopher Elliott after he published a new security directive issued by TSA on his personal website.
Elliott, the reader advocate at National Geographic Traveler and contributor to MSNBC.com and The Washington Post, . . . [more]
— Amanda Becker, 5:36 pm · Comments: 0
QUICKLINK U.S. · December 31, 2009 · Reporter's privilege
TSA agents subpoena, visit home of second writer
A representative from the Transportation Security Administration visited the home of a second blogger this week to serve a subpoeana seeking the source of a security directive that was posted on the blogger's Web site, Wired reported.
A TSA agent visited the home of Steven Frischling Tuesday night -- the same day established travel writer Christopher Elliott also received a subpoena -- to demand he reveal who supplied him with new . . . [more]
— Amanda Becker, 2:21 pm · View reader comments (3)
QUICKLINK U.S. · December 30, 2009 · Reporter's privilege
Travel writer subpoenaed after publishing TSA security directive
The author of a popular syndicated travel column was subpoenaed by the Department of Homeland Security after publishing a new security directive issued after the recent attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight into Detroit on Christmas Day.
The Transportation Security Administration sent an agent to the house of Christopher Elliott to deliver a subpoena demanding “[a]ll documents, emails, and/or faxsimile transmissions (sic) in your control possession or control . . . [more]
— Amanda Becker, 6:07 pm · View reader comments (4)
QUICKLINK Washington, D.C. · December 14, 2009 · Privacy
Court rules personal e-mail sent from work account is private
The D.C. federal district court ruled Thursday that a U.S. attorney’s personal e-mail correspondence, sent from his work account, was private and cannot be used to bolster former Justice Department attorney Richard Convertino’s lawsuit against the government, The National Law Journal reported.
Because Justice Department policy permitted Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Tukel to use work e-mail for personal communication, he had a reasonable expectation that electronic messages with his personal . . . [more]
— Cristina Abello, 4:54 pm · Comments: 0
QUICKLINK U.S. · October 1, 2009 · Freedom of information
Federal judge orders release of Cheney's leak interview
Most of the FBI's interview of former Vice President Dick Cheney about the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity must be released to the public, a federal judge ordered today.
The 2004 Cheney interview was part of an FBI probe into the leak of Plame's covert identity after her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, publicly argued the Bush administration had manipulated intelligence information to support an assertion in the 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq had purchased . . . [more]
— Ansley Schrimpf, 5:12 pm · View reader comments (1)
NEWS MEDIA UPDATE 4th Cir. · April 3, 2009 · Newsgathering
Baltimore cop's First Amendment suit revived
A former Baltimore police official's lawsuit, alleging his free-speech rights were violated when he was fired after leaking a memo to a newspaper, was revived Thursday in a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond (4th Cir.).
Michael Andrew, a 31-year police veteran and district commander, was first demoted and investigated in 2004 after he handed to a Baltimore Sun reporter a memo he'd penned questioning a police-involved shooting in his district. Andrew sued to get his job back on First Amendment grounds.
The police department claimed the memo fell into the domain of Andrew's official work. He argued the contrary, saying he'd written it of his own accord.
The U.S. District Court dismissed the suit for failure to state a claim, finding that, under Garcetti v. Ceballos, the Supreme Court case that defines the extent of government employee speech, Andrew's memo was "speech pursuant to his official duties" that did not draw First Amendment protection merely because it was passed to the press.
Writing for . . . [more]
— Kathleen Cullinan, 4:37 pm · Comments: 0
NEWS MEDIA UPDATE North Carolina · August 18, 2008 · Newsgathering
Deputy poses as Newsweek reporter to ID anonymous source
A sheriff's deputy in North Carolina posed as a Newsweek reporter to coax an anonymous source out of a local newspaper journalist. And it worked.
In a case of scandal climbing atop scandal, the deputy got The (Jacksonville) Daily News reporter Lindell Kay to hand over the phone number of a source in a high-profile homicide case, leading to criminal charges against an intern in the local district attorney's office.
The source reportedly gave Kay permission to give out his information because he wanted to talk with Newsweek.
Now intern Robert Sharpe is charged with embezzlement and larceny, accused of offering to sell the undercover deputy confidential records from a 6,000-page file he'd been told to photocopy in the case of Cpl. Cesar Laurean. Laurean was tracked down to Mexico earlier this year and is charged with killing a pregnant Marine whose burned remains were found in North Carolina.
Sharpe has now identified himself to the media as a confidential source . . . [more]
— Kathleen Cullinan, 5:20 pm · View reader comments (3)
QUICKLINK Pennsylvania · August 18, 2008 · Secret courts
AP seeks access to Pa. judge's grand jury leak probe
The Associated Press wants a Pennsylvania judge to open up his inquiry into grand jury leaks from a casino owner's perjury case, in an ongoing matter that has so far seen more than a dozen subpoenas of reporters sent out, and then quashed.
In a motion filed Friday to intervene, the AP reports it argued against Dauphin County Judge Todd Hoover's "wholesale sealing of the proceedings." Hoover was directed by the state Supreme Court to look into leaks from the grand jury inquiry that led to . . . [more]
— Kathleen Cullinan, 3:22 pm · Comments: 0
QUICKLINK Pennsylvania · July 7, 2008 · Reporter's privilege
Lawyer wanted subpoenaed reporters' cell phone numbers
A lawyer investigating a grand jury leak turned to Pennsylvania state legislative staffers to get the cell phone numbers of at least eight reporters already subpoenaed in the case, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Senate Minority Leader Robert J. Mellow said it was a routine constituent service for his staff to help attorney Sal Cognetti find cell numbers of reporters subpoenaned in an investigation involving his client.
Cognetti represents a Catholic priest who, along with casino . . . [more]
— Stacey Laskin, 5:11 pm · Comments: 0
QUICKLINK California · May 30, 2008 · Reporter's privilege
Reporter subpoenaed to identify confidential source
U.S. District Court Judge Cormac Carney ordered Washington Times reporter William Gertz to identify the confidential sources who provided information for a 2006 story he wrote about the prosecution of a Chinese spy ring in California.
In the story, Gertz correctly reported that new charges would be filed against Chi Mak, an engineer who worked for several American defense contractors, and several of his relatives.
Last May, a jury convicted Mak of being an unregistered foreign agent and conspiring to export U.S. defense technology to China, including data on an . . . [more]
— Matthew Pollack, 11:12 am · Comments: 0
QUICKLINK Ninth Circuit · March 6, 2008 · Prior restraints
Swiss bank drops suit against Wikileaks
Less than a week after U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White lifted an injunction against the whistleblower Web site Wikileaks, the Swiss bank dropped its lawsuit.
Julius Baer and Co. said it reserved the right to pursue its case at a later date in the same court or elsewhere.
— Alanna Malone, 10:42 am · Comments: 0
COMMENTARY · February 19, 2008 · Prior restraints
Leaks Web site ordered shut down
Last week a federal judge ordered a Web site that posts leaked material to disable itself entirely before coming back to say it only needed to stop posting certain documents related to a case brought by a Cayman Islands bank.
Judge Jeffrey S. White of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco granted a permanent injunction Friday requiring the Internet site Wikileaks -- whose mission is to post confidential documents to discourage "unethical behavior" -- to disable its Wikileaks.org domain name. A later order Friday, which White called an "amended temporary restraining order" seemed to narrow the injunction and prevented the site from distributing only certain bank documents. The "leaks" at issue are related to the litigation brought by Julius Baer Bank and Trust against Wikileaks for publishing . . . [more]
— Corinna Zarek, 5:25 pm · Comments: 0
QUICKLINK · February 14, 2008 · Prior restraints
Hewlett-Packard settles with journalists in spying scandal
Hewlett-Packard Co. has agreed to a financial settlement with The New York Times and reporters from BusinessWeek magazine that stems from a 2006 scandal in which the company used a surveillance scheme to obtain the phone records of journalists.
The settlement, which was not the result of a lawsuit, involved one reporter from the Times and three from BusinessWeek. The scandal came about when investigators who Hewlett-Packard hired used a method . . . [more]
— Amy Harder, 11:35 am · Comments: 0
COMMENTARY · December 4, 2007 · Reporter's privilege
Judge rejects subpoenas for reporters, dodges privilege issue
A federal trial judge in San Diego ruled on Monday that a defense contractor convicted of bribing former U.S. Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham could not subpoena reporters to determine the source of leaks in his grand jury investigation.
In doing so, though, Judge Larry A. Burns refused to reach the reporters’ arguments that the First Amendment and California’s shield law protected them from being hailed to court. Rather, Burns rejected the attempt because Brent Wilkes could not show that he suffered any injustice as a result of the leak.
“Having been convicted by a jury . . . Wilkes must now show the fairness of his trial was prejudiced by the grand jury leaks,” Burns wrote, adding that while he shared the defendant’s concern over the leak, it did not, of itself, justify dismissing the indictment.
— Matthew Pollack, 5:43 pm · Comments: 0
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