National security reporting is not for the faint of heart. If a reporter isn't sandbagged by bogus leaks, then he or she is likely to face aggressive tactics by feds anxious to plug unwanted leaks or, in reality, to ward off unwelcome political consequences of especially accurate reporting. Pressure on reporters for high profile news organizations has been extensive. Journalists with less prestigious employers can face even more hassles.
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Insert A: July 26, 2010: Daniel Schorr, who died July 23, of course was another national security reporter who made a government enemies list.
In 1972, the Watergate break-in brought Schorr a full-time assignment as CBS' chief Watergate correspondent. Schorr's exclusive reports and on-the-scene coverage at the Senate Watergate hearings earned him his three Emmys. He unexpectedly found himself a part of his own story when the hearings turned up a Nixon "enemies list" with his name on it and evidence that the President had ordered that he be investigated by the FBI. This "abuse of a Federal agency" figured as one count in the Bill of Impeachment on which Nixon would have been tried had he not resigned in August of 1974.
On the occasions that I heard Schorr's National Public Radio commentaries, I always was gladdened that at least someone was speaking up for liberty in the face of administration attempts to curb it in the name of this or that.
Insert B: A reporter needn't be personally hassled in order to feel the heavy hand of the feds. Siobhan Gorman was a Baltimore Sun reporter who apparently received encrypted leaks from NSA bureaucrat Thomas Drake. Her blockbuster expose triggered a leak probe that eventually snared Drake, who was indicted for violating the rarely enforced Espionage Act for retaining documents to be used for unauthorized disclosure: the outing of the NSA's problem-ridden choice of data-mining technology. He and a number of other NSA employees were angered that the agency had chosen what they saw as an inferior technology that needlessly compromised privacy of Americans.
By clapping the whistleblower in irons for what is essentially a political offense, the administration puts pressure on national security reporters to tread lightly lest they cause an official lasting harm.
See:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/04/nsa-employee-indicted-for-trailblazer-leaks/39006/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake
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The latest target that I know of is James Risen of the New York Times. The Justice Dept., apparently at the instance of a Bush holdover in the national intelligence directorate, is trying to compel him to disclose his source for an account of a CIA escapade gone awry. But, one would be forgiven for wondering whether the real motivation is to make an example of him for his competence in doing his job covering national security and its abuses. It is he who first exposed the NSA warrantless electronic surveillance, a fact which his newspaper felt obliged not to publish for a year. It only did so when it became apparent that his book discussing the surveillance would be published.
Consider the Valerie Plame affair, in which Judith Miller of the New York Times was jailed for more than 80 days for declining to reveal who told her about Plame's identity as a CIA operative.
Robert Novak, who first disclosed Plame's identity, was also compelled by the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, to discuss what he knew. Novak was ostracized by most journalists for doing his job: reporting an unwelcome fact.
Bob Woodward, who blew the roof off the Watergate affair, was also subpoenaed by Fitzgerald.
Walter Pincus, the Washington Post's national security reporter, was forced to talk about his sources under Fitzgerald's compulsion.
Matthew Cooper of Newsweek agreed to testify and avoid jail time after his source agreed to release him from his confidentiality agreement.
The late Tim Russert, host of Meet the Press, was likewise forced to testify under duress.
And the bothersome thing about it is that once Fitzgerald got close to Dick Cheney, it suddenly emerged that Cheney had, he claimed, already declassified Plame's identity, an authority delegated to him by Bush who purportedly had been unaware that Plame was specifically a declassification matter.
So all these reporters had their journalistic standards compromised when, supposedly, no crime had even occurred. Yet Cheney was happy to let Miller rot in jail, amyway.
There was some talk of impeachment, but the media seemed uninterested. In fact, the press itself fudged the issue in order to diminish public awareness and protect "the system." Media owners not only would not go to bat for their reporters, they conspired to help obscure the impeachment issues.
Reporters also faced tough reactions in the Wen Ho Lee matter and the Steven Hatfill case. These cases are tortuously complicated, and it is possible that they were simply misled by informed people whose theories didn't pan out. Or it is possible that they were set up.
Certainly in the matter of Hatfill, it is quite obvious that the FBI's investigation of the anthrax attacks remains highly controversial, with a number of scientists scorning FBI claims. Hence, the uproar over Hatfill, by coincidence or by design, served federal conspirators well. Certainly honest federal officials could have set the record straight by asserting that a conspiracy had indeed been going on in government concerning 9/11 and the anthrax attacks. So in that sense, these reporters were made into sacrificial lambs.
Less known is the case of James Sanders, a reporter for a small newspaper, who, with his wife Elizabeth, was found guilty of conspiring to steal forensic evidence from the TWA Flight 800 investigation. It took more than a decade for the reporter to establish wrongful prosecution and misconduct by the Justice Dept.
Sanders had had a bit of the plane's seat material tested and discovered a residue consistent with missile propellant. He tried to have CBS follow up his expose with a TV special, but instead CBS officials took his piece of evidence and, without doing its own testing, turned it over to the FBI.
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=17721
I can relate numerous instances of harassment that would most probably benefit national security control freaks intent on impeding my various exposes of abuses that seem to be shielded by claims of national security and state secrets. In fact, I have grown so accustomed to the "pinpricks" (machine-like petty harassment) that I simply don't try to keep track.
I am quite sure that other reporters, particularly those focusing on alleged national security issues, have tales of suspicious events in their lives that they can't prove are related to their reporting work.
No? Mere paranoia? Well then, let's consider John Solomon, an AP reporter covering sensitive subjects. The government cover story was that Customs agents had opened the package, seen the FBI document and turned it over to the FBI. The FBI kept quiet about the warrantless seizure, claiming the document was FBI property. At any rate, it seems more likely that Solomon and his corresponding AP reporter were under surveillance, and that their mail was targeted and routinely intercepted by Philippines authorities who closely cooperated with the FBI.
True, the AP was able to smoke this seizure out -- by use of a leaker no doubt -- but the implication is that there was focused federal surveillance and active measures against an able national security reporter.
But, of course, the AP ordinarily won't rock the boat. In fact, keeping the AP strait-jacketed is absolutely essential for the proper functioning of the propaganda machinery of the ruling elite and their national security flunkies (though sometimes the flunkies get the upper hand against their power-driving masters).
Here is a story on the Solomon matter:
AP Protests Gov't Seizure of Package
The Associated Press
Thursday, March 13, 2003; 9:44 AM
Government agencies opened a package mailed between two Associated Press reporters last September and seized a copy of an eight-year-old unclassified FBI lab report without obtaining a warrant or notifying the news agency.
The Customs Service intercepted a package sent via Federal Express from the Associated Press bureau in Manila to the AP office in Washington, and turned the contents over to the FBI.
FBI spokesman Doug Garrison said the document contained sensitive information that should not be made public. However, an AP executive said the package contained an unclassified 1995 FBI report that had been discussed in open court in two legal cases.
"The government had no legal right to seize the package," said David Tomlin, assistant to the AP president.
The package was one of several communications between Jim Gomez in Manila and John Solomon in Washington, AP reporters who were working on terrorism investigative stories.
It was the second time that Solomon's reporting was the subject of a government seizure. In May 2001 the Justice Department subpoenaed his home phone records concerning stories he wrote about an investigation of then-Sen. Robert Torricelli.
The Customs Service said its agents opened the package from Manila after selecting it for routine inspection when it arrived at a Federal Express hub in Indianapolis. Agents did not open an identical package addressed to AP's United Nations office.
Both packages contained an FBI laboratory report on materials seized from a Filipino apartment rented by convicted terrorist Ramzi Yousef. The reporters were working on a research project that resulted in stories published last month about the government's concerns before April 19, 1995, that white supremacists might bomb a federal building.
"The job of Customs is to intercept smuggled contraband and collect import duties," said Tomlin, who is an attorney. "Customs has no authority to seize private correspondence where there's no suspicion it contains contraband. There certainly wasn't any such suspicion here."
Press freedom advocates criticized the agencies' seizure of the document.
"It was really stupid of them to keep it," said Lucy Dalglish, director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "What they're trying to do is prevent you from reporting a story. That's censorship."
The AP inquired about the missing FedEx package last autumn when it did not arrive in Washington, and the courier suggested it might have fallen off a delivery van. FedEx later reimbursed AP $100 for the loss.
FedEx spokeswoman Sally Davenport said Wednesday the company was unable to track the package after it arrived in Indianapolis and had no records showing that it was seized by Customs. If the company knows a package has been taken by Customs, FedEx policy is to notify the customer and provide a number to contact the agency, Davenport said. FedEx did send a letter of apology to the AP, she said.
In January the AP was tipped that the package had been intercepted and that the FBI had requested an investigation to find out who had provided the lab report to the news service.
A letter from the Philippine Department of Justice to the Philippine National Police about the document read, in part: "In view of the concerns raised by the FBI regarding this matter, may we request your good office to conduct a thorough investigation on the mishandling of such sensitive information?"
Customs has the legal right to examine packages sent from overseas at the point they arrive in the United States, in this case Indianapolis. The Customs Service (now the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection) said in a statement that the package addressed to Solomon was selected for "routine inspection" on Sept. 19. Because it contained an FBI document, Customs called the FBI.. Spokesman Dean Boyd said Customs routinely asks another agency about contents of an examined package that pertain to that agency.
"An FBI agent subsequently examined the file and requested that it be turned over to the FBI," the Customs statement said. "Based upon these representations by the FBI, Customs turned the file over."
No warrant was issued, Customs and FBI both said. Customs said any notification to the AP was the FBI's responsibility.
Garrison, who works out of the FBI's Indianapolis bureau, said the package was sent to the FBI in Washington after an FBI agent in Indianapolis reviewed the document and said it contained some information that should not be made public.
"From the FBI's perspective, if the document was a laboratory report that contained sensitive information that the laboratory thought ought to be controlled, they had an obligation to control it," Garrison said. "Generally speaking, we're more careful about the kind of information that's out there. We don't want criminals to get ideas as to how to cause more damage."
The AP said the information had been previously publicly disclosed in two court venues. The material included copies and photos of dozens of pieces of evidence gathered in the terrorism cases of Abdul Hakim Murad and Ramzi Yousef, including batteries, explosive devices, bomb fragments, a copy of a Time magazine, cell phones and phone books.
Murad and Yousef were sentenced to life in prison in a plot to blow up 12 U.S.-bound airliners flying out of Asia. Yousef was later convicted of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
The earlier incident involving Solomon's home phone records sparked a media outcry after Justice officials subpoenaed Solomon's phone records while trying to learn the identity of law enforcement officials who told the AP about a wiretap intercept of then-Sen. Torricelli of New Jersey.
Solomon found out about the May 2001 subpoena in August when he returned from vacation and opened a notification letter from the government. The Code of Federal Regulations says the AP should have had the opportunity to challenge the subpoena.
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