White House Trains Efforts on Media Leaks
Sources, Reporters Could Be Prosecuted

White House Trains Efforts on Media Leaks
Sources, Reporters Could Be Prosecuted
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 5, 2006; A01

The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified
information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their
possible government sources. The efforts include several FBI probes, a
polygraph investigation inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice
Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws.

In recent weeks, dozens of employees at the CIA, the National Security
Agency and other intelligence agencies have been interviewed by agents
from the FBI's Washington field office, who are investigating possible
leaks that led to reports about secret CIA prisons and the NSA's
warrantless domestic surveillance program, according to law
enforcement and intelligence officials familiar with the two cases.

White House Trains Efforts on Media Leaks

Sources, Reporters Could Be Prosecuted
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 5, 2006; A01
The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified
information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their
possible government sources. The efforts include several FBI probes, a
polygraph investigation inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice
Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws.
In recent weeks, dozens of employees at the CIA, the National Security
Agency and other intelligence agencies have been interviewed by agents
from the FBI's Washington field office, who are investigating possible
leaks that led to reports about secret CIA prisons and the NSA's
warrantless domestic surveillance program, according to law
enforcement and intelligence officials familiar with the two cases.
Numerous employees at the CIA, FBI, Justice Department and other
agencies also have received letters from Justice prohibiting them from
discussing even unclassified issues related to the NSA program,
according to sources familiar with the notices. Some GOP lawmakers are
also considering whether to approve tougher penalties for leaking...
Some media watchers, lawyers and editors say that, taken together, the
incidents represent perhaps the most extensive and overt campaign
against leaks in a generation, and that they have worsened the
already-tense relationship between mainstream news organizations and
the White House.
"There's a tone of gleeful relish in the way they talk about dragging
reporters before grand juries, their appetite for withholding
information, and the hints that reporters who look too hard into the
public's business risk being branded traitors," said New York Times
Executive Editor Bill Keller, in a statement responding to questions
from The Washington Post. "I don't know how far action will follow
rhetoric, but some days it sounds like the administration is declaring
war at home on the values it professes to be promoting abroad."
President Bush has called the NSA leak "a shameful act" that was
"helping the enemy," and said in December that he was hopeful the
Justice Department would conduct a full investigation into the
disclosure...
Disclosing classified information without authorization has long been
against the law, yet such leaks are one of the realities of life in
Washington -- accounting for much of the back-channel conversation
that goes on daily among journalists, policy intellectuals, and
current and former government officials.
Bush administration officials -- who complain that reports about
detainee abuse, clandestine surveillance and other topics have
endangered the nation during a time of war -- have arguably taken a
more aggressive approach than other recent administrations, including
a clear willingness to take on journalists more directly if necessary.
"Almost every administration has kind of come in saying they want an
open administration, and then getting bad press and fuming about
leaks," said David Greenberg, a Rutgers University journalism
professor and author of "Nixon's Shadow." "But it's a pretty fair
statement to say you haven't seen this kind of crackdown on leaks
since the Nixon administration." ...
The Justice Department also argued in a court filing last month that
reporters can be prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act for receiving
and publishing classified information...
But the vice chairman of the same committee, Sen. John D. Rockefeller
IV (D-W.Va.), complained in a letter to the national intelligence
director last month that "damaging revelations of intelligence sources
and methods are generated primarily by Executive Branch officials
pushing a particular policy, and not by the rank-and-file employees of
the intelligence agencies."
As evidence, Rockefeller points to the case of Valerie Plame, a CIA
officer whose identity was leaked to the media. A grand jury
investigation by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald resulted last
year in the jailing of Judith Miller, then a reporter at the New York
Times, for refusing to testify, and in criminal charges against I.
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who resigned as Vice President Cheney's chief
of staff. In court papers, Libby has said that his "superiors"
authorized him to disclose a classified government report...

But the vice chairman of the same committee, Sen. John D. Rockefeller
IV (D-W.Va.), complained in a letter to the national intelligence
director last month that "damaging revelations of intelligence sources
and methods are generated primarily by Executive Branch officials
pushing a particular policy, and not by the rank-and-file employees of
the intelligence agencies."

White House Trains Efforts on Media Leaks
Sources, Reporters Could Be Prosecuted
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 5, 2006; A01
The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified
information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their
possible government sources. The efforts include several FBI probes, a
polygraph investigation inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice
Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws.

In recent weeks, dozens of employees at the CIA, the National Security
Agency and other intelligence agencies have been interviewed by agents
from the FBI's Washington field office, who are investigating possible
leaks that led to reports about secret CIA prisons and the NSA's
warrantless domestic surveillance program, according to law
enforcement and intelligence officials familiar with the two cases.
Numerous employees at the CIA, FBI, Justice Department and other
agencies also have received letters from Justice prohibiting them from
discussing even unclassified issues related to the NSA program,
according to sources familiar with the notices. Some GOP lawmakers are
also considering whether to approve tougher penalties for leaking...
Some media watchers, lawyers and editors say that, taken together, the
incidents represent perhaps the most extensive and overt campaign
against leaks in a generation, and that they have worsened the
already-tense relationship between mainstream news organizations and
the White House.
"There's a tone of gleeful relish in the way they talk about dragging
reporters before grand juries, their appetite for withholding
information, and the hints that reporters who look too hard into the
public's business risk being branded traitors," said New York Times
Executive Editor Bill Keller, in a statement responding to questions
from The Washington Post. "I don't know how far action will follow
rhetoric, but some days it sounds like the administration is declaring
war at home on the values it professes to be promoting abroad."
President Bush has called the NSA leak "a shameful act" that was
"helping the enemy," and said in December that he was hopeful the
Justice Department would conduct a full investigation into the
disclosure...
Disclosing classified information without authorization has long been
against the law, yet such leaks are one of the realities of life in
Washington -- accounting for much of the back-channel conversation
that goes on daily among journalists, policy intellectuals, and
current and former government officials.
Bush administration officials -- who complain that reports about
detainee abuse, clandestine surveillance and other topics have
endangered the nation during a time of war -- have arguably taken a
more aggressive approach than other recent administrations, including
a clear willingness to take on journalists more directly if necessary.
"Almost every administration has kind of come in saying they want an
open administration, and then getting bad press and fuming about
leaks," said David Greenberg, a Rutgers University journalism
professor and author of "Nixon's Shadow." "But it's a pretty fair
statement to say you haven't seen this kind of crackdown on leaks
since the Nixon administration." ...
The Justice Department also argued in a court filing last month that
reporters can be prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act for receiving
and publishing classified information...
But the vice chairman of the same committee, Sen. John D. Rockefeller
IV (D-W.Va.), complained in a letter to the national intelligence
director last month that "damaging revelations of intelligence sources
and methods are generated primarily by Executive Branch officials
pushing a particular policy, and not by the rank-and-file employees of
the intelligence agencies."
As evidence, Rockefeller points to the case of Valerie Plame, a CIA
officer whose identity was leaked to the media. A grand jury
investigation by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald resulted last
year in the jailing of Judith Miller, then a reporter at the New York
Times, for refusing to testify, and in criminal charges against I.
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who resigned as Vice President Cheney's chief
of staff. In court papers, Libby has said that his "superiors"
authorized him to disclose a classified government report...