A Secret the NYT Kept vs. Those It Did Not

Scott Johnson contrasts the NYT's silence on the David Rohde kidnapping to protect the safety of their reporter with "the Times's illegal exposure of the NSA terrorist eavesdropping program in December 2005, as well as its exposure of the Treasury Department's terrorist-finance tracking program in June 2006. Whereas the reporting of Rohde's apprehension may have endangered his life, the disclosure ...

FBI Building Not Secure

The FBI headquarters complex has a wee problem: “The Hoover Building does not meet the Interagency Security Committee’s criteria for a secure Federal facility capable of handling intelligence and other sensitive information,” the Senate Appropriations Committee observed in a new report on the 2009 Commerce, Justice and State Appropriations bill. “The Committee finds these conditions unacceptable and directs the Government Accountability Office ...

Controlled Unclassified Information

Steven Aftergood has an interesting look at a proposal from Jane Harmon to formalize the concept of “controlled unclassified information” (CUI) that the White House rolled out on a trial balloon basis last month. Aftergood is dubious of the so-called “The Improving Public Access to Documents Act" and I mostly defer to him on this matter. [I]t is ...

U.S. Intelligence Agencies Rethink Classification Policy

The United States government is thinking about coming up with a coherent system for dealing with classified information. Steven Aftergood has details. U.S. intelligence agencies have embarked upon a process to develop a uniform classification policy and a single classification guide that could be used by the entire U.S. intelligence community, according to a newly obtained report (pdf) from the ...

Hillary Clinton’s Foreign Policy ‘Experience’ Unscheduled

Recently released schedules of Hillary Clinton's eight years as First Lady document that she was mostly engaged in frivolous, unrelated activities during foreign policy events for which she has claimed "experience." Or do they? The NYT lede: When the World Trade Center was attacked for the first time on Feb. 26, 1993, President Bill Clinton flew to New York to be ...

D.C. Madam Cites National Security

D.C. Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey is claiming a state secrets privilege because she provided services to Muslims, Carol Leonnig reports. The woman accused of being the D.C. Madam now argues that the fact that Muslim men used her elite, Washington-based escort service before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks might have played a role in the government's effort to prosecute her. Deborah ...

Valerie Plame Can’t Publish Dates of CIA Service

A federal judge has backed the CIA's bid to keep Valerie Plame Wilson from disclosing the length of her CIA service, despite it being publicly available information. Valerie Wilson may be the best known former intelligence operative in recent history, but a federal judge in New York ruled Wednesday that she was not allowed to say how long she worked for ...

Pentagon Rebukes Clinton Withdrawal Plan Request [UPDATE: Not So Much]

Senator Hillary Clinton, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has been asking the Pentagon for months to brief her on the status of planning for a withdrawal of forces from Iraq. Her requests had been ignored until now but they were met by a stern rebuke yesterday from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman. AP reports they ...

White House Says Classification Order Doesn’t Apply to Bush or Cheney Staff

The White House says that the president's and vice president's staff was always intended to be exempt from a presidential order describing the handling of classified documents, Josh Meyer reports. The White House said Friday that, like Vice President Dick Cheney's office, President Bush's office is not allowing an independent federal watchdog to oversee its handling of classified national security information. ...

Cheney Claims He’s Not Part of Executive Branch

Yesterday afternoon, Justin Rood broke the strange story of Dick Cheney's claim of Vice Presidential immunity from executive orders. Vice President Dick Cheney has asserted his office is not a part of the executive branch of the U.S. government, and therefore not bound by a presidential order governing the protection of classified information by government agencies, according to a new letter ...

Libby Prosecution: Craig Schmall Testimony (Pt. 2)

Day three of testimony began with the resumption of cross-examination of Craig Schmall, the CIA manager who briefed Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney during the period in question. Live blogging below the fold with any breaking news also in separate posts. Court began precisely at 9:30, as scheduled. Judge Walton is amazingly prompt, having begun all sessions my four ...

Libby Trial: Opening Arguments – Defense (Live Blog)

"My name is Ted Wells and I speak for Scooter Libby." He is "totally innocent." "He is an innocent man and he has been wrongly and unjustly and unfairly accused." No witness, no document, no scientific evidence will be produced saying that Scooter Libby lied, told them he was about to lie, or that he had lied. "It's ...

Libby Trial: Voir Dire Resumes

Judge Walton got things going at precisely 9:30. I'll live blog the morning's voir dire below, posting anything particularly newsworthy separately. The first candidate is a young white guy who admits to having worked against Bush (letter writing campaigns for MoveOn.org) but says he can be fair. His impressions based on the news accounts he read was that he was "surprised ...

Libby Trial: Politics Central, Facts Secondary

I'm live in the media room at the Prettyman Federal Courthouse awaiting the resumption of voir dire in the Scooter Libby trial. AP's Michael Sniffen reports that the jury selection should end today, although the problems that have plagued it remain. Libby's lawyers, Theodore Wells and William Jeffress, have labored to keep opponents of the Iraq war and the administration off the ...

CIA Won’t Let Plame Write Book

The CIA Publications Review Board is denying Valerie Plame permission to write about her work for the Agency, or even mention that she did so, Michael Isikoff reports in the latest Newsweek. The panel refused Plame permission to even mention that she worked for the CIA because she served as a "nonofficial cover" officer (or NOC) posing as a private businesswoman, ...