[A-List] US administration: credibility crisis

["Michael Keaney" <michael011@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

White House steps up effort to halt flow of secrets
By Edward Alden in Washington
Financial Times: March 7 2006

The administration of President George W. Bush is mounting an
unprecedented effort to crack down on leaks of government secrets, even
as it is vastly expanding the range of information deemed too sensitive
to share with the public.

That twin effort has raised fears that the White House may succeed in
shutting off the flow of such information by threatening to jail those
who leak secrets and those who receive them.

The issue has come to a head in the government?s efforts to prosecute
two pro-Israeli lobbyists for receiving classified information from a
Pentagon official. Larry Franklin, the official, was sentenced to 12
years in prison in January, and the lobbyists ? Steven Rosen and Keith
Weissman of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee ? are to go on
trial next month.

Many see the case, which relies on a novel interpretation of a
90-year-old espionage law, as a test of whether the administration can
exercise new powers to shut off leaks that have been severely
embarrassing to the White House. In particular, the Justice Department
is aggressively trying to identify the sources for two explosive news
stories: the existence of secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons in
eastern Europe, and the National Security Agency?s domestic surveillance
programme.

The Washington Post reported at the weekend that dozens of officials
from both agencies had been questioned recently by the FBI in the leak
investigations.

?When you have more and more information being classified, and more and
more secrets being kept, the only way reporters can get information is
when internal whistleblowers provide it. And that drives this
administration crazy,? says Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Since the September 11 attacks, the administration has vastly expanded
the range of information deemed secret, ranging from the serious ? such
as the NSA spying programme ? to the seemingly trivial. It has begun
withholding, for instance, the names and telephone numbers of many
government officials, making it more difficult for reporters and others
to track down knowledgeable sources.

In the first four years of the administration, the volume of classified
documents barred from public distribution nearly doubled to close to 16m
annually. Over the same time, declassification of documents has slowed
to a trickle.

Porter Goss, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, warned in a
Senate hearing last month that leaks had caused ?severe damage? to his
agency. ?It is my aim and it is my hope that we will witness a grand
jury investigation, with reporters present, being asked to reveal who is
leaking this information,? he said.

That threat is the main reason the prosecution of Mr Rosen and Mr
Weissman has caused such concern. The two are accused of discussing with
Mr Franklin a classified draft memorandum regarding US policy towards
Iran. In a court memorandum filed in support of the lobbyists, a former
Justice Department official, Viet Dinh ? chief architect of the Patriot
Act ? argued that the prosecution would have a chilling effect on debate
over national security issues.

?Until now, no administration has attempted to address what it may
perceive as annoying or premature ?leaks? by criminalising the receipt
and use of unsolicited oral information obtained as part of the lobbying
or reporting process,? he wrote.

The government?s effort, he said, would in effect ?create some type of
official secrets act through the prosecution of a test case against two
individuals who were engaged in a practice that defines foreign policy
lobbying ? the sharing of information ? in which lobbyists and members
of the press engage every day.?

The US has long resisted adopting a British-style Official Secrets Act.
But support for the idea is growing. In 2000, President Bill Clinton
vetoed legislation passed by the Republican Congress that would have
criminalised unauthorised leaks of classified information, though even
that bill would not have made the receipt of such information a crime.
The Republican chairmen of both the Senate and House intelligence
committees have said recently they might make another effort to pass
such legislation.

Critics say the obsession with leaks is absurd because top White House
officials have been at the forefront of leaking the most sensitive
classified information. For instance, Lewis ?Scooter? Libby, the former
chief of staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney who faces perjury charges
in the Valerie Plame case, has said in his defence that Mr Cheney
authorised him to discuss with some reporters the CIA?s classified 2002
National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq?s weapons programmes in the
run-up to the Iraq war. Newspaper stories based on the false claims in
the NIE that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons, and was
developing nuclear arms, helped build US public support for invading
Iraq.

In a television interview last month, Mr Cheney said he had the power to
declassify such information, citing an executive order signed by the
president. This is precisely why the system for classifying secrets is
open to abuse, according to Thomas Blanton, director of the National
Security Archive, which presses for declassification of information.
?The fact is that most of the leaks that take place are coming from very
high-ranking officials, up to and including the president.?

The crackdown on leaks, he said, was a result of White House anger that
mid-level officials were ?in open revolt? against policies. ?The top
officials can?t tell the real secrets from the embarrassments, and they
are reacting to the embarrassments,? he said. ?It destroys the
credibility we need to maintain the real secrets.?


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