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In Leak Case, Reporters Lack Shield For Sources
Washington Post ^ | 11-29-04 | Charles Lane

Posted on 12/05/2004 4:30:47 PM PST by Snapple

One intriguing possibility, noted by several lawyers familiar with the case, is that Novak may have invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and that Fitzgerald has not yet chosen to give him immunity from prosecution to compel his testimony.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: cia; cialeak; fitzgerald; josephwilson; leaks; novak; plame
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To: Southack
Well well well, would ya just look at what popped up at the top of "Latest Posts" when I hit refresh:

Cable "Leak" says Iraq Deteriorating

NYT: Classified cable sent by the CIA's station chief in Baghdad has warned that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating and may not rebound any time soon... Developing...

101 posted on 12/06/2004 6:59:07 PM PST by cyncooper
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To: Snapple

http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=5051

Mr Chalabi is a long-standing opponent of Saddam Hussein and close ally of the "neo-conservative" hawks in Washington and London who have backed the war. And now, according to CIA leaks in Washington, it is alleged that he may have been in the pay of the Iranians all along.


102 posted on 12/06/2004 7:02:07 PM PST by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: cyncooper

Drudge Now (Dec 6, 2004 10PM)
Classified cable sent by the CIA's station chief in Baghdad has warned that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating and may not rebound any time soon... Developing...


103 posted on 12/06/2004 7:05:21 PM PST by Snapple
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To: Southack

And Chalabi was also the source of Judith Walker's stories about WMD.

I am beginning to think it is true about Chalabi and the Iranian connection.

I used to think like you, but not anymore.


104 posted on 12/06/2004 7:09:11 PM PST by Snapple
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To: Snapple

See post #101. I'm already on it.

Did you notice it is yet another CIA leak of classified information designed to paint the administration in a poor light and to also hype the idea that the elections might be postponed (which I can tell you will not happen despite the best efforts of the rogues and the NY Times and the dems and the terrorists).


105 posted on 12/06/2004 7:10:13 PM PST by cyncooper
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To: Snapple

>>knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States,<<

Key part of the statute. No crime was committed, and even if there technically was a crime committed, Novak is protected by the First Amendment, as is any non-governmental official who isn't under some duty of non-disclosure.


106 posted on 12/06/2004 7:13:26 PM PST by 1L
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To: cyncooper

I just talked to a military person, an acquaintance, who just came back from the war. This person felt "it has to get worse before it gets better."

So this person must feel it is worse now.

This is a mature adult with an intelligence background.


107 posted on 12/06/2004 7:13:44 PM PST by Snapple
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To: Snapple
I just talked to a military person, an acquaintance, who just came back from the war. This person felt "it has to get worse before it gets better."

That is exactly what President Bush said to expect.

Contrary to the picture the rogues and media and dems try to paint, he did not say cakewalk and all is well. He said he fully expected attacks to increase in order to try and stop the elections, so don't think anyone but the disingenuous are suprised or shocked at the increasing violence.

108 posted on 12/06/2004 7:16:33 PM PST by cyncooper
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To: Snapple
After Branzburg, the Justice Department promised, in effect, not to abuse its power to subpoena reporters. Department guidelines instruct federal prosecutors to seek only the minimum of reporters' testimony essential to resolve a case, when all other alternatives have been exhausted.

Somebody's going to sue that this violates the Equal Protection clause.

109 posted on 12/06/2004 7:17:42 PM PST by gitmo (Thanks, Mel. I needed that.)
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To: 1L

It is against the law to reveal an undercover CIA agent--even if you are not a government official.

Novak may be taking the 5th based on this:

(c) Disclosure of information by persons in course of pattern of
activities intended to identify and expose covert agents
Whoever, in the course of a pattern of activities intended to
identify and expose covert agents and with reason to believe that such
activities would impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of
the United States, discloses any information that identifies an
individual as a covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive
classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so
identifies such individual and that the United States is taking
affirmative measures to conceal such individual's classified
intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined not more
than $15,000 or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
(July 26, 1947, ch. 343, title VI, Sec. 601, as added June 23, 1982,
Pub. L. 97-200, Sec. 2(a), 96 Stat. 122.)




110 posted on 12/06/2004 7:21:24 PM PST by Snapple
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To: Snapple
Novak may not be on the hot set because Miller and Coopers involvement predates Novaks involvement.

Who's to say Novaks source isn't Miller and Cooper?

111 posted on 12/06/2004 7:28:43 PM PST by fso301
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To: Snapple
Who really believes Miller and Cooper are falling on their swords to protect Bush?
112 posted on 12/06/2004 7:29:30 PM PST by fso301
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To: Southack

Judith Miller got many of her stories from Chalabi--esp the WMD stories.

Here are some questions from 2002 about how Miller sources her stories:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2074921/
Leak of the Week: Madame Smallpox
"C.I.A. Hunts Iraq Tie to Soviet Smallpox," by Judith Miller, Dec. 3, New York Times.
By Jack Shafer
Updated Friday, Dec. 6, 2002, at 9:35 AM PT


Judith Miller covers the weaponized germ beat for the New York Times and, with fellow Times reporters William Broad and Stephen Engelberg, wrote the well-received Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War last year. Miller got the bug bug when she viewed 10 large fermenters for making anthrax at a now-shuttered Soviet bioweapons factory. "I thought, 'My God, Ronald Reagan was right, it really was an evil empire,' " she said this year in an interview.

Miller's Tuesday scoop in the Times, "C.I.A. Hunts Iraq Tie to Soviet Smallpox," explores the theory that a Russian virologist named Nelja N. Maltseva might have given "a particularly virulent strain of smallpox" to the Iraqis, a finding that obviously grows out of the expertise she acquired in writing the book.

But the prolific blind sourcing in Miller's article to "senior American officials," "foreign scientists," "American officials," "an administration official," "administration officials," and "an informant whose identity has not been disclosed" calls into immediate question who talked to Miller about the alleged Madame Smallpox and why. Not to denigrate Miller's enterprise, but if the CIA is investigating Maltseva and people in a position to know are talking to Miller, why aren't they speaking for attribution?

My gurus in the discipline of blind sourceology are journalist Edward Jay Epstein and Brookings' Stephen Hess, who counsel us to view leaks through a skeptical lens. Leaks come in both the authorized and unauthorized form, and the leaker almost always has a motive. If you have a moment, click here for a primer on their views, including Hess' taxonomy of leaks, before reading on.

With the Epstein and Hess primer as our guide, let's dissassemble Miller's scoop.

Who Didn't Leak? Although the story is about a CIA investigation of virologist Nelja N. Maltseva, nowhere in the story does Miller cite an intelligence source. That doesn't mean that Miller didn't talk to intelligence sources or get information from them that she then confirmed with sources outside of the intelligence community. But the absence of a blind sourced "intelligence official" indicates that the CIA probably didn't tip her. Nor does it cite Department of Defense sources, who might conceivably leak the info to make their sometimes friend, sometimes enemy, the CIA, look bad.

Then Who Were the Leakers? Halfway through the piece, Miller candidly writes, "Administration officials said the C.I.A. was still trying to determine whether Dr. Maltseva traveled to Iraq in 1990, and whether she shared a sample of what might be a particularly virulent smallpox strain with Iraqi scientists." This is essentially a better written and better sourced version of her lede, which attributes the scoop to both senior American officials and foreign scientists. So which is it? American officials or foreign scientists?

Why Would Senior American Officials Leak? Senior officials from the Bush administration might leak the sketchy details of the CIA's smallpox investigation 1) to add urgency to its mass smallpox innoculations plan; and 2) to gin up support for the coming war with Iraq. To use Hess' taxonomy, that would make them Policy Leakers.

Why Would Foreign Scientists Leak? As the Washington Post's Barton Gellman chided Slate's Chatterbox a few weeks ago, it's fun to unmask other journalists' sources, but we should remember that the source doesn't always drive the transaction with a reporter. It could be that Miller's story started with the foreign scientists at the Research Institute for Viral Preparations in Moscow, where Nelja N. Maltseva worked until two years ago, when she died. The scientists might have informed Miller of their interviews with the CIA. From those contacts, Miller could have worked back to administration officials who gave her multiple Good Will Leaks confirming what she had learned rather than stonewalling her. The foreign scientists might be, to use Hess' terms again, Ego Leakers, Good Will Leakers, Animus Leakers, or Whistle-Blower Leakers.

Who Benefits From the Leak? The Bush administration. As already argued, it helps make the case against Saddam. But does it? When reduced to its base elements, Miller's story is about a CIA investigation of a dead virologist who might have handed off a virulent strain of Soviet war-machine smallpox or might not have. To begin with, we don't know if Maltseva visited Iraq in 1990, as the mysterious "informant" alleges. (Miller writes that the informant's "identity has not been disclosed.") We don't even know for sure if the smallpox strain—said to have caused an epidemic of smallpox in Aralsk, Kazakhstan, in 1971, when Kazakhstan was a Soviet republic—even exists. The Russians still deny an outbreak happened and, logically, refuse to give the United States samples of the rumored pathogen.

Who's Hurt by the Leak? The Russians look terrible, because the story accuses them of weaponizing smallpox and transferring it to the Iraqis. The Iraqis suffer, too, although it's not as if they've got reputation to lose.

Why the Administration Would Never Leak the Story. If the CIA is really investigating Maltseva and the Aralsk strain, all this blabbing would probably scare potential sources away.

Why the Administration Would Leak It in a Heartbeat. Or maybe the administration has decided publicity might elicit new sources of information in the stalled investigation. Or maybe the leak is designed to send a message to the Russians about how much the United States knows about their bioweapons programs. By publicizing the role of Maltseva, the United States might be putting new pressure on Russia to cooperate in tracking smallpox strains and anthrax.

Is the Leak the Story, or Is the Leaker the Story? Both.

Where the Next Miller Scoop Might Drop. In the aforementioned interview, Miller notes that four former Soviet scientists now work for Iran's advanced bioweapons programs.

Does Miller's Reach Exceed Her Grasp? Miller presents only circumstantial evidence that Nelja N. Maltseva ferried to Iraq a germ that might not exist. The primary source for the allegation is not only unnamed but unknown to Miller. Maltseva had good reason to visit Iraq in 1972 and 1973, as Miller reports, because she was part of the global smallpox eradication effort. Likewise her trip to Aralsk to combat the 1971 smallpox epidemic. Maltseva's daughter and her former laboratory deputy say she didn't visit Iraq in 1990, as the mystery source says.

Yet the story is so carefully couched, right down to the underselling headline, "C.I.A. Hunts Iraq Tie to Soviet Smallpox," and its placement on A18, that nobody can accuse Miller of hyping her material. It entertains speculation and listens to theorizers but it also quotes doubters. If it contains a hidden agenda, I can't find it. And Miller is not out there whistling alone. Earlier this fall (Nov. 5), the Post's Gellman reported findings from a CIA's Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control Center study that said "a former Soviet scientist told U.S. officials that his country 'transferred [smallpox] technology in the early 1990s to Iraq.' " Madame Smallpox, perhaps?


113 posted on 12/06/2004 7:32:59 PM PST by Snapple
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To: fso301

I make this point early on the thread. Go back and see if you want.

Novak does sometimes get his information from a middle-man.

I speculated Miller could be Novak's source.


114 posted on 12/06/2004 7:34:58 PM PST by Snapple
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To: fso301

I looked up my old post. It is post #11.


115 posted on 12/06/2004 7:40:55 PM PST by Snapple
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To: cyncooper

This information goes out to many customers outside the CIA.


116 posted on 12/06/2004 7:49:00 PM PST by Snapple
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To: Snapple
"Classified cable sent by the CIA's station chief in Baghdad has warned..."

Yet another CIA leak.

Earlier on this thread you were trying to challenge people to name *any* CIA leak. Now this thread is flooded with those leaks.

...Yet still you defend the traitors at the CIA, no matter how many illegal leaks they divulge.

117 posted on 12/06/2004 8:04:07 PM PST by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: cyncooper

The "Bush Knew" fiasco was based on an open source document prepared on the psychology of terrorists.
It was written during the Clinton years.

If the Democrats were screaming "Bush Knew" this is silly because they could have read this paper by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress.

http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/frd.html

This was really mainly written by the CIA.


118 posted on 12/06/2004 8:04:40 PM PST by Snapple
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To: Southack

This information from the CIA station chief goes to many customers outside the CIA.

Lots of people read this.


119 posted on 12/06/2004 8:06:07 PM PST by Snapple
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To: Snapple
"This information from the CIA station chief goes to many customers outside the CIA. Lots of people read this."

You are such a worthless suckup. That is *compartmentalized* Intel. That means that the CIA is responsible for that information remaining secret. If a CIA customer leaked it, then it is up to the CIA to have that customer arrested, or at least cut off from future Intel releases.

So blaming "other customers" as you've attempted above won't cut it.

This is the CIA's intel. If it isn't kept secret, then the CIA takes the fall.

120 posted on 12/06/2004 8:10:08 PM PST by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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