Free Republic

WASHINGTON - Internal investigations into the conduct of over two dozen House members were exposed in an extraordinary, Internet-era breach involving the secretive process by which Congress polices lawmaker ethics. Revelations of the mostly preliminary inquiries by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct , also known as the Ethics committee , and a panel that refers cases to it shook the chamber as lawmakers were immersed in a series of scheduled votes Thursday. The panel announced that it was investigating two California Democrats , Reps. Maxine Waters and Laura Richardson

A federal judge has ordered the Justice Department to release notes and summaries of former Vice President Dick Cheney's 2004 interview with Special Prosecutor Pat Fitzgerald in the CIA leak case, but is allowing the deletion of what may be some of the most interesting details in the documents. In a ruling issued Thursday morning, Judge Emmet Sullivan flatly rejected claims by both Bush and Obama appointees at DOJ that the entirety of the records should be withheld because their disclosure could discourage White House officials from cooperating in future investigations. The judge said the prospect of such inquiries was...

Well turnabout is fair play.The CIA has found a way to strike back at Eric Holder's decision to investigate the CIA's handling of enhanced interrogation techniques, or at least the progressive Democrats that demanded the investigation. In July congress had a major fit about a secret Bush-era program that was revealed to them by CIA Director Leon Panetta: Congress originally authorized the CIA to develop the secret counterterrorism program that is now drawing fierce criticism from House Democrats who say they were kept in the dark all along, a former senior intelligence official told FOX News on Monday. The program,...

Besieged by leaks of several closely held secrets, the CIA has asked the Justice Department to examine what it regards as the criminal disclosure of a secret program to kill foreign terrorist leaders abroad, The Washington Times has learned. Two U.S. intelligence officials, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because of the sensitivity of the case, said the leak investigation involved a program that CIA Director Leon E. Panetta told Congress about in June and that surfaced in news reports just a month later. The vice chairman of the the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence declined...

Parnell Seeks to End Leaks of Confidential Information Asks Attorney General to Step In (July 23, 2009, Anchorage, Alaska) - Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell today asked Attorney General Dan Sullivan to provide recommendations on how to prevent leaks of confidential information in ethics probes. Parnell’s request comes after the leak of an investigator’s confidential and preliminary report related to an ethics complaint filed against Governor Sarah Palin. “These leaks must stop,” Parnell said. “If we allow public officials to be tried and convicted in the press through abuse of the legal process, then the Executive Branch is at risk. The...

Did administration leaks to the AP, Washington Post, and Times compromise an ongoing Justice investigation-thereby aiding Rick Renzi's re-election ?

The federal government mistakenly made public a 266-page report, its pages marked “highly confidential,” that gives detailed information about hundreds of the nation’s civilian nuclear sites and programs, including maps showing the precise locations of stockpiles of fuel for nuclear weapons. The publication of the document was revealed Monday in an on-line newsletter devoted to issues of federal secrecy. That publicity set off a debate among nuclear experts about what dangers, if any, the disclosures posed. It also prompted a flurry of investigations in Washington into why the document was made public. On Tuesday evening, after inquiries from The New...

Government lawyers in the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) appear to have leaked to the press parts of a confidential--and classified--draft report concerning the actions of Bush administration lawyers. The report calls for state bar associations to investigate, and perhaps discipline, attorneys who provided sensitive legal advice to President Bush's administration concerning the legal limits of coercive interrogation methods against high-level al Qaeda terrorists. That advice was, of course, controversial. It is now, in the current political climate, highly unpopular in certain circles. OPR has determined, apparently, that it was "unethical" to give it and that the...

Joe Biden let slip the "undisclosed location" where Dick Cheney hid out in the hours after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 to his tablemates during the Gridiron dinner earlier this year. According to Newsweek's Eleanor Clift: The veep related the story to his head-table dinner mates when he filled in for President Obama at the Gridiron Club earlier this year. He said the young naval officer giving him a tour of the [vice-presidential residence at the Naval Observatory] showed him the hideaway, which is behind a massive steel door secured by an elaborate lock with a narrow connecting...

Link Only:http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/20090505_Weldon_probe_may_be_over____without_indictment.html

Extraordinary details of the heavy-handed police operation against shadow immigration minister Damian Green were revealed this afternoon. Nine counter-terrorism officers raided the MP's London home, frightening his 15-year-old daughter Verity and wife Alicia who were there. Mr Green was seized at his constituency home in Ashford, Kent, and held at Belgravia police station for nine hours, only one of which was used to question him about his alleged crime - leaking information embarrassing to the Home office. As fury grew over the way an elected MP had been treated after helping to expose Government blunders, the Evening Standard revealed that...

INDIANAPOLIS -- A Greenfield man has been indicted on accusations he tried to sell the names of U.S. intelligence agents to Iraq before the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. Authorities: Man Was In Iraq In '02 Shaaban Hafiz Ahmad Ali Shaaban, a 52-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, was arrested Thursday after an investigation of more than a year by the FBI and other agencies, U.S. Attorney Susan W. Brooks said. Shaaban, also known as Shaaban Shaaban Hafed and Joe H. Brown, is suspected of going to Iraq in 2002 and making a deal to sell the names. He isn't accused...

Reports leaking out of the meeting suggested that Bush indicated he would support Obama's hopes for another round of stimulus checks for U.S. taxpayers if Congress would also approve a long-stalled, free-trade pact with Colombia. Leaks also said that Obama urged Bush to use part of the $700 billion in bailout funds to help the country's automobile makers immediately, to which Bush remained noncommital. Obama's camp was mum today, but White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters before the ceremony aboard the USS Intrepid that the president did not try to cut a deal with Obama on his stimulus request....

A year or so ago, a laptop was obtained from a dead FARC terrorist in Ecuador. On the laptop they found some e-mails that referred to 2 "gringo's" that were associated with Barack Obama. The main thrust from the news report was that Chavez was working with FARC to get some uranium for a dirty bomb. The minor thing that was overlooked was Chavez wanted Obama to vote against the free trade agreement with Columbia to hurt Uribe. He did that and continues to support the Chavez position. Now we hear the trade agreement may have come up in the...

Remember when McCain talked about entitlements and said that for those who try to sneak in pork projects he'd "MAKE THEM FAMOUS, AN YOU WILL KNOW THEIR NAMES!!" ?

WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline)-A group of 13 Republican state attorneys general are urging Republican U.S. senators to back legislation that would limit the federal government's ability to force reporters to reveal their confidential sources. The Free Flow of Information Act, already approved by House and awaiting a vote in the Senate, would bring federal law in line with state laws in 49 states that protect reporters' confidential sources in most cases. The letter seeks to allay concern that if enacted the law could fetter the government's pursuit of terrorists.

Judge Withdraws Threat as Reporter Pleads the 5th In Spy Leak Probe By JOSH GERSTEIN, Staff Reporter of the Sun | July 24, 2008 SANTA ANA, Calif. — A federal judge withdrew his threat to order a prominent reporter on the national security beat to identify his confidential sources after the journalist took the Fifth Amendment in a surprise-filled hearing here this morning. Judge Cormac Carney excused William Gertz of the Washington Times from further proceedings here after he repeatedly invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination in response to questions from the judge and a defense attorney. Mr. Gertz's refusal...

The recent spate of leaks and reports from Washington about whether Israel will, or should, take military action against Iran, and what that would mean for the US, is a reflection of deep divisions on the matter inside the Bush administration, Israeli diplomatic and defense officials said Sunday. The officials said that the two sides of the argument, the "hawkish camp," led by US Vice President Dick Cheney, and the "dovish camp," led by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, are leaking assessments about Israeli intent to further their own agendas, and in this regard using Israel as a "pawn" in their...

Israeli military intelligence officials have accused President George W Bush’s administration of undermining their attempts to infiltrate Al-Qaeda’s operations in Iraq by revealing the contents of a secret letter written by Osama Bin Laden’s second-in-command. Israel passed the letter — in which Ayman al-Zawahiri outlined his Middle East strategy to Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, the Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq — to Washington last October on condition of strict anonymity. Israeli officials were dismayed, however, when John Negroponte, the US director of national intelligence, made it available in both English and its original Arabic on his office web site. Israeli intelligence...

Anthrax: Source of Fishy, Shaggy Dog Stories Pleads Fifth December 20th, 2007 by Ross E. Getman In October 2007, the former Criminal Chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, Daniel Seikaly, was deposed in the civil rights action by Steve Hatfill about whether he was the source of leaks relating to Steve Hatfill in connection with Newsweek and Washington Post stories about the use of bloodhounds and the draining of ponds in Frederick, Maryland. Attorney Seikaly pled the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination in connection with most substantive questions. Attorney Seikaly has had a very distinguished career....

Chairman of the Experts Assembly Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said on Wednesday that the "important" report issued by 16 US intelligence agencies is neither against Tehran nor benefits Washington. The report released on December 3 by the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), said, they did not "assume that Iran intends to acquire nuclear weapons." Addressing the 4th congress of Moderation and Development, he commented on reasons for issuing the report, stressing: "My primary speculation is that the report has been issued either by the Democrats or independent groups. The report might have been issued by experts since their investigation has...

Israel obtained detailed photographs from inside an alleged Syrian nuclear facility prior to carrying out an air strike on September 6, ABC News reported over the weekend. An unnamed senior source in the US told the news network that the Mossad had discovered in the summer that Syria was constructing a nuclear facility and proceeded to either place a mole inside the plant or convince one of the workers to supply Israel with intelligence. Through the mole, the source said, Israel received pictures from the ground that showed a large cylindrical structure, trucks, and a pumping station - all of...

National Security: U.S. spy agencies are supposed to gather information so that they might save lives. Whoever in the intelligence community leaked a preview of an al-Qaida video to the media has endangered lives. SITE Intelligence Group is a small Washington-based firm that has, remarkably, devised ways of monitoring some of the major communications among Islamist terrorists. It sells the information to clients in the private sector, government and the media. SITE, founded in 2002 by an Iraqi-born Israeli, Rita Katz, whose father was executed by Saddam Hussein in the 1960s, naturally keeps much of its methodology confidential. Having infiltrated...

A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release. Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The White House on Tuesday denied being the source of a leak involving an Osama bin Laden video that a private intelligence firm said had sabotaged its secret ability to intercept Al-Qaeda messages. Asked if the White House was the source of the leak, spokeswoman Dana Perino said: "No, we were not ... We were very concerned to learn about it." The SITE Intelligence Group said it lost access that it had covertly acquired to Al-Qaeda's communications network when the administration of President George W. Bush let out that the company had obtained a bin Laden video...

On Wednesday, I received a proof copy of Kenneth Timmerman's new book, Shadow Warriors: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender, which tells the tale of the alleged war against the Bush administration within the CIA and State Department. Timmerman is always a fascinating read, but I just haven't had the chance to get to the book yet. Yesterday's leak by the New York Times on confidential memos on interrogation techniques reminds me that I have to get to it, as does their follow-up today: The disclosure of secret Justice Department legal opinions on interrogation on...

This might just be another BS moment at the Kos - they’ve had so many of them I’ve lost count. But if this is legit we just had a serious breach of national security.“I have a friend who is an LSO on a carrier attack group that is planning and staging a strike group deployment into the Gulf of Hormuz. (LSO: Landing Signal Officer- she directs carrier aircraft while landing) She told me we are going to attack Iran. She said that all the Air Operation Planning and Asset Tasking are finished. That means that all the targets have been...

Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) handed out a schedule of proposed floor votes on Iraq-related bills to a standing-room-only meeting in his office Thursday, then rounded up copies so that none could leave the room. “We can’t have bits and pieces leaking out,” Larson said, according to one attendee. Those in attendance said Larson was not critical of leaks, but cautionary. There were recent reports that House leaders were irritated that Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) had left a meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and told a reporter that the Iraq supplemental spending bill would be delayed until January. Leaders...

<p>".....my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America's friends."</p> <p>WASHINGTON - Attorney General John Ashcroft vigorously defended the administration's anti-terrorism policies Thursday and suggested that critics of the Justice Department's actions were aiding the terrorists.</p>

Newsweek is reporting an interesting development in the FISA leak investigation: Aug. 13, 2007 issue - The controversy over President Bush's warrantless surveillance program took another surprise turn last week when a team of FBI agents, armed with a classified search warrant, raided the suburban Washington home of a former Justice Department lawyer. The lawyer, Thomas M. Tamm, previously worked in Justice's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR)-the supersecret unit that oversees surveillance of terrorist and espionage targets. The agents seized Tamm's desktop computer, two of his children's laptops and a cache of personal files. Tamm and his lawyer,...

The Department of Justice has concluded that, while its emphasis is on prosecuting leakers of classified information, the Espionage Act does permit the prosecution of journalists who publish such information without authorization: The espionage statutes concerning classified information could be employed against journalists who publish such information without authorization, a Justice Department official told Congress recently, elaborating on remarks made last year by Attorney General Gonzales. Those statutes, "on their face, do not provide an exemption for any particular profession or class of persons, including journalists," wrote Matthew W. Friedrich, DoJ Criminal Division Chief of Staff, in a March 2007...

Mohammed Warsame seen in an undated photograph. (The photograph's background has been obscured to protect the source. ABCNEWS independently confirmed that the photograph shows Warsame.) U.S. Attempt to Turn Al Qaeda Suspect Into U.S. Informant Soured by Press Leak By Pierre Thomas Feb. 13 — When a Somali-born computer student was arrested in Minneapolis last December on suspicion of helping al Qaeda, federal counterterrorism officials thought they might finally have found what they desperately need — a way of getting inside Osama bin Laden's shadowy network. The counterterrorism officials developed a plan to turn the man, Mohammed Warsame, into a...

Brian Ross of ABC News ABC News is coming under heavy criticism for its exclusive report revealing a purported CIA covert operation designed to destabilize the government of Iran. Brian Ross of ABC reported last night: The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com. The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a "nonlethal presidential finding" that puts into motion a CIA...

Just Breaking

A civil servant and an MP's researcher have been found guilty of leaking a secret memo about talks between George Bush and Tony Blair. David Keogh, 50, from Northampton, has been found guilty of two offences under the Official Secrets Act. MP's researcher Leo O'Connor was found guilty of one Official Secrets offence. It recorded Oval Office talks between Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair about Iraq in 2004, the Old Bailey was told. Sentencing was adjourned for reports........

The U. S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, ruling en banc, delivered another in a long series of verdicts that have found Representative Jim McDermott, serving his 9th term representing Washington's 9th district, violated the rights of Rep. John Boehner when McDermott leaked an illegally taped conversation. The Court also ruled that Mr. McDermott broke House Ethics rules.

A civil servant who leaked a secret memo about George W. Bush wanted it to be seen by US presidential candidate John Kerry, the Old Bailey heard. David Keogh, 50, from Northampton, is said to have passed a highly sensitive document detailing talks between Mr. Bush and Tony Blair to Leo O'Connor. Mr. Keogh told jurors the contents of the memo had preyed on his mind. Mr. Keogh and Mr. O'Connor, 44, also of Northampton, deny three charges under the Official Secrets Act. Mr. Keogh had been asked to copy out the memo for distribution to high-ranking UK officials. The...

Terrorists Spoke of Attack More Devastating Than September 11 A series of intercepted telephone conversations between suspected members of Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida network prompted George Bush's decision to order a general terror alert for the United States on Monday, reports said yesterday. The calls indicated an attack against America that would be even more devastating than the 11 September assaults. The CIA and the FBI presented the information to President Bush and his national security team on Monday morning. While the intelligence from the telephone calls was chilling, officials wrangled for hours over whether the public should hear about ...

A British government official and a former political researcher went on trial Wednesday for allegedly leaking a classified memo in which President Bush reportedly referred to bombing the Arab television station Al-Jazeera. David Keogh, 50, a cipher expert, and Leo O'Connor, 44, a lawmaker's aide, are accused of violating secrecy laws by disclosing a document relating to 2004 talks between Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair. Both defendants deny violating the Official Secrets Act. Prosecutors allege Keogh passed the memo to O'Connor in May 2004, who in turn placed it in a file he handed to his boss, Tony Clarke,...

Tuesday Sept. 30, 2003; 1:09 p.m. EDT Dems Stayed Silent on Illegal Clinton Leaks After watching without complaint as the Clinton administration attempted to destroy one political opponent after another by illegally leaking damaging material to the media, Democrats are now outraged that an avowed enemy of the Bush administration claims he received the same treatment. Dems are howling for the appointment of an independent prosecutor to investigate the dubious charge that by publicly identifying the wife of former ambassador Joe Wilson as a CIA analyst, somebody in the White House broke the law. While it's nice to see that...

A doctor removed two moles from President Bush’s left temple. Speculation is that these moles may have been the source of leaks of the classified information that has been showing up in the pages of the New York Times. President Bush said he is kicking himself for not paying more attention to the moles and expressed hope that their removal would put an end to the leaks.

Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Date: February 15, 2007 NASA Study Reveals Leaks In Antarctic 'Plumbing System' Science Daily — Scientists using NASA satellites have discovered an extensive network of waterways beneath a fast-moving Antarctic ice stream that provide clues as to how "leaks" in the system impact sea level and the world's largest ice sheet. Antarctica holds about 90 percent of the world's ice and 70 percent of the world's reservoir of fresh water. From December 2003 to December 2005, MODIS captured these two images showing a draw down of water in a subglacial lake (left)and the rise of...

There is no holier icon in the church of the First Amendment than the anonymous leak. Ever since columnist Robert Novak published the identity of a CIA officer nearly four years ago, voices of journalism have delivered sermon after sermon about the centrality of leaks not just to journalism but to democracy itself: We need leaks to keep the government honest. In order to encourage leaks, it follows, reporters must be able to guarantee anonymity to their sources. And in order to protect that anonymity, journalists must be excused from the ordinary duties of citizenship, such as testifying in a...

A lawyer for suspected al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla violated a court order by leaking his wiretapped phone conversations, a judge found Wednesday while not imposing a penalty. Instead, U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke ordered all defense lawyers in the case to sign papers indicating they understood and would follow rules barring disclosure of certain evidence. Cooke also said she might hold in contempt anyone who receives such prohibited material, and she specifically mentioned several reporters attending Wednesday's hearing. "The lash is about to fall on all," Cooke said. "We're going to have a trial, as much as possible as we...

The FBI is missing nearly a quarter of its files relating to investigations of recent leaks of classified information, according to a court filing the bureau made last week....

Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she will create a new congressional panel to examine the administration's intelligence budget and to make sure the money is being spent properly. Creating the panel, Pelosi said at a news conference, "makes oversight stronger and makes the American people safer." Democrats have been highly critical of the conduct of intelligence agencies in the days before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the lead- up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Pelosi, D-Calif., also said that one of the first tasks of the Democratic-controlled House she will lead beginning in January will be...

Internal data such as information concerning U.S. military operations in Iraq have recently been leaked to the Internet from a privately owned personal computer of an Air Self-Defense Force member loaded with a file sharing software, ASDF investigations have shown. The information on transport operations and personnel deployment of the U.S. military in Iraq in June and July was given as confidential data from the U.S. military and its leak could have posed a serious threat to the safety of foreign troops operating in Iraq. The ASDF said, "The situation has changed from the time then and it will therefore...

" Bush Adviser’s Memo Cites Doubts About Iraqi Leader " WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 — " A classified memorandum .... by President Bush’s national security adviser expressed serious doubts about whether Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki had the capacity to control the sectarian violence in Iraq and recommended that the United States take new steps to strengthen the Iraqi leader’s position. The Nov. 8 memo was prepared for Mr. Bush and his top deputies by Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, and senior aides on the staff of the National Security Council after a trip by Mr. Hadley to Baghdad....

The U.S. military is no longer able to defeat a bloody insurgency in western Iraq or counter al-Qaeda's rising popularity there, according to newly disclosed details from a classified Marine Corps intelligence report that set off debate in recent months about the military's mission in Anbar province.The Marines recently filed an updated version of that assessment that stood by its conclusions and stated that, as of mid-November, the problems in troubled Anbar province have not improved, a senior U.S. intelligence official said yesterday. "The fundamental questions of lack of control, growth of the insurgency and criminality" remain the same, the...

How far will Democrats go for partisan gain? Far enough to compromise national security? Looks that way.