Targeting Journalists
John Prados
TomPaine.com
[John Prados is a senior fellow of the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C., and author of Hoodwinked: The Documents that Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War (The New Press).]
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales is as assiduous a pursuer of leaks as any plumber.
In May, Gonzales startled the public when he said in an interview that “there are some statutes on the books ” that provide government the legal authority to prosecute journalists for publishing articles containing classified information. He was referring to the Espionage Act of 1917, under which Gonzales is attempting to create a precedent by trying two policy analysts of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee accused of leaking national security information to a journalist and a diplomat.
In April, a month before the Gonzales appearance on the Sunday talk shows, it became known that the FBI had attempted to gain entry into the private papers of deceased journalist Jack Anderson, who for years wrote a nationally-syndicated column that laid bare a multiplicity of closely-held government secrets. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on June 6 to illuminate the entire question of the Bush administration’s pursuit of leakers. There, Deputy U.S. Attorney Matthew W. Friedrich refused to explain the FBI’s action against Anderson, but affirmed that the government can prosecute “anyone”—including journalists—for making known classified information.
The case of Jack Anderson sheds light on the government's own practice of leaking classified information—at times to achieve political advantage. As a war correspondent for The Army Times and for radio during the Second World War, Anderson managed to find his way to one of the more hush-hush operations of the CIA of that day, the Office of Strategic Services. Their Detachment 101 ran guerrilla bands against the Japanese in the Burmese jungle. Asked what he was doing there, Anderson replied, “I’m here to make you famous.”
(There is more, here.)
TomPaine.com
[John Prados is a senior fellow of the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C., and author of Hoodwinked: The Documents that Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War (The New Press).]
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales is as assiduous a pursuer of leaks as any plumber.
In May, Gonzales startled the public when he said in an interview that “there are some statutes on the books ” that provide government the legal authority to prosecute journalists for publishing articles containing classified information. He was referring to the Espionage Act of 1917, under which Gonzales is attempting to create a precedent by trying two policy analysts of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee accused of leaking national security information to a journalist and a diplomat.
In April, a month before the Gonzales appearance on the Sunday talk shows, it became known that the FBI had attempted to gain entry into the private papers of deceased journalist Jack Anderson, who for years wrote a nationally-syndicated column that laid bare a multiplicity of closely-held government secrets. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on June 6 to illuminate the entire question of the Bush administration’s pursuit of leakers. There, Deputy U.S. Attorney Matthew W. Friedrich refused to explain the FBI’s action against Anderson, but affirmed that the government can prosecute “anyone”—including journalists—for making known classified information.
The case of Jack Anderson sheds light on the government's own practice of leaking classified information—at times to achieve political advantage. As a war correspondent for The Army Times and for radio during the Second World War, Anderson managed to find his way to one of the more hush-hush operations of the CIA of that day, the Office of Strategic Services. Their Detachment 101 ran guerrilla bands against the Japanese in the Burmese jungle. Asked what he was doing there, Anderson replied, “I’m here to make you famous.”
(There is more, here.)
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