Classified Information

WASHINGTON -- Shielded by a screen to conceal his identity, a CIA agent testified yesterday that he gave John Huang 37 briefings on classified information regarding Asia, unaware that the former Commerce Department official was to be "walled off" from policy matters, especially about China.As the Senate's hearings into campaign fund-raising abuses entered their second week, Republicans on the Governmental Affairs Committee again focused on Huang, the Democratic fund-raiser who solicited questionable contributions from the Asian-American community, more than half of which has had to be returned.

Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger and the other leaders of Congress' intelligence committees this week issued a strong, bi-partisan statement of condemnation for recent leaks of classified information about America's clandestine operations abroad, including its cyber-warfare against Iran and drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen. They promised new legislation to clamp down on leaks that they say can endanger Americans. Sen. John McCain went further, alleging that the Obama administration has engaged in a double standard on leaking — aggressively prosecuting low-level leakers while tolerating or even encouraging high-level leaks of information that could bolster the president's re-election prospects.

WASHINGTON - The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee said yesterday that John R. Bolton might have mishandled classified information by sharing with another State Department official details about a communication intercepted by the National Security Agency. The assertion, by Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, followed a two-week review of the issue by the committee's staff, which remains divided over whether Bolton did anything wrong. Rockefeller outlined his concerns in a three-page letter to the leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the same day that the full Senate began debate on Bolton's nomination to be ambassador to the United Nations.

The National Security Agency says it found top-secret information on hard drives that were seized in a failed espionage probe, and the agency is refusing to release the computers — despite the continued protests of their owners. In court filings in Baltimore this week, the government says the seized computers "cannot lawfully be returned. " NSA's deputy chief of staff for signals intelligence concluded that disclosing the contents of one computer hard drive would "cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.

Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger and the other leaders of Congress' intelligence committees this week issued a strong, bi-partisan statement of condemnation for recent leaks of classified information about America's clandestine operations abroad, including its cyber-warfare against Iran and drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen. They promised new legislation to clamp down on leaks that they say can endanger Americans. Sen. John McCain went further, alleging that the Obama administration has engaged in a double standard on leaking — aggressively prosecuting low-level leakers while tolerating or even encouraging high-level leaks of information that could bolster the president's re-election prospects.

WASHINGTON - A bill containing language that would greatly tighten the lid of secrecy on government information has been sent to President Clinton, and administration officials said yesterday there was sharp division over whether he should sign or veto it. The language, which is contained in the Intelligence Authorization Act, would subject a government official convicted of disclosing any classified information to three years in prison. The "antileak" legislation was requested by the Central Intelligence Agency, which says it has lost agents and sophisticated surveillance methods because of newspaper articles based on leaks of classified information.

Facing a Friday deadline to indict a woman accused of being a Chinese double agent and her former FBI handler, Justice Department lawyers and counterintelligence officials face difficult choices in shaping the charges to limit the amount of classified information that might have to be divulged during prosecution. Neither Katrina Leung, a businesswoman from San Marino, Calif., nor former FBI Agent James J. Smith has been charged with espionage. Leung has been charged with illegally taking classified documents for the benefit of a foreign power and with tax-law violations.

WASHINGTON -- With pressure mounting on the Bush administration over its detainee policies, Republican House and Senate leaders are asking for an investigation into who leaked information to The Washington Post about secret CIA prisons abroad. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois requested that the Senate and House intelligence committees "immediately initiate a joint investigation into the possible release of classified information to the media" about the existence of the prisons.

WASHINGTON -- Jonathan Pollard, the American convicted of spying for Israel, has tried to slip classified information into 14 of his letters from prison, Defense Secretary Les Aspin has told the White House.In one of his final acts in office, Mr. Aspin told President Clinton in a confidential letter last week that Pollard should not be given leniency, as American Jewish groups and the Israeli government have requested, because the Pentagon still considers him to be a security risk and because of the severity of his offenses.

WASHINGTON -- I live among spies. Some of my neighbors are spies. Some of my co-workers are spies. I even know spies married to spies who had children who are now spies. Before you diagnose clinical paranoia, I should mention that I live in Washington and, according to the Bush administration, virtually everyone I know is engaged in either clear or possible acts of espionage. Two Washington lobbyists face criminal charges in Alexandria, Va., under the 1917 Espionage Act for receiving classified information in oral conversations with a former Defense Department employee, Lawrence A. Franklin.

Analysts with the National Security Agency see the threats coming at corporate America: viruses, worms and other malware targeting the computer networks that serve the nation's banks, utilities and businesses. But the 64-year-old law that established the modern U.S. intelligence community prevents them from sharing the classified details with the private businesses in the cross hairs. "I'm really concerned that we will have some type of serious attack within the year," said Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, who receives security briefings as the top-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

WASHINGTON -- The Army is accustomed to protecting classified information. But when it comes to the planning for the Iraq war, even an unclassified assessment can acquire the status of a state secret. That is what happened to a detailed study of the planning for postwar Iraq prepared for the Army by the RAND Corp., a federally financed center that conducts research for the military. After 18 months of research, RAND submitted a report in the summer of 2005 called "Rebuilding Iraq." RAND researchers submitted an unclassified version of the report along with a secret one, hoping that its publication would contribute to the public debate on how to prepare for future conflicts.

WASHINGTON -- A secret federal court has ordered the Bush administration to respond to a request from a civil liberties group, which asked the court to make public its rulings that approved the National Security Agency's controversial "Terrorist Surveillance Program." The order was announced yesterday by the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the request earlier this month. "This is an unprecedented request that warrants further briefing," wrote Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

For four years, Vice President Dick Cheney has resisted routine oversight of his office's handling of classified information, and when the office in charge of overseeing classification in the executive branch objected, the vice president's office suggested that the oversight office be shut down, according to documents released yesterday by a Democratic congressman. The oversight office, a unit of the National Archives, appealed the issue to the Justice Department, which has not yet ruled on the matter.

Baghdad -- A U.S. military commander who helped oversee the prison camp that once held Saddam Hussein has been charged with aiding the enemy, mishandling classified information and engaging in "inappropriate" relationships, officials said yesterday. Lt. Col William H. Steele was arrested last month and accused of nine violations of U.S. military code, which also included keeping classified information in his living space, failing to monitor funds, disobeying an order and possessing pornographic videos, the military said.

WASHINGTON -- With a phalanx of cameras awaiting her entrance, Valerie Plame stepped out of the shadows of the spy world and into the spotlight. For nearly four years, Plame had been a silent, Garbo-like figure at the center of one of Washington's most consuming scandals. Her unmasking as a CIA officer became a case study of the brutal politics of the Iraq war, and it launched a criminal probe that led to the conviction of a top White House official. Yesterday, Plame finally offered her inside account, testifying before a congressional committee that she felt as though she had been "hit in the gut" when her once-secret identity appeared in the press and accusing the Bush administration of "recklessly" blowing her cover.

WASHINGTON -- A former Pentagon analyst on Iran pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiring to channel classified Defense Department secrets to an Israeli embassy official and a pro-Israel lobbying group. Lawrence A. Franklin, 58, told the court he did so out of frustration with a particular U.S. policy in the Middle East, without going into detail. He faces as much as 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. As part of a plea agreement reached with federal authorities, Franklin is to cooperate in the coming prosecution of two recently fired officials of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, who were indicted for conspiring to receive and disseminate the classified information.

WASHINGTON -- It's back-to-school week at the White House, starting with briefings on the proper handling of classified information for all the president's people with security clearances. The private, hourlong seminars in ethics, ordered by President Bush, are a direct result of a two-year investigation of the leak of a covert CIA operative's identity. "The president takes the issue of the handling of classified information very seriously," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said yesterday, as the closed-door tutoring was getting under way. The crash course in ethics apparently is the first concrete step the White House has taken since the Oct. 28 indictment of a senior member of the Bush administration, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr., former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.

WASHINGTON -- The FBI lost 160 laptops - including at least 10 containing sensitive or classified data and one with agents' names and addresses - between February 2002 and September 2005, according to a report released yesterday by the Justice Department. Inspector General Glenn A. Fine also reported that a similar number of weapons disappeared during the same period. Fine's report grew out of an audit examining improved FBI efforts to keep tabs on its equipment. Progress has been made, he said, but more needs to be done.

WASHINGTON -- A federal grand jury has begun investigating the leak of classified information about intelligence programs to the media and has subpoenaed a former National Security Agency employee who claims to have witnessed illegal activity while working at the agency. The employee, Russell D. Tice, 44, of Linthicum, Md., said two FBI agents approached on Wednesday and handed him the subpoena, which requires him to testify next Wednesday before a grand jury in Alexandria, Va. The subpoena, which Tice made public yesterday, says the investigation covers "possible violation of federal criminal laws involving the unauthorized disclosure of classified information."