Classified-Info Crackdown
The Obama administration is quietly ratcheting up its campaign against national-security leaks with a series of moves that are surprising intelligence-community veterans. One recent example: a memo, signed by National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair before his departure last month, that will require Justice Department prosecutors to make quick decisions about charging federal employees suspected of disclosing classified info.
The Obama administration is quietly ratcheting up its campaign against national-security leaks with a series of moves that are surprising intelligence-community veterans. One recent example: a memo, signed by National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair before his departure last month, that will require Justice Department prosecutors to make quick decisions about charging federal employees suspected of disclosing classified info.
The memo, which got full backing from the intel agencies, lays out a new protocol for the handling of leak probes. Justice prosecutors will have to meet deadlines once intelligence agencies refer to them instances of suspected leaking, says a senior intel official who asked not to be identified talking about a sensitive document. If they don't, the cases will be returned to the agencies, where officials could impose tough disciplinary sanctions--like stripping employees of security clearance--even when there's not enough evidence to criminally prosecute them. "If you're in the intelligence community and you lose your security clearance, you're pretty much out of luck," says another administration official who requested anonymity for the same reason. (Wendy Morigi, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, says the new policy will "streamline" leak probes and "help to detect and deter unauthorized disclosures." A Justice spokesman says, "We take leaks of classified information extremely seriously.")
The impetus for the new protocol was frustration with the fact that, under George W. Bush, high-profile probes (into disclosures about secret CIA prisons and the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping) dragged on for years. Already Justice and military prosecutors are targeting leakers more aggressively. Last week military officials confirmed they had arrested an Army intel analyst for allegedly giving classified U.S. combat videos to the whistle-blower Web site WikiLeaks. Justice prosecutors recently indicted a former NSA official for allegedly leaking information about a mismanaged computer program, and they secured a 20-month prison sentence against an FBI linguist who leaked to a blogger. In another surprise move, New York Times reporter James Risen was subpoenaed to testify about the disclosure of a botched CIA effort to disrupt Iran's nuclear program 10 years ago. And more cases are in the pipeline: Justice prosecutors have targeted a U.S. intel official who allegedly disclosed information to Fox News reporter James Rosen about a briefing for senior White House officials related to North Korea's nuclear program.
Ironically, the White House has publicly touted its backing of a shield law, which would give journalists limited protection from having to disclose confidential sources, as evidence of a commitment to transparency. But privately, officials say the recent moves show they are tougher on leaks than Bush officials were. (The White House did not respond to a request for comment.) "How many leak cases were there in the last 10 years [before Obama took office]?" asks the senior intel official. Now, the official adds, "there's great commitment to try to do something about leaks."
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Michael Isikoff has been an award-winning investigative correspondent for Newsweek since 2004. He has written extensively on the U.S. government's war on terrorism, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, presidential politics and other national issues. His book, "Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War," co-written with David Corn, was an instant New York Times best-seller when it was published in September, 2006. The book was hailed by the New York Times Book Review as "fascinating reading" and "the most comprehensive account of the White House's political machinations" in the run up to the war in Iraq. Since January 2009, Isikoff has been an MSNBC contributor, making regular appearances on the Rachel Maddow Show and Hardball w/ Chris Matthews.
Ever since the events of September 11, Isikoff has broken repeated stories about the U.S. government's war on terror and won numerous journalism awards. His blog "DeClassified: Investigative Reporting in Real Time," which appears regularly on Newsweek's Web site and is written with MarkHosenball, has become a must-read for senior U.S. intelligence officials. Isikoff and Hosenball won the 2005 award from the Society of Professional Journalists for best investigative reporting online.
Isikoff's June 2002 Newsweek cover story on U.S. intelligence failures that preceded the 9-11 terror attacks, along with a series of related articles, was honored with the Investigative Reporters and Editors top prize for investigative reporting in magazine journalism. He was honored, along with a team of Newsweek reporters, by the Society of Professional Journalists for coverage of the Abu Ghraib scandal. For that coverage, Isikoff obtained exclusive internal White House, Justice Department and State Department memos showing how decisions made at the highest levels of the Bush administration led to abuses in the interrogation of terror suspects. Isikoff was also part of a reporting team that earned Newsweek the National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 2002, the highest award in magazine journalism, for their coverage of the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks.
Isikoff's exclusive reporting on the Monica Lewinsky scandal gained him national attention in 1998, including profiles in The New York Times and The Washington Post and a guest appearance on "Late Show with David Letterman." His coverage of the events that lead to President Bill Clinton's impeachment earned Newsweek the prestigious National Magazine Award in the Reporting category in 1999. Isikoff's reporting also won the National Headliner Award, the Edgar A. Poe Award presented by the White House Correspondents Association and the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for Reporting on the Presidency. In 2001, Isikoff was named on a list of "most influential journalists" in the nation's capital by Washingtonian magazine.
Isikoff is the author of "Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter's Story," a book that chronicled his own reporting of the Lewinsky story and was hailed by a critic for The Washington Post-Los Angeles Times news service as "the absolutely essential narrative of the scandal with revelations that no one would have thought possible." The book, also a New York Times bestseller, was named Best Non-Fiction Book of 1999 by the Book of the Month Club.
Isikoff came to Newsweek from The Washington Post, where he had been a reporter since September 1981. There he covered the Justice Department and the Persian Gulf War, reported on international drug operations in Latin America and worked on the Post's financial news desk. Isikoff graduated from Washington University with a B.A. in 1974 and received a Masters in Journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in 1976.
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