Sunday, January 26, 2014
Sunday, January 19, 2014
U.S. lawmaker investigates whether Russia behind Snowden"s leaks
WASHINGTON
A picture of Edward Snowden, a contractor at the National Security Agency (NSA), is seen on a computer screen displaying a page of a Chinese news website, in Beijing in this June 13, 2013 photo illustration.
Credit: Reuters/Jason Lee
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The head of the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee said on Sunday he is investigating whether former spy agency contractor Edward Snowden had help from Russia in stealing and revealing U.S. government secrets.
“I believe there’s a reason he ended up in the hands – the loving arms – of an FSB agent in Moscow. I don’t think that’s a coincidence,” U.S. Representative Mike Rogers told the NBC program “Meet the Press,” referring to the Russian intelligence agency that is a successor of the Soviet-era KGB.
Snowden last year fled the United States to Hong Kong and then to Russia, where he was granted at least a year of asylum. U.S. officials want Snowden returned to the United States for prosecution. His disclosures of large numbers of stolen U.S. secret documents sparked a debate around the world about the reach of U.S. electronic surveillance.
Rogers did not provide specific evidence to back his suggestions of Russian involvement in Snowden’s activities, but said: “Some of the things we’re finding we would call clues that certainly would indicate to me that he had some help.”
Asked whether he is investigating Russian links to Snowden’s activities, Rogers said, “Absolutely. And that investigation is ongoing.”
Senator Dianne Feinstein, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on “Meet the Press” that Snowden “may well have” had help from Russia.
“We don’t know at this stage,” Feinstein said.
Feinstein said Snowden gained employment at the National Security Agency “with the intent to take as much material down as he possibly could.”
On the ABC program “This Week,” U.S. Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, also expressed his belief that Snowden had foreign help.
“Hey, listen, I don’t think … Mr. Snowden woke up one day and had the wherewithal to do this all by himself,” he said.
“I personally believe that he was cultivated by a foreign power to do what he did,” McCaul said.
Asked whether he thought Russia was that “foreign power,” McCaul said, “You know, to say definitively, I can’t. I can’t answer that.”
‘TOTALITY OF THE INFORMATION’
Rogers indicated that the nature of the material that Snowden obtained suggested foreign involvement.
“When you look at the totality of the information he took, the vast majority of it had to do with military, tactical and operational events happening around the world,” he told the CBS program “Face the Nation.”
Michael Morell, the former deputy CIA director, said he shared Rogers’ concern about what Russian intelligence services may be doing with Snowden.
“I don’t have any particular evidence but one of the things I point to when I talk about this is that the disclosures that have been coming recently are very sophisticated in their content and sophisticated in their timing – almost too sophisticated for Mr. Snowden to be deciding on his own. And it seems to me he might be getting some help,” Morell said on “Face the Nation.”
Other U.S. security officials have told Reuters as recently as last week that the United States has no evidence at all that Snowden had any confederates who assisted him or guided him about what NSA materials to hack or how to do so.
Snowden told the New York Times in October he did not take any secret NSA documents with him to Russia when he fled there in June 2013. “There’s a zero percent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents,” Snowden told the Times.
In remarks aired on Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” President Vladimir Putin discussed Snowden’s freedom of movement in Russia and that the American would be free to attend the upcoming Sochi Winter Olympics.
“Mr. Snowden is subject to the treatment of provisional asylum here in Russia. He has a right to travel freely across the country. He has no special limitation. He can just buy a ticket and come here,” Putin said.
(Reporting by Will Dunham, Toni Clarke and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Jim Loney and Chris Reese)
U.S. lawmaker investigates whether Russia behind Snowden"s leaks
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Fukushima nuclear leaks 18 times worse than we were told - Truthloader
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Fukushima nuclear leaks 18 times worse than we were told - Truthloader
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Sunday, December 8, 2013
The Guardian Faces Terror Charges Over Snowden Leaks
Has telling the truth via newspaper publishing TRUTH rather than LIES now become ‘terrorism’? In Japan we’ve learned that journalists will now face terror charges for telling the truth about Fukushima. Now we learn from TheLipTV that in Great Britain, ‘The Guardian’ may now face terror charges for publishing NSA leaks as well. Is this how dictatorships begin? The Guardian EXPOSED CRIMES COMMITTED BY THE US GOVT AND THE NSA AGAINST PEOPLE ACROSS THE ENTIRE WORLD and now they may be brought up on terror charges? Terror has OBVIOUSLY been committed, by the NSA and the US govt AGAINST the PEOPLE of the world. Has our world gone insane? We are quite well on our way towards achieving Orwell’s nightmare…
The Guardian is facing terrorism charges after publishing incriminating NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden earlier this year. The British police has launched the investigation against the British paper and its editor Alan Rusbridger to see if their actions were in violation of the terms of the Terrorism Act. Elliot Hill and Lissette Padilla discuss freedom of the press and whether or not acts of journalism can constitute acts of terrorism, in this clip from the Lip News.
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The Guardian Faces Terror Charges Over Snowden Leaks
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Britain targets Guardian newspaper over intelligence leaks related to Edward Snowden
Anthony Faiola
Washington Post
December 1, 2013
The pressures coming to bear on the Guardian, observers say, are testing the limits of press freedoms in one of the world’s most open societies. Although Britain is famously home to a fierce pack of news media outlets — including the tabloid hounds of old Fleet Street — it also has no enshrined constitutional right to free speech.
The Guardian, in fact, has slipped into the single largest crack in the free speech laws that are on the books here — the dissemination of state secrets protecting queen and country in the British homeland.
This article was posted: Sunday, December 1, 2013 at 11:25 am
Tags: big brother, constitution, domestic spying, nsa
Britain targets Guardian newspaper over intelligence leaks related to Edward Snowden
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Guardian editor to be grilled by British MPs over Snowden leaks
Guardian editor to be grilled by British MPs over Snowden leaks
http://isbigbrotherwatchingyou.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/b11ed__guardian-snowden-nsa-uk.si.jpg
Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian, is to be questioned by British lawmakers next month over the publishing of intelligence files leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, after UK spy chiefs warned that it had damaged national security.
“Alan has been invited to give evidence to the home affairs select committee and looks forward to appearing next month,” a Guardian spokesman said.
UK spy chiefs were questioned Thursday by the intelligence and security committee. The Committee is made up of MPs and peers and normally takes evidence in secret. This hearing was televised but with a two minute delay for national security reasons.
The head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, said that the Guardian’s actions had been irresponsible.
“They’ve put our operations at risk. It’s clear that our adversaries are rubbing their hands with glee – Al-Qaeda is lapping it up,” he said.
While the head of GCHQ, the UK equivalent of the NSA, Sir Iain Lobban, said that his organization had monitored terrorist groups discussing in “specific terms” how to avoid communicating in such a way that could be detected.
Rusbridger, who has been the editor of the left-leaning British daily since 1995, defended his papers actions saying that it has provoked debate on the issue of mass surveillance where MPs failed to do so.
He said the Guardian was entitled to report on invasive technologies beyond anything “Orwell could have imagined.”
“The ability of these big agencies, on an international basis, to keep entire populations under some form of surveillance, and their ability to use engineering and algorithms to erect a system of monitoring and surveillance, is astonishing,” he said.
The first Snowden leaks were broken in the Guardian by Brazil-based journalist Glen Greenwald.
In August, the Guardian revealed that it decided to destroy the computer hard drives containing copies of secret files leaked by Edward Snowden after the threat of legal action from the government.
Also in August, Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda, was detained at London’s Heathrow airport under the Terrorism Act for ferrying documents between Greenwald and Berlin based film maker Laura Poitras, who has also been working on stories related to the NSA files.
Prime Minister David Cameron, has said that if the Guardian cannot be trusted to protect issues of national security then the government will be forced to issue a ‘D notice’ to force them not to publish any further intelligence revelations. Cameron did not back calls to prosecute the paper, but in October launched a parliamentary inquiry into the Guardian’s publishing of the leaks as part of a broad counter terrorism inquiry.
Tory MPs, Julian Smith and Stephen Phillips, have asked Rusbridger to clarify whether he has acted on the security concerns raised by the government and if he had “directed, permitted, facilitated or acquiesced” in the transfer of files, which they got from Snowden, to anyone else in the US or elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the UK’s treatment of the investigative journalists connected to Snowden leaks has provoked an outcry from human rights advocates.
Jim Killock, the director of Open Right’s Group, told RT that even the US, in contrast to the UK, has not been hounding journalists involved in reporting Snowden’s leaked documents.
“What they’ve actually said is that this bloke is a threat to national security because he may be involved in disclosing information about national security. And because he’s doing that from a political or ideological motive, it equates with a definition of terrorism,” he said.
Read more about Guardian editor to be grilled by British MPs over Snowden leaks and other interesting subjects concerning NSA at TheDailyNewsReport.com
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Pentagon Opponents of Attack in Syria Behind Leaks
Glenn Thrush
POLITICO
August 31, 2013
Many of the leaks about U.S. strike plans for Syria, a copious flow of surprisingly specific information on ship dispositions and possible targets, have been authorized as a way for President Obama to signal the limited scope of operations to friends and foes.
But a number of leaks have been decidedly unauthorized — and, according to Obama administration sources, likely emanating from a Pentagon bureaucracy less enthusiastic about the prospect of an attack than, say, the State Department, National Security Council or Obama himself.
“Deeply unhelpful,” was how one West Winger described the drip-drip of doubt.
“They need to shut the f–k up,” said a former administration official. “It’s embarrassing. Who ever heard this much talk before an attack? It’s bizarre.”
This article was posted: Saturday, August 31, 2013 at 6:27 am
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Pentagon Opponents of Attack in Syria Behind Leaks
Snowden leaks: NSA conducted 231 offensive cyber-ops in 2011, hailed as "active defense"
US intelligence carried out 231 offensive cyber-ops in 2011, nearly three-quarters of them against key targets such as Iran, Russia, China and N. Korea, as well as nuclear proliferation, a classified report obtained by The Washington Post says.
The “most challenging targets” also include suspected terrorists “in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, and other extremist safe havens,” according to one list of priorities. US budget documents describe the attacks as “active defense.”
Some cyber-operations reportedly feature what one budget document calls “field operations” organized “to physically place hardware implants or software modifications” with the help of CIA operatives or clandestine military forces.
An implant is often coded in software by an NSA group called Tailored Access Operations, which builds attack tools that are custom-fitted to their targets, The Washington Post reports, adding that this year TAO is working on implants that “can identify select voice conversations of interest within a target network and exfiltrate select cuts,” one budget document says.
The reported US intelligence cyber-missions include the defense of military and other classified computer networks against foreign attack. These missions account for one-third of the total cyber-operations budget of $ 1.02 billion or 2013, according to the Cryptologic Program budget.
President Barack Obama’s directive on cyber-operations, issued in October 2012 and leaked in June 2013 by Snowden, stated that military cyber-operations resulting in the disruption, destruction or manipulation of computers must be approved by the president himself. The document largely does not apply to US intelligence agencies, however.
According to the US intelligence budget, by the end of this year a $ 652 million program named GENIE, which reportedly helps the US break into foreign networks to plant sophisticated malware in computers, routers and firewalls in tens of thousands of machines every year, will control at least 85,000 implants in strategically chosen computers around the world – four times the number available in 2008.
The NSA appears to be planning a rapid expansion of those numbers, which were limited until recently by the need for human operators to take remote control of compromised computers. Affected by disclosures of the classified data by Snowden, the NSA announced earlier this month it would cut up to 90 percent of its system administrators to reduce the number of people with access to secret information. Snowden leaked documents to the Guardian and the Washington Post, revealing previously secret telephone and internet surveillance programs run by the US government.
According to an authoritative reference document, for GENIE’s next phase the NSA has brought online an automated system, code-named TURBINE, capable of managing “potentially millions of implants” for intelligence gathering “and active attack,” The Washington Post reported.
Given the “vast volumes of data” pulled in by the NSA, storage could be a problem. The NSA has nearly completed a large-scale new data center in Utah, which will manage “storage, analysis, and intelligence production.” This will allow intelligence agencies “to evaluate similarities among intrusions that could indicate the presence of a coordinated cyber-attack, whether from an organized criminal enterprise or a nation-state.”
Snowden leaks: NSA conducted 231 offensive cyber-ops in 2011, hailed as "active defense"
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
With New Leaks, More NSA Deception Is Exposed
Days ago, when the Washington Post reported on an internal NSA audit showing thousands of rules violations every year, civil libertarians got the hard proof of rights violations they’ve long sought. Yet defenders of the NSA insisted that the audit reflected well on the surveillance agency, arguing that a comparison of database queries to violations shows an extremely low error rate. As I explain at length here, that’s an almost useless metric for exonerating the NSA. How easy to manipulate that ratio at an agency capable of carrying out automated queries by the millions!
The latest NSA defenses also elide the fact that the abuses documented in the May 2012 audit are the minimum number of violations committed by the NSA, not a comprehensive accounting. This is partly because, per the Post story, the audit “counts only incidents at the NSA’s Fort Meade headquarters and other facilities in the Washington area. Three government officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified matters, said the number would be substantially higher if it included other NSA operating units and regional collection centers.”
For those reasons alone, Rep. Peter King is misleading Americans when he goes on Fox News and declares the 2012 audit as evidence that the NSA has achieved “99 percent compliance.”
But there is an even larger problem with the audit. There is now a new reason to be skeptical that it captured all of the violations at the limited facilities under examination. Why? Give me three paragraphs.
NBC News revealed Tuesday that “more than two months after documents leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden first began appearing in the news media, the National Security Agency still doesn’t know the full extent of what he took, according to intelligence community sources.” Two separate sources told the network that the NSA doesn’t know how many documents were taken or what they are. “One U.S. intelligence official said government officials ‘are overwhelmed’ trying to account for what Snowden took,” the writeup states. “Another said that the NSA has a poor audit capability, which is frustrating efforts to complete a damage assessment.”
This flatly contradicts what General Keith Alexander has told the public. NBC News gives an example:
Appearing at the Aspen Security Forum on July 18, NSA Director Alexander responded “Yes” when NBC News correspondent Pete Williams asked, “Do you feel you now know what [Snowden] got?” Asked “Was it a lot?”, Alexander again said, “Yes.” On Tuesday, NSA spokesperson Vanee Vines said Alexander’s Aspen answer was not intended as “a hard, ‘We know everything, completely,’ answer to Williams’ question. He did not say the assessment had been completed in absolute terms,” Vines added in an email. “The Director answered a question about his general sense.”
That attempt to wriggle out of being caught in a lie is incredibly unpersuasive, but there’s actually an even more clearcut example of General Alexander misrepresenting the NSA’s audit capabilities. “The assumption is our people are just out there wheeling and dealing,” he told a hacker conference in July. “Nothing could be further from the truth. We have tremendous oversight over these programmes. We can audit the actions of our people 100%, and we do that.”
If NBC’s latest reporting is accurate — if either of its two intelligence sources are telling the truth — then the head of the NSA has already publicly misrepresented the audit capabilities of the NSA. And if it can’t audit the actions of its people 100 percent, if a subcontractor like Edward Snowden could abscond with an unknown quantity of the most sensitive secrets kept by the NSA in such a way that, even months later, what exactly he took is unknown, it is that much harder to believe that the NSA’s May 2012 audit would even be capable of picking up all analyst violations.
As the ACLU points out, there is an additional problem with NSA audits as well: the gaping loophole that exempts a large subsection of data on Americans from the “audit-trail” requirement. Knowing all that, you can see why it’s frustrating to read Benjamin Wittes’s NSA-friendly take on the Washington Post audit story, especially his quip about what the NSA decides not to reveal to overseers:
“This is not the stuff of Frank Church.”
Well.
Frank Church conducted an intrusive, adversarial, independent investigation into America’s surveillance agencies. The NSA conducted a constrained, internal audit that significantly undercounts violations.
So no, the documented problems don’t compare to what Frank Church documented! But a Church Committee style inquiry into clandestine agencies since September 11 could conceivably rival the Church Committee Report, which is reason enough for Congress to commission it. Increased transparency and oversight served America well back then, and it would today too. And even if nothing alarming was discovered tens of millions of Americans would feel better.
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With New Leaks, More NSA Deception Is Exposed
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Leaks Reveal Drones Killing More Than Thought, Particularly Innocents
The CIA is lying to the American people and the world about drone attacks in Pakistan.
Story Leak
July 24, 2013
A leaked document identified as a report from the Pakistani government indicates that the robotic warplanes have killed more people than the U.S. government has claimed.
The report claims that 746 people, including 94 children, have been killed in drone strikes. The report examined 75 separate drone strikes between 2006 and 2009 that occurred in the Federally Administered ‘Tribal Areas’ of Pakistan, a region along the Pakistani border used by the Taliban as a base area. And as Anthony Gucciardi recently reported, more drone deaths continue to come out with minor recognition from the media.
Real Casualty Numbers Unknown
These claims are probably too low because they don’t list all the drone strikes that have been carried out since 2009. Nor do they list drone strikes that might have occurred outside the Tribal Areas. Last year Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik told the press that between 2,500 and 3,000 people have been killed by drone strikes. Malik also said that there had been 336 drones in Pakistan.
Both Malik’s claims and the report contradict the CIA’s official story—in 2011 the agency claimed that 50 noncombatants had been killed in all of its drone strikes since Sept. 11, 2001. That claim seems very dubious, particularly since it is not clear that the CIA has been able to examine all of the drone attack sites.
The report itself is questionable because its source is not identified. The organization that uncovered and publicized it, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, did not identify which Pakistani government agency produced it. Although, the report indicates the Pakistani government has extensive details of the attacks. Instead, it simply says the document came from three sources—what three sources?
During the period detailed in the report, the Pakistani government was supporting the strikes because they got rid of its enemies. The drone attacks are unpopular in Pakistan, but the Pakistani army has tolerated them because they kill some of its enemies.
The Pakistani document indicated that a large number of Taliban militants and their commanders died in the attacks. That indicates the CIA has extensive knowledge of the militants and their operations, probably from agents inside the organization. It also means that the CIA itself is well aware of the true casualty figures.
Are Other Nations Carrying Out Drone Attacks in Pakistan?
There is also an intriguing mystery in the report that the Bureau uncovered. Its reporter, Chris Woods, noted that there were five attacks carried out by forces that the Pakistani government could not or would not identify. That is bothersome because it indicates that other governments, perhaps India’s or China’s, might also be carrying out drone attacks in Pakistan. Both India and China have been attacked by militants backed by the Pakistani Taliban in the past.
By carrying out such attacks, the United States sets a precedent for other nations and implies that such killings are a legitimate method of war. A government that claims that it has the right to carry out these drone attacks gives other governments that right as well.
The whole concept of drone warfare needs to be reviewed due to the true mass number of deaths and other devastating consequences that stem from it. We need to ask ourselves if we want to live in a world where drone attacks are an accepted everyday occurrence. And what about predator drone attacks inside the US? After all, they seem to violate not only the Constitution but the Ten Commandments and basic Christian morality. Especially when it comes to shedding innocent blood.
Leaks Reveal Drones Killing More Than Thought, Particularly Innocents
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Lawmaker: Terrorists change tactics after leaks
A top House lawmaker says those who want to harm the U.S. are already changing their behavior after leaks about classified U.S. surveillance programs.
The House intelligence chairman, Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, says it’s part of the damage from disclosures by National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden of two NSA programs that collect millions of telephone records and track Internet activity. He gave no details.
Top committee Democrat, C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland says he’s concerned that Snowden fled to Hong Kong, because of China’s spying on the U.S.
They spoke after meeting NSA director Gen. Keith Alexander, who says he hopes to declassify details of dozens of attacks allegedly disrupted by the programs. Alexander says they don’t want to “cause another terror attack by giving out too much information.”
Lawmaker: Terrorists change tactics after leaks
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Holder: Leaks probes target government officials, not reporters
- NEW: Judiciary Committee asks Holder to appear to explain Fox News statements
- GOP senator suggests Holder “distracted by controversies of his own making”
- GOP levels allegations of perjury after Holder’s statements in May regarding probes
- Justice will never prosecute reporter for doing job while he is at helm, he says
(CNN) — The Justice Department will never prosecute journalists for doing their jobs, and recent probes into national security leaks targeted government officials, not reporters, Attorney General Eric Holder said in remarks to a Senate committee Thursday.
Holder, amid a cloud of controversy for investigations in recent years involving The Associated Press and Fox News, said he has launched a review of existing Justice Department guidelines on investigations involving the press, and he is meeting with journalists to discuss those guidelines.
“The department goal in investigating leak cases is to identify and prosecute government officials who jeopardize government secrets,” Holder told the Senate Appropriations Committee during a wide-ranging budget hearing that included questions about the federal prison system, drone strikes and the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
He added that as long as he is at the Justice helm, he will never prosecute a reporter for doing her or his job. AfterHolder’s testimony, the House Judiciary Committee asked him in writing to appear this month to explain testimony he gave May 15 concerning the Fox News case, in which a reporter was labeled a criminal co-conspirator during a leak investigation.
Switching directions during his allotted time to speak Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Illinois, raised questions about this week’s report that the National Security Agency and FBI were monitoring Americans’ phone records. He asked specifically whether Holder could assure him that no member of Congress had been monitored, as it might give the executive branch leverage over the legislative branch.
Holder responded that it wasn’t an appropriate venue to answer the question, to which Kirk said the appropriate answer was, “No, we stayed in our lane, and I assure you we did not spy on members of Congress.”
“There has been no intention to spy on members of Congress and members of the Supreme Court,” Holder said.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski, chairwoman of the committee, interrupted the back-and-forth to say that the matter deserved a briefing before the entire Senate, and involving the NSA and Holder.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Alabama, the ranking GOP member of the committee, opened his remarks by saying the Justice Department was “mired in a controversy of late” that raised questions about the Justice Department’s “adherence to the rule of law” and Holder’s ability to lead. He further said Americans deserved an attorney general “not distracted by controversies of his own making.”
Holder emphasized he was “fully engaged” in efforts to resolve these problems and evaluates his own performance on a daily basis.
“I have not done a perfect job. I think I’ve done a good job, but I think I could do better,” he said, adding that his meetings with journalists are aimed at formulating new policies and regulations “and hopefully get that behind us.”
Responding to Shelby’s query about whether there would be a tipping point at which Holder might need to step down, Holder — who has suggested he might not serve for President Barack Obama’s entire second term — said he had more goals to accomplish before he sat down with Obama to discuss a transition.
“The tipping point might be fatigue,” Holder told Shelby. “You get to a point where you just get tired.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein did not continue the line of questioning regarding the leaks but defended Holder and lamented that the hearing was used to berate him.
“I believe in your integrity,” she said. “I believe you’re a good attorney general. I believe you’ve had undue problems that are hard to anticipate. I believe you’re responding as best you possibly could.”
Holder is under fire for two instances, in particular. The first involves his Justice Department obtaining two months of phone records from The Associated Press as part of an investigation into the news agency’s May 2012 coverage of a foiled airline bomb plot in Yemen. The second case involves Justice obtaining the phone records, e-mails and security badge information of Fox News’ James Rosen, who reported on classified intelligence about North Korea in 2009.
No reporters were singled out as potential criminals in the AP case, but in the Fox case, an FBI agent said Rosen might be an “aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator” to disclosing secret information.
The Rosen case has been of most interest to Holder’s critics because of a May 15 remark he made to Congress about the leaks.
“With regard to the potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material, that is not something that I’ve ever been involved in or heard of or would think would be a wise policy,” Holder said.
Republican Rep. Darrell Issa called Holder’s statement and the GOP-controlled House Judiciary Committee is investigating whether the attorney general lied under oath.
Holder wrote Sens. Bob Goodlatte, R-Virginia, and James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, of the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, saying — as he did before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday — that he was reviewing his department’s guidelines regarding investigations involving the media.
“As part of this review, I have hosted a series of productive meetings with representatives of news organizations and other interested parties in order to solicit their valuable input,” Holder wrote. “I welcome your contributions to this process and hope that both of you will join the Deputy Attorney General and me when we schedule meetings with interested members of Congress.”
Goodlatte replied in a letter signed by every GOP member of the House committee — but no Democrats — that none of Holder’s statements so far, nor those of his subordinates, “constitutes a satisfactory on-the-record response.” Goodlatte asked Holder to appear before the committee June 18 or, if that isn’t feasible, to pick a date between then and June 28, Goodlatte told Holder.
Referring to Holder’s May 15 testimony, the letter said, “This statement left members of the Committee and the American people with the clear understanding that the Department had never taken the unprecedented step of characterizing a member of the media as a criminal co-conspirator in a sworn court document.”
The White House and Justice Department have both issued statements saying Rosen was never prosecuted, so any assertion that Holder lied is wrong.
The Justice Department has also said that Holder recused himself from the AP probe because he had been interviewed about the leak during the investigation, but Republicans say the statement was missing a key piece of information: When did he recuse himself?
After hearing concerns that the Justice Department’s investigations had put reporters at a legal risk for simply doing their jobs, Holder sat down with various news executives last week. He is continuing those meetings this week.
“We expressed our concerns that reporters felt some fear for doing their jobs, that they were concerned about using their e-mail, using their office telephone and that we need to have the freedom to do their job,” Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron said after the meeting.
Holder told NBC News on Wednesday that he would not step down amid criticism over security leaks investigations.
Holder: Leaks probes target government officials, not reporters