Washington launches mole hunt over domestic spying
The US Justice Department has opened another investigation into leaks of classified information, this time to determine who divulged the existence of President George Bush’s secret domestic spying programme.
The inquiry focuses on disclosures to The New York Times about warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the US, officials said.
The newspaper recently revealed the existence of the programme in a front-page story that also acknowledged that the news had been withheld from publication for a year. The delay, the Times said, was partly at the request of the administration and because the newspaper wanted more time to confirm various aspects of the programme.
White House spokesman Trent Duffy said the justice department undertook the action on its own and Bush was informed of it yesterday.
“The leaking of classified information is a serious issue. The fact is that al Qaida’s playbook is not printed on page one, and when America’s is, it has serious ramifications,” Duffy said in Crawford, Texas, where Bush was spending the festive period.
Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for the Times, declined to comment.
Disclosure of the secret spying programme two weeks ago unleashed a barrage of criticism of the administration.
Some critics accused the president of breaking the law by authorising intercepts of conversations without prior court approval or oversight of people inside the United States and abroad who had suspected ties to al Qaida or its affiliates.
Bush, who acknowledged the programme’s existence and described how it operated, says the initiative is legal in a time of war.
The inquiry launched Friday is only the most recent effort by the Bush administration to determine who is disclosing information to journalists.
Two years ago, a special counsel was named to investigate who inside the White House gave reporters the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, an effort that led to perjury and obstruction of justice charges against Vice President Dick Cheney’s top aide, Lewis “Scooter” Libby.
More recently, the Justice Department has begun examining whether classified information was illegally disclosed to The Washington Post about a network of secret CIA prisons in eastern Europe and elsewhere.
