ZAID

[esquirecomics]

Hi, my name is Mark Zaid and I'm a media whore.

 

Paid for those Nationals season tickets!

[esquirecomics]

Hi Mark: I remember when this thread first started. I Can't imagine how you were able to keep your cool with KrazyKat. Did the Easter bunny bring Peeps?

 

All I got was some flat stale tasting bread called Matzah.

[OldGuy]

So many words!

 

Sorry, I probably should have included pictures to make it appear more comic like.

 

Purty piktures

[esquirecomics]

April 24, 2006

 

Moves Signal Tighter Secrecy Within C.I.A.

 

By SCOTT SHANE and MARK MAZZETTI

New York Times

 

WASHINGTON, April 23 — The crackdown on leaks at the Central Intelligence Agency that led to the dismissal of a veteran intelligence officer last week included a highly unusual polygraph examination for the agency's independent watchdog, Inspector General John L. Helgerson, intelligence officials with knowledge of the investigation said Sunday.

 

The special polygraphs, which have been given to dozens of employees since January, are part of a broader effort by Porter J. Goss, the director of the C.I.A., to re-emphasize a culture of secrecy that has included a marked tightening of the review process for books and articles by former agency employees.

 

As the inspector general, Mr. Helgerson was the supervisor of Mary O. McCarthy, who was fired Thursday after admitting she had leaked classified information to reporters about secret C.I.A. detention centers and other subjects, agency officials said.

 

Mr. Goss and the C.I.A.'s deputy director, Vice Adm. Albert M. Calland III, voluntarily submitted to polygraph tests during the leak investigation to show they were willing to experience the same scrutiny they were asking other employees to undergo, agency officials said. Mr. Helgerson likewise submitted to the lie-detector test, they said.

 

But Mr. Helgerson's status as the independent inspector general — a post to which he was appointed by the president and from which only the president can remove him — makes his submission to a polygraph even more unusual.

 

L. Britt Snider, who served as inspector general from 1998 to 2001, said in an interview on Sunday night that he had not been given a polygraph in that position, though he said he was given an initial polygraph when he arrived at the agency in 1997 as special counsel to the director.

 

"I've never heard of it, and it's certainly unusual," Mr. Snider said. He called it "awkward" for the inspector general to be, in effect, investigated by the agency he ordinarily investigates.

 

But Mr. Snider and another former senior intelligence official said that it would not be improper if Mr. Helgerson had volunteered for the polygraph to set an example for others.

 

Reached by telephone on Sunday, Mr. Helgerson declined to comment and referred a reporter to a C.I.A. spokesman, who said he could not comment on any aspect of the leak investigation.

 

Further details about the inspector general's polygraph test could not be determined.

 

Mr. Goss has repeatedly expressed unhappiness with what he sees as the laxity of C.I.A. employees and retirees in discussing agency matters. He has taken up the cause of tightening information controls across the board, partly in response to calls from the White House, the Congressional intelligence committees and the presidential commission on weapons of mass destruction.

 

Mr. Helgerson's office, which investigates accusations of lapses in the ethics or performance of agency employees, has investigated some of the most serious controversies of recent years, including cases involving accusations of detainee abuse.

 

Since a 1989 change following the Iran-contra scandal, the C.I.A.'s internal watchdog has been confirmed by the Senate and has reported to the Congressional intelligence committees as well as to the C.I.A. director, a shift intended to assure the position's independence.

 

Among the subjects handled by Mr. Helgerson's office was a report completed last year that faulted senior C.I.A. officials for lapses in the failure to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But Mr. Goss kept the report classified and did not punish any of those named.

 

Former officials say the inspector general's office has also referred more than half a dozen cases of detainee abuse to the Department of Justice, but officials there have taken no action, except for a pending prosecution of one agency contract employee charged with beating an Afghan prisoner who later died.

 

The "single-issue" polygraphs, which are distinct from the routine polygraphs given to agency employees at least every five years, have been conducted by the C.I.A. Security Center but with close supervision from Mr. Goss's office, according to one official. Like other current and former intelligence officials, he was granted anonymity to discuss classified events at the agency without fear of retribution.

 

For tightly "compartmented" programs like the secret detention centers, the C.I.A.'s computer system automatically limits access to the few officers who have the proper clearance to learn details of the program. The computer keeps an audit trail of which officer has looked at which documents and when they have done it, a record that would aid investigators hunting for a leaker, officials say.

 

The renewed emphasis on the culture of secrecy has included a tightening of the review process for books and articles by former agency employees, according to Mark S. Zaid, a lawyer who represents many authors who once worked for the C.I.A.

 

Authors say the agency's Publications Review Board has been removing material that would easily have been approved before. While the board in the past has generally worked with retirees to make manuscripts publishable, it now more often appears to be trying to block publication, the authors say. And reprimands for violations have become more stern, including letters warning of possible Justice Department investigations.

 

A C.I.A. spokeswoman, Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, denied that the Publications Review Board's standards had changed.

 

"The only rule is that they are not allowed to have classified information in their manuscripts," Ms. Millerwise Dyck said.

 

But Mr. Zaid said: "There's been a fundamental shift in practice at the Publications Review Board. There's literally been a reinstitution of the 1950's attitude that what happens at C.I.A. stays at C.I.A."

 

Mr. Zaid said the shift in the agency's approach to publications under Mr. Goss was most clearly illustrated by its handling of a book by Thomas Waters Jr., who wrote about his experiences as a recent agency recruit.

 

He said the manuscript of Mr. Waters's book, titled "Class 11: Inside the CIA's First Post-9/11 Spy Class," was approved by the agency's Publications Review Board in September 2004 with several modest changes. Mr. Waters then sold the book to Dutton, made the changes and submitted the galleys for a final review.

 

In February, Mr. Zaid said, the board returned the galleys with nearly half their contents marked as classified and not approved for publication. Mr. Waters, who left the agency after two years for family reasons, has sued the agency to permit publication, and the case is pending.

 

"What's ironic is that it's a very positive book," Mr. Zaid said. "He had a great experience and he thought this book would be a great recruiting tool."

 

In other cases, Mr. Zaid said, an acquaintance was recently refused permission to publish an op-ed article that drew on material from the agency's Web site. Another client's book was turned down because, the author was told, even though no single chapter was classified, the whole manuscript revealed enough information that it had to be classified. This so-called mosaic theory of classification, Mr. Zaid said, is being used more often to prevent publication.

 

Another former employee with long experience having publications approved agreed that reviews had become tougher. "It takes longer and there's a much more conservative approach," the former employee said, adding that he believed that some of the deletions had crossed the admittedly fuzzy boundary between protecting classified information and censoring personal opinions.

 

Another retiree agreed, saying he believed the agency had begun pressing authors to excise some unclassified material from manuscripts. "It's a more complex process than it used to be," he said. "Now, they question a lot more things."

 

Yet another agency retiree, who has in the past received warning letters from the C.I.A. after occasionally publishing articles without seeking approval, said he recently got a far more strongly worded letter. This one informed him that a file had been opened to document his transgressions that could be forwarded to the Justice Department, he said.

 

Mr. Goss's attempt to lower the profile of the agency has apparently been extended to the Web site of its Center for the Study of Intelligence, which for years has carried unclassified articles about the history and practice of spying from the in-house journal Studies in Intelligence.

 

Max Holland, who has written two articles for the C.I.A. journal, recently reported in The American Spectator that the online posting of unclassified excerpts from an agency review of the failure to accurately assess Iraq's weapons of mass destruction had been delayed for seven months. The last issue represented on the C.I.A. Web site is from mid-2005.

[esquirecomics]

The New York Sun

 

May 11, 2006 Thursday

 

SECTION: FRONT PAGE; Pg. 1

 

LENGTH: 1027 words

 

HEADLINE: Here's the Buzz on Valerie Plame: She'll Break Her Silence for $2.5M

 

BYLINE: By KATE TAYLOR, Staff Reporter of the Sun

 

BODY:

 

 

The buzz in the publishing world is that Valerie Wilson - the former CIA official and wife of Joseph Wilson, whose outing in a column by Robert Novak led to the indictment of the vice president's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, and the continued questioning of Karl Rove - will break her two-year silence in a memoir, to be published by Crown. The buzz was especially loud because of the size of the advance: a reported $2.5 million.

 

While Mrs. Wilson must be gratified that her ordeal has brought her some benefit, two questions pose themselves about the deal: Can a book by an untested writer earn back such a substantial advance? And will Mrs. Wilson run into any of the problems that other former C.I.A. employees have experienced in getting their books cleared by the agency's Publications Review Board? A delay in publication of a hotly topical book can mean missing a crucial window of public interest.

 

Those in publishing generally declined to disapprove of the size of the deal. Harry Evans, who as head of Random House bought former Secretary of State Colin Powell's memoirs for $5 million, said: "All front list publishing is risky, but this strikes me as a worthwhile risk. I think she has a good story to tell and, providing she tells it properly, both the publisher and the public will be well served."

 

"Nowadays [$2.5 million] is not a huge amount. Knopf paid all that money for Bill Clinton, and that was a huge success. Not all, but most of my expensive acquisitions paid off," Mr. Evans said. He emphasized that while Mrs. Wilson's book may not make money in its first year, "Really good books will last for a long time. Publishing isn't just a year one event."

 

By a rough calculation, for Mrs. Wilson's book to earn back its advance in its first year, it will have to sell more than 500,000 hardcover copies - half again as many as Jon Stewart's "America (The Book)," a big best seller last year.

 

"On the scale of ridiculous advances, it's not the craziest I've ever heard," a publishing insider who did not wish to be named said. "A lot of it has to do with what she's actually going to say. She's a person who's received a lot of attention and has remained quiet until now. That's a good recipe."

 

Christopher Wolf, a lawyer who represents Joseph Wilson and the only person close to the Wilsons who could be found to comment on the deal, said that they did not expect there would be a problem in getting the final typescript cleared by the CIA.

 

"She will comply with all the CIA requirements that pertain to this," Mr. Wolf said. "She's incredibly loyal and incredibly devoted to the agency and would never say anything that would impair their work." Both Mrs. Wilson's agent, Elyse Cheney, and Crown declined to comment.

 

But according to Mark Zaid, a lawyer who has represented many authors in litigation with the C.I.A., there is no easy clearance process. Mr. Zaid currently has two clients in legal dispute with the C.I.A. One, Thomas Waters, author of "Class 11: Inside the C.I.A's First Post-9/11 Class" - has had his publication date postponed indefinitely because the agency, at the last moment, revoked its approval.

 

According to Mr. Zaid, the C.I.A. has modified its rules for publication approval, both in writing and, more importantly, in practice. "They're being far stricter in how they're interpreting things. They've made it very clear that they don't want former employees writing books about their experiences."

 

Mr. Zaid said the problem doesn't lie with the Publications Review Board. "On paper, the PRB is supposed to be able to render its own decisions, but it is clearly being manipulated by outside parties from within the agency-most likely the operations folks."

 

Historically, he said, the PRB has been good to work with. "They don't have the same secrecy mentality that the other offices do. They were typically lawyers at other agencies or historians. They're very cognizant of the balance between First Amendment and secrecy. But the PRB is not the one calling the shots now, it's above them."

 

As for whether Mrs. Wilson would face problems in getting approval for her memoir, Mr. Zaid said, "As far as I'm aware, this is not intended to be an anti-Agency book. She had a fantastic career with the Agency. She will be writing this book with the intent and purpose not to have classified information in the book.

 

"But I have little doubt that she will be shocked at the absurdities that they throw back at her as to what is classified or what they consider classified. Based on all her years of experience and being in truly sensitive positions, she will think she has made sure that everything she writes is unclassified. And she'll be shocked to see that they disagree."

 

If Mrs. Wilson simply repeats things that have been reported elsewhere, but not confirmed by the agency itself - like that her cover was a made-up company called Brewster - the agency could consider that classified.

 

Mrs. Wilson may get lucky, however, if General Michael Hayden, the president's nomination as the new head of the CIA, becomes head of the Agency as he has himself been publicly outspoken. "He clearly seems to understand that secrecy does not necessarily mean no information gets out," Mr. Zaid said.

 

Depending on how long it takes for a policy of greater openness to trickle down from the top to the bottom, Mrs. Wilson may find the going easier than authors who have tried to publish under the former CIA director Porter Goss.

 

Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, said he assumed Mrs. Wilson would be publishing "salacious allegations about the administration" and would have little problem either selling books or getting her manuscript approved by the agency. "If you're an opponent of this president, you're likely to have a pretty free ride at the CIA," he said.

 

Judith Miller, the former New York Times reporter whose life has in the last three years been entangled with Mrs. Wilson's - Ms. Miller went to jail for 12 weeks for refusing to testify in the leak case- had only positive things to say when informed about the size of the deal. "In general, I'm in favor of large advances for writers," she said with a laugh.

[Pirate]

any black suv's parked across the street?

[Timulty]

If you hear funny clicking sonds on your phone line you might want to get some paperwork ready.

[Pirate]

make sure you don't miss a cent on your sales tax

[awe4one]

Well...the government having review/edit rights to any of your published works is one of the caveats you sign away in obtaining a security clearance...

 

Jim

[Timulty]

Oh, I don't have a problem with that. After all, there are real security issues involved. I have problems with the politcal underpinnings that are involved with the current administration.

 

Unpopular President + Control of Information = Censorship.

 

Edit: The above is not intended to be a statement with the intent of provoking a political discussion on the boards. Merely an observation.

[awe4one]

Oh, I don't have a problem with that. After all, there are real security issues involved. I have problems with the politcal underpinnings that are involved with the current administration.

 

Unpopular President + Control of Information = Censorship.

 

An understandable view...but regardless of who's in office, the review is mandatory and if portions of a book is deemed sensitive, they have every right to ax it. I'm sure there's an appeal process though and Mark is probably more qualified to speak to that then I. I haven't written my memoirs...yet...

 

Jim

[esquirecomics]

I have absolutely no objections to a review process. I cooperate with such a process all the time in many of my CIA cases. But no agency can prevent the publication of unclassified information for which there is a First Amendment right to publish. Classified information, of course, should not be disclosed.

 

The CIA is currently not only at war against terrorism, but also against those of its former employees who dare to write of their experiences, even if positive. The redactions are comical, seriously absurd.

[awe4one]

I have absolutely no objections to a review process. I cooperate with such a process all the time in many of my CIA cases. But no agency can prevent the publication of unclassified information for which there is a First Amendment right to publish. Classified information, of course, should not be disclosed.

 

The CIA is currently not only at war against terrorism, but also against those of its former employees who dare to write of their experiences, even if positive. The redactions are comical, seriously absurd.

 

The question is what is unclassified and classified...

 

I'm not disputing what you've seen...but can easily see where someone's interpretation of what's classifed or not may vary. I see it all the time where rather tame information can be highly classified depending on the circumstances...

 

Jim

[esquirecomics]

I have absolutely no objections to a review process. I cooperate with such a process all the time in many of my CIA cases. But no agency can prevent the publication of unclassified information for which there is a First Amendment right to publish. Classified information, of course, should not be disclosed.

 

The CIA is currently not only at war against terrorism, but also against those of its former employees who dare to write of their experiences, even if positive. The redactions are comical, seriously absurd.

 

The question is what is unclassified and classified...

 

I'm not disputing what you've seen...but can easily see where someone's interpretation of what's classifed or not may vary. I see it all the time where rather tame information can be highly classified depending on the circumstances...

 

Jim

 

Of course, and that is where the appeal process comes in and litigation if necessary.

 

Sometimes there are gray areas, and I have clearly be privy to classified information that should always stay classified. But it took 9 years once to get the CIA to admit that Allen Dulles was the 3rd Director of the Agency, and that was in 1995!!!

[awe4one]

But it took 9 years once to get the CIA to admit that Allen Dulles was the 3rd Director of the Agency, and that was in 1995!!!

 

 

One of the problems is the Intel community tends to overclassfy information. The CIA is notorious for it and one of the major violators...

 

I don't think they've ever gotten over the fact that right under their noses Aldridge Ames was a mole for the Soviets ...

 

Jim

[esquirecomics]

But it took 9 years once to get the CIA to admit that Allen Dulles was the 3rd Director of the Agency, and that was in 1995!!!

 

 

One of the problems is the Intel community tends to overclassfy information. The CIA is notorious for it and one of the major violators...

 

I don't think they've ever gotten over the fact that right under their noses Aldridge Ames was a mole for the Soviets ...

 

Jim

 

My law partner had a client who was literally James Bond and he was placed under a CI investigation because he asserted the Soviets tried to burn Aldrich Ames purposefully to cover up the existence of another mole (perhaps Hanssen). The whole Ames affair still burns them. The arrogance there, and at the FBI with Hanssen, that there is no way one of their people could be a traitor, yea, well, , guess what!

[chrisco37]

Kneel before Zaid!

[esquirecomics]

Kneel before Zaid!

 

Kneeling is not necessary. Gifts are always appreciated though.

[the blob]

m, every time the press has ever tried to get a statement out of me on any of my cases my frigging employers have always instructed me to say "no comment". no fun, no media whoring for me! (of course, the last time I was in a newspaper it was a bad preliminary injunction that the judge later changed her mind about (of course, the judge reversing herself wasn't reported!!!), so maybe I should be happy I wasn't allowed to comment on it) but I guess that's what you sign away when you're an employee rather than having your own shop.

[esquirecomics]

hmm, every time the press has ever tried to get a statement out of me on any of my cases my frigging employers have always instructed me to say "no comment". no fun, no media whoring for me! (of course, the last time I was in a newspaper it was a bad preliminary injunction that the judge later changed her mind about (of course, the judge reversing herself wasn't reported!!!), so maybe I should be happy I wasn't allowed to comment on it) but I guess that's what you sign away when you're an employee rather than having your own shop.

 

It does help to be self-employed and in control of your own cases. Of course, I need to use the press because the law is simply not in my favor in cases against the Govt. Having a story in the media is very often a much better proposition than anything I could argue in court.

 

I do think that attorneys fail to make adequate use of the media. We have historically shunned it, and that is a mistake. One reason I am in the process of starting a new business to provide pr training/representation to lawyers and litigants. In fact, I am co-teaching a NY CLE class in NYC in October on this topic.