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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (9974)	5/6/2005 10:47:17 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

THE LARRY FRANKLIN SCANDAL CONTINUED By Michelle Malkin May 05, 2005 09:28 PM More on Larry Franklin and the national security scandal few seem to care about... -AIPAC seems to be breathing a sigh of relief and is expecting Washington to go about business as usual when the lobbying group holds its annual conference in two weeks. The Jerusalem Post reports... <<< In a little over two weeks, AIPAC holds its annual policy conference, a glittering affair traditionally graced by the most prominent of Washington's political luminaries. Despite the uncomfortable press coverage in the wake of the Franklin arrest, all the scheduled heavy-hitters were still in place on the conference guest list as of Thursday night, with the Senate majority and minority leaders, the House majority and minority leaders and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice all still scheduled to address the thousands of expected participants. >>> -Meanwhile, just to make clear, the info Franklin is accused of mishandling wasn't any old classified information: <<< Intelligence sources said the classification - Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information - was often used to protect information from electronic surveillance where disclosure might tip off a foreign government that its communications were being monitored. >>> In addition, just to underscore, investigators say they found 83 classified documents at Franklin's home; Frankin allegedy disclosed classified information to numerous people, incuding "a foreign official" and members of the media. -A poster at Lucianne.com gets how serious this is: <<< Remember folks, the document that Franklin allegedly passed was classified Top Secret/SCI-- meaning compartmented classified information. While "classified" information is leaked often in Washington, TS-compartmented information is a different story. The additional SCI classification puts documents so classified into another realm - as anyone who has ever been given an SCI clearance knows. The indictment also states that Franklin admitted to the FBI that, in addition to passing the TS/SCI document to two unidentified U.S. persons, he also, without authorization, disclosed classified U.S. information to a foreign official and media members. That is more in line with what other posters have alluded to--but is not what is the basis for the charge against Franklin. People have lost jobs for mishandling TS/SCI material just within their office spaces- the unauthorized disclosure of TS/SCI information is serious business and shouldn't be trivialized by apologists. >>> -And here's what an Army guy who had TS/SCI clearance said last month in relation to Sandy Berger's mishandling of such material: <<< For most of my career in the Army I held a TS/SCI clearance and I worked daily with the kinds of documents Berger admits to taking. Anyone who works with codeword material knows damned well how to handle it, manage it, store it and protect it. It's taught to you from day one and drilled into you constantly. This is some of the most sensetive intelligence the US collects and uses. We take extrordinary measures to protect this data and the penalties for simply mishandling it (like fogetting to lock a safe at the end of the day) are severe for mere mortals. For doing what Berger we lock people away for up to 20 years. For passing the kind of stuff Berger 'mishandled' over to hostile foreign governments the range of penalties includes death. I'm not implying he did, just indicating how important our government thinks this stuff is. >>> michellemalkin.com michellemalkin.com jpost.com newsday.com lucianne.com

To: Sully- who wrote (9974)	5/14/2005 3:28:27 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

FBI QUESTIONS JOURNALISTS ABOUT LARRY FRANKLIN By Michelle Malkin May 14, 2005 07:31 AM FBI agents have begun asking reporters about conversations they had with former Department of Defense analyst Larrry Franklin, the New York Times reports: <<< The interviews by the Federal Bureau of Investigation are starting with four reporters, among them at least one newspaper journalist and others whose work has been published on the Internet, the officials said. They would not identify any of the journalists and said the number could increase. The interviews represent the latest twist in a convoluted inquiry that appears to be evolving from a spy case into a broader investigation into the possible disclosure of classified information by the analyst, Lawrence A. Franklin. The journalists whom the agents want to question wrote articles that investigators are said to believe are based on classified information that Mr. Franklin obtained while he was working at the Defense Department. >>> If the reporters refuse to answer all of the FBI's questions, a subpoena could be issued. In that case, the Franklin investigation would begin to resemble the controversy involving journalists who refuse to answer questions about who outed CIA officer Valerie Plame. As noted earlier this week, the FBI's interest in speaking to journalists was first reported by Newsweek. The Newsweek article mentions that bloggers may be among those questioned. The Times article contains new details about the evidence to be used against Franklin: <<< At one point last summer, Mr. Franklin had agreed to help the government with the investigation before ending his cooperation when it became evident that prosecutors wanted to charge him with a crime. During that time, he made several telephone calls to possible subjects in the case, including one to Mr. Weissman, according to people who have been officially briefed on the case. The call was surreptitiously monitored and recorded by F.B.I. agents. In the conversation with Mr. Weissman, Mr. Franklin said he had learned that Iran was seeking to encourage or engage in attacks against Israelis in northern Iraq, people who have been officially briefed on the case said. They said that Mr. Weissman told Mr. Rosen of the conversation and that the two men are believed to have passed the information to an Israeli official who was an intelligence officer. It is not clear whether the information was based on actual information or was fabricated to lure the two Aipac officials into incriminating themselves. >>> So: if the Times' sources are to be believed, two men employed by AIPAC (a group that is not registered as an agent for a foreign government) are suspected of giving classified information to an Israeli intelligence officer. Think any of the speakers will mention this at next week's AIPAC conference? michellemalkin.com nytimes.com michellemalkin.com msnbc.msn.com