A different kind of de-classification

February 16, 2006

I really want to have confidence in the administration’s ability to pursue and prosecute terrorist suspects, but sometimes, it’s not easy.

Federal officials in Dallas mistakenly disclosed classified counter-terrorism information in a breach of national security that could also threaten one of the country’s biggest terrorism prosecution cases, newly unsealed court records show.

The blunder exposed secret wiretap requests that commonly include classified information from U.S. agencies, foreign intelligence reports and confidential sources.

The criminal case involves officials of the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, a now-defunct Islamic charity with alleged ties to terrorists. Its assets were frozen by the Treasury Department three months after the Sept. 11 attacks.

In announcing the seizure of the charity’s funds, President Bush told a Rose Garden gathering in December 2001 that the charity was among those who “do business with terror.” … Holy Land officials “effectively rewarded past — and encouraged future — suicide bombings and terrorist activities on behalf of Hamas,” then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said at a news conference announcing the indictments in July 2004.

Apparently, attorneys wanted to drown the defense for the Holy Land Foundation in paperwork — but turned over far more than they intended to. Four months later, the FBI discovered the mistake. One federal prosecutor said “extraordinarily sensitive information” was inadvertently shared, including some electronic communications and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act material, including orders by the top-secret court.

Oops.

Consider it spun, too bad nobody who doesn’t read blogs will ever hear anything about it, and if they do Chaney will just have to shoot somebody else to take it off the front page.

  • Leaked accidently? Or accidently on purpose?

    Holy Land is represented by the powerful law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. Three partners at Akin, Gump are very close to President Bush: George R. Salem chaired Bush’s 2000 campaign outreach to Arab-Americans; Barnett A. “Sandy” Kress was appointed by Bush as an “unpaid consultant” on education reform, and has an office in the White House; and James C. Langdon is one of Bush’s closest Texas friends. [Washington Post, 12/17/01; Boston Herald, 12/11/01]

    Link here

    Friends of Bush strike again.

  • Semper,

    Your comment doesn’t make a lot of sense; why would allies of Bush want to disclose secret government information to a purported terrorist organization? Is there any information that the three partners mentioned in the article are involved in the Holy Land case? (There are some big-name Bush allies in my own firm as well, but I like to think that doesn’t make me a Republican collaborator.)

    Inadvertent disclosure of confidential information happens all the time in litigation, but usually it’s not the government disclosing classified materials regarding anti-terorrism operations to alleged terrorists. It’s clearly a big screw-up, but the way this happened, the way it always happens (I know this from firsthand experience), is that some junior person was drifting off after 6 hours of reviewing documents in a small, cramped conference room, and let a few slip through that shouldn’t have.

    For what it’s worth, it’s unlikely that anyone from the Holy Land Foundation ever saw these documents; usual practice is that they would be reviewed only by counsel, and it’s unlikely that anyone at Akin Gump would have provided classified government documents clearly produced by accident to an alleged terrorist organization (though it does raise some interesting issues of professional ethics).

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