Monday, November 14, 2005

Loose Lips: OK If You Are Republican


This is one hell of a leaky bunch of Republicans.
It belies reason that Americans thought Republicans would keep them safer given their penchant to leak classified information.
But it's ok apparently.......
The Senate Ethics Committee has ended its intelligence leak investigation of Sen. Richard Shelby, who was under suspicion of giving the news media classified messages from the eve of the Sept. 11 attacks.
In a letter obtained Sunday by The Associated Press, the panel's chairman and vice chairman notify Shelby that it considers the case closed, but they don't say whether they blame him for the information getting out.
SNIP
At issue were two messages intercepted by the National Security Agency a day before the Sept. 11 terror attacks. News accounts attributed to anonymous sources said those messages contained the words "the match begins tomorrow" and "tomorrow is zero day," but they were not translated from Arabic until Sept. 12.

Intelligence officials said disclosing the Sept. 10 interceptions was harmful not because of their substance, but because the disclosure might have tipped off terrorists that one of their channels of communication had been compromised.

Well that doesn't tells us alot. Perhaps this is why it is necessary to have such investigations conducted outside of Congress by an independent prosecutor.

And who did Shelby Leak to?

The Washington Post reported in 2004 that Shelby leaked the information to Fox News reporter Carl Cameron after a classified briefing to the Intelligence Committee. Cameron said he talked with the FBI but denied identifying Shelby as the leaker.
You may remember Carl Cameron
in the film "Outfoxed" which showed Cameron in a cozy off camera talk with George Bush about his family including all the work Cameron's wife did campaigning for Bush. (If you have not seen it, do click on this link to view "Cameroni" in action. That's Bush's nic-name for Carl. Beware Cameroni's brown-nosing suck-up schtick may make you ill)

Or perhaps you remember Cameron's Fake Story about John Kerry (I'm a metrosexual getting my nails manicured)

To sum up.....
Senate Leak Investigation findings: IOKIYAR and IOKIYAFN

No comments: