[Mb-civic] A Chilling FBI Fishing Expedition - Mark Feldstein - Washington Post Op-Ed

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A Chilling FBI Fishing Expedition

By Mark Feldstein
The Washington Post
Saturday, April 29, 2006; A17

In an earlier life I spent 20 years as an investigative reporter, getting
subpoenaed and sued in the United States, and censored and physically
harassed in other parts of the globe. But when I switched careers to
academia, I thought such scrapes would come to an end. I was wrong.

On March 3 two FBI agents showed up at my home, flashing their badges and
demanding to see 25-year-old documents that I have been reading as part of
my research for a book I'm writing about Jack Anderson, the crusading
investigative columnist who died in December.

I was surprised, to put it mildly, by the FBI's sudden interest in
journalism history. I asked what crimes the agents were investigating.

"Violations of the Espionage Act," was the response. The Espionage Act
dates to 1917 and was used to imprison dissidents who opposed World War I.

Evidently the Justice Department has decided that it wants to prosecute
people who whispered national security secrets decades ago to a reporter
now dead. The FBI agents asked me if I had seen any classified government
documents in the nearly 200 boxes of materials the Anderson family has
donated to my university. I replied that I had seen some government
documents -- reports, audits, memos -- but didn't know what their
classification status was.

"Just because the documents aren't marked 'classified' doesn't mean they're
not," Agent Leslie Martell suggested helpfully. But I was unable to give
her the answer that she wanted: that our collection housed classified
records.

Later, after I thought about it, I could recall seeing only one set of
papers that might once have been classified: the FBI's own documents on
Jack Anderson. But our version of those papers was heavily censored, unlike
the original FBI file already in their own office.

Ironically, for the past five years the FBI and other federal agencies have
refused to turn over such documents to me under the Freedom of Information
Act, even though almost all the people named in them are now dead. The
government claims it would violate their privacy, jeopardize national
security or -- in the most absurd argument of all -- compromise "ongoing
law enforcement investigations."

I told the FBI that the Anderson papers in our collection were "ancient
history," literally covered in dust. That didn't matter, the agents
replied. They were looking for documents going back to the early 1980s. The
agents admitted that the statute of limitations had expired on any possible
crimes committed that long ago, but they still wanted to root through our
archives because even such old documents might demonstrate a "pattern and
practice" of leaking.

The agents also wanted the names of graduate students who had worked with
me on my book to see if any had seen classified government documents. They
hadn't, but the FBI agents didn't seem to believe our denials and wanted to
know where the Anderson archives are housed and who controlled custody of
the papers.

The agents said they are investigating espionage involving two indicted
lobbyists for the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee, and they wanted me to tell them the names of
former Jack Anderson reporters who were pro-Israel in their views or who
had pro-Israeli sources. I told them I felt uncomfortable passing on what
would be second-hand rumors.

If I didn't want to name names, the agents said, they could mention
initials and I could nod yes or no. That was a trick Robert Redford and
Dustin Hoffman used in "All the President's Men." I didn't name any
initials, either.

I tried to explain to the agents why it was extremely unlikely there could
be anything in our files relevant to their criminal case: Jack Anderson had
been sick with Parkinson's disease since 1986 and had done very little
original investigative reporting after that.

If the agents had done even rudimentary research, they would have known
that. The fact that they didn't was disturbing, because it suggested that
the bureau viewed reporters' notes as the first stop in a criminal
investigation rather than as a last step reluctantly taken only after all
other avenues have failed. That's the standard the FBI is supposed to use
under Justice Department guidelines designed to protect media freedom.

I decided there were good reasons not to help the FBI:

Whistle-blowing sources would be scared off from confiding in reporters
about abuses of power if they had reason to fear that the government would
find out about it by rifling through journalistic files even past the
grave. And the public justifiably won't trust the press if it's turned into
an arm of law enforcement.

I told the FBI that although I was no longer an investigative reporter, my
sympathies still remained with my fellow journalists. "We're not after the
reporters," Agent Martell replied. "Just their sources."

I didn't find that a comforting response.

Ultimately the courts may have to decide whether we make the Anderson
papers available to the federal government. But I am proud that my
university and the Anderson family are resisting the FBI's fishing
expedition into these files.

The writer, director of the journalism program at George Washington
University, was an investigative correspondent for CNN in Washington. His
book "Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson and the Rise of
Washington's Scandal Culture" will be published next year.

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