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FBI Asks 17 Senators To Turn Over Phone Records, Appointment Calendars
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FBI asked all members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to collect and turn over records from June 18 and 19, 2002
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WASHINGTON,
August 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Seventeen U.S.
senators have been asked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to
turn over phone records, appointment calendars and schedules that
would reveal their possible contacts with reporters, U.S. media
reported Saturday, August 24.
In
an Aug. 7 memo passed to the senators through the Senate general
counsel's office, the FBI asked all members of the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence to collect and turn over records from June
18 and 19, 2002, reported the Washington Post adding that those dates
are the day of and the day after a classified hearing in which the
director of the National Security Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden,
spoke to lawmakers about two highly sensitive messages that hinted at
an impending action that the agency intercepted on the eve of Sept. 11
but did not translate until Sept. 12.
The
request suggests that the FBI is now focusing on the handful of senior
senators who are members of a Senate-House panel investigating Sept.
11 and attend most classified meetings and read all the most sensitive
intelligence agency communications, said the Post. A similar request
did not go to House intelligence committee members.
The
request also represents a much more intrusive probe of lawmakers'
activities, and comes at a time when some legal experts and members of
Congress are already disgruntled that an executive branch agency, such
as the FBI -- headed by a political appointee -- is probing the
actions of legislators whose job it is to oversee FBI and intelligence
agencies, the paper added.
The
FBI declined to comment. Most senators are away for the August recess,
but Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who heads the Senate intelligence
committee, said through a spokesman that he is cooperating with the
investigation and has asked staff members to gather the requested
records, reported the Post.
The
paper also said that 37 members of House and Senate intelligence
committees as wll as 60 staff members have been questioned by the FBI
and that most of them said that they would not be willing to take
polygraph tests.
Charles
Tiefer, A University of Baltimore law professor and former House
deputy general counsel was quoted by the Post saying that this request
may “frighten senators out of the business of telling the public
[through the media] what they need to know."
Some
officials generally involved in the probe believe that quashing the
release of information to the public about embarrassing or sensitive
information related to the Sept. 11 attacks was exactly what the
administration intended when it sent Vice President Cheney to chastise
committee members for unauthorized leaks that end up in news reports,
added the Post.
On
June 19, CNN reported the contents of two messages based on National
Security Agency (NSA) intercepts. The Arabic-language messages said,
"The match is about to begin," and "Tomorrow is zero
hour." Other news outlets, including the Post, also reported on
the intercepts, said the paper.
The
NSA, based at Fort Meade, is one of the government's most secretive
intelligence agencies. Much of its information carries a higher
classification than other sorts of intelligence. It is illegal to
release classified information, the paper reported.
Neither
congressional historians nor legal experts could recall any situation
in which the FBI was probing a leak of classified information in this
way.
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