Senate GOP staff spied on Democrats' memos
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2004 11:45 pm
Not surprising that I had to hunt for this story once I heard about it.
Senate GOP staff spied on Democrats' memos
Monitoring allegedly went on for a year
Thursday, January 22, 2004
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
THE BOSTON GLOBE
WASHINGTON -- Republican staff members of the Senate Judiciary Committee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Boston Globe.
From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.
The office of Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle has already launched an investigation into how excerpts from 15 Democratic memos showed up in the pages of the conservative-leaning newspapers and were posted to a Web site in November.
With the help of forensic computer experts from General Dynamics and the Secret Service, his office has interviewed about 120 people and seized more than half a dozen computers -- including four Judiciary servers and one server from the office of the Senate majority leader.
But the scope of both the intrusions and the likely disclosures is now known to have been far more extensive than the November incident, staff members and others familiar with the investigation say.
The revelation comes as the battle of judicial nominees is reaching a new level of intensity. Last week, President Bush used his recess power to appoint Judge Charles Pickering to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, bypassing a Democratic filibuster that blocked a vote on his nomination for a year because of concerns over his civil rights record.
Democrats now claim that their private memos formed the basis for a February column by conservative pundit Robert Novak that revealed plans pushed by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., to filibuster judicial nominees. Novak is at the center of an inquiry into who leaked the identity of a CIA agent whose husband contradicted a Bush administration claim about Iraqi nuclear programs.
Citing "internal Senate sources," Novak's column described closed-door Democratic meetings about how to handle nominees.
Its details and direct quotes from Democrats -- characterizing former nominee Miguel Estrada as a "stealth right-wing zealot" and describing the GOP agenda as an "assembly line" for right-wing nominees -- are contained in talking points and meeting accounts from the Democratic files now known to have been compromised.
Novak declined to confirm or deny whether his column was based on these files. "They're welcome to think anything they want," he said. "I don't reveal my sources."
As the extent to which Democratic communications were monitored came into sharper focus, Republicans yesterday offered a new defense. They said that in the summer of 2002, their computer technician informed his Democratic counterpart of the glitch, but Democrats did nothing to fix the problem.
Other staff members, however, denied that the Democrats were told anything about it before November.
After the contents of some memos were made public in The Wall Street Journal editorial pages and in The Washington Times, Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, described himself as "mortified that this improper, unethical and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files may have occurred on my watch."
Whether the memos are ultimately deemed to be official business will be a central issue in any criminal case that could result. Unauthorized access of such material could be punishable by up to a year in prison -- or, at the least, sanction.
© 1998-2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Senate GOP staff spied on Democrats' memos
Monitoring allegedly went on for a year
Thursday, January 22, 2004
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
THE BOSTON GLOBE
WASHINGTON -- Republican staff members of the Senate Judiciary Committee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Boston Globe.
From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.
The office of Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle has already launched an investigation into how excerpts from 15 Democratic memos showed up in the pages of the conservative-leaning newspapers and were posted to a Web site in November.
With the help of forensic computer experts from General Dynamics and the Secret Service, his office has interviewed about 120 people and seized more than half a dozen computers -- including four Judiciary servers and one server from the office of the Senate majority leader.
But the scope of both the intrusions and the likely disclosures is now known to have been far more extensive than the November incident, staff members and others familiar with the investigation say.
The revelation comes as the battle of judicial nominees is reaching a new level of intensity. Last week, President Bush used his recess power to appoint Judge Charles Pickering to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, bypassing a Democratic filibuster that blocked a vote on his nomination for a year because of concerns over his civil rights record.
Democrats now claim that their private memos formed the basis for a February column by conservative pundit Robert Novak that revealed plans pushed by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., to filibuster judicial nominees. Novak is at the center of an inquiry into who leaked the identity of a CIA agent whose husband contradicted a Bush administration claim about Iraqi nuclear programs.
Citing "internal Senate sources," Novak's column described closed-door Democratic meetings about how to handle nominees.
Its details and direct quotes from Democrats -- characterizing former nominee Miguel Estrada as a "stealth right-wing zealot" and describing the GOP agenda as an "assembly line" for right-wing nominees -- are contained in talking points and meeting accounts from the Democratic files now known to have been compromised.
Novak declined to confirm or deny whether his column was based on these files. "They're welcome to think anything they want," he said. "I don't reveal my sources."
As the extent to which Democratic communications were monitored came into sharper focus, Republicans yesterday offered a new defense. They said that in the summer of 2002, their computer technician informed his Democratic counterpart of the glitch, but Democrats did nothing to fix the problem.
Other staff members, however, denied that the Democrats were told anything about it before November.
After the contents of some memos were made public in The Wall Street Journal editorial pages and in The Washington Times, Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, described himself as "mortified that this improper, unethical and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files may have occurred on my watch."
Whether the memos are ultimately deemed to be official business will be a central issue in any criminal case that could result. Unauthorized access of such material could be punishable by up to a year in prison -- or, at the least, sanction.
© 1998-2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
