FBI Investigating Missing Briefcase

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010819/aponline135934_000.htm

[Computers, firearms, and now a briefcase with classified secrets, how
these items are almost regularly lost, misplaced and stolen constantly
amazes me. You would have to have me at gunpoint for me to surrender
my laptop, or briefcase and I have no national security secrets to
worry about falling into the wrong hands.  - WK]


The Associated Press
Sunday, Aug. 19, 2001; 1:59 p.m. EDT

NEW YORK - The FBI has begun an internal investigation into one of its
senior counterterrorism officials, whose briefcase filled with
documents on national security operations was stolen after he left it
in a hotel conference room, The New York Times reported Sunday.

The FBI is trying to determine whether John O'Neill, special agent in
charge of national security in the agency's New York office,
mishandled classified information in violation of bureau procedures,
the Times said. The briefcase was stolen, but recovered by authorities
within hours with the contents inside, the newspaper said.

The FBI began its own inquiry after the Justice Deparment conducted a
criminal investigation and declined to prosecute, the Times said.

The Justice Department declined to comment Sunday. The newspaper said
O'Neill earlier declined through FBI officials to comment.

O'Neill had left the briefcase in the conference room while attending
an FBI meeting last year in Tampa, Fla., and reported it missing after
his return, the paper said. The briefcase was recovered within hours,
and fingerprint checks indicated the contents had not been handled by
anyone else.

The theft was attributed to thieves believed responsible for a series
of hotel robberies in the Tampa area, the Times said.

Documents in the briefcase included an annual report on security
operations in New York, which included details of every FBI
counterespionage and counterterrorist program in that jurisdiction,
the newspaper said.

Officials told the paper that O'Neill became the subject of intense
scrutiny partly because law enforcement officials did not want to
treat the matter lightly after the cases of former CIA director John
Deutch, who lost his security clearances after mishandling classified
material, and Wen Ho Lee, a government scientist who pleaded guilty to
mishandling classified material.

O'Neill, 49, played a key role in investigations of such cases as last
year's terrorist attack on the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen and the
1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Ethiopia.

O'Neill, a 25-year FBI veteran, already was preparing to retire,
possibly as soon as next week, the Times said.



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