Secrecy News -- 03/21/01

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 13:08:15 -0500
From: Steven Aftergood <saftergood () igc org>
To: secrecy_news () fas org
Subject: Secrecy News -- 03/21/01

SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
March 21, 2001

**      AN EXEMPLARY FOIA RULING
**      SANDIA WAS-- OR WAS NOT-- HACKED
**      NEW NON-LETHAL WEAPON WILL NOT "FRY PEOPLE"

[I chopped out the other two stories since they didn't relate to
information security.  - WK]


SANDIA WAS-- OR WAS NOT-- HACKED

Sandia National Laboratory recently suffered a "major hacker
incident,"  according to a March 16 article by Bill Gertz in the
Washington Times.  He cited anonymous "U.S. intelligence officials" to
the effect that "hackers suspected of having links to a foreign
government successfully broke into Sandia's computer system and were
able to access sensitive classified information."  See:

        http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring-2001316211918.htm

But that story is "untrue," Sen. Pete Domenici told the Albuquerque
Journal in a March 17 article.  "My staff and I have been regularly
briefed by Sandia, and I don't believe that's an accurate statement,"
Domenici said.  See:

        http://www.abqjournal.com/scitech/279548scitech03-17-01.htm

It is hard not to notice that a number of recent news reports
purportedly based on classified information are turning out to be
wrong, or at least are plausibly disputed.  Another Washington Times
story that appeared on January 3 reported, based on classified
sources, that Russia had moved tactical nuclear weapons to the Baltic
Sea port of Kaliningrad.  This unconfirmed claim has been vigorously
denied by senior Russian officials up to and including President
Putin.

The publication of possibly erroneous news stories involving
classified information provides another reason not to try to
criminalize the unauthorized disclosure of classified information to
the news media, as some in Congress have proposed to do.  Prosecuting
such acts would have the undesired effect of publicly distinguishing
the true from the bogus "classified" stories.



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___________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
http://www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
Email:  saftergood () igc org

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