FBI HUNTING SECRETS ONLINE

The Justice Department may let the FBI “con­duct a search-​​and-​​destroy mis­sion on any com­put­ers har­bor­ing clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion about a 1980s case that tem­porar­ily became pub­lic in a law­suit,” the Associated Press reports. “A fed­eral judge pre­vi­ously rejected the idea.“

The ini­tial request from fed­eral pros­e­cu­tors in Sacramento, Calif., was con­sid­ered highly unusual by legal experts because it did not spec­ify which com­put­ers the gov­ern­ment believed might con­tain the clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion or how agents would retrieve and destroy infor­ma­tion already made pub­lic…
At issue are two court fil­ings in a suit by a for­mer FBI coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence agent. The doc­u­ments include brief ref­er­ences to a one-​​month under­cover trip over­seas in late 1987 by the agent, Lok T. Lau, who was fired for shoplift­ing more than a decade later and is suing over his dis­missal.
The doc­u­ments — still con­tain­ing the clas­si­fied mate­r­ial — were avail­able from the cour­t­house for up to 19 days. Copies have been pub­lished on the Internet, includ­ing the Web site for the Sacramento-​​based California First Amendment Coalition, an open-​​government group.

(Thanks to Defense Tech reader JI)

October 23rd, 2003 | Cloak and Dagger | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.