DECIDING SECURITY BEGINS AT HOME, LEAK-CONSCIOUS LAWMAKERS QUIZ STAFF

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100010059-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 17, 2012
• Sequence Number: 59
• Publication Date: January 16, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/17: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100010059-6
WASHINGTON POST
16 January 198w
Deciding Security Begins at Home,
Leak-Conscious Lawmakers Quiz Staff
By Thomas B. Edsall
Washmgtoe Poa Staff Writer
In terms of secrecy, Capitol Hill
has traditionally been a leaky sieve,
one of the few power centers in
which the combination of partisan
competition, conflicting special in-
terests, political ambition and staff
envy produce more information
than the news media can consume.
This unofficial-critics would say
often illegal or unethical-House
and Senate function of providing
information about and insight into
the private workings of government
increasingly provokes official re-
sponse.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are
conducting investigations of news
leaks, paralleling a long history of
executive branch-particularly
White House-investigations of
unauthorized disclosures.
Most recently, the House Com-
mittee on Standards of Official Con-
duct (the ethics committee) has is-
sued a questionnaire to all members
of the House Judiciary Committee
staff in an attempt to find out who
leaked a highly controversial com-
mittee report..The report accused
former employes of the Environ-
mental Protection Agency of giving
"false and misleading" testimony.
The questionnaire orders the
staff "to refrain from making known
to any person ... the existence of
these questions." In classic Hill staff
tradition, this demand for secrecy
was promptly defied by sources
who disputed the ethics commit-
tee's authority under House rules
to impose a blanket of secrecy on
its own questionnaire.
The inquiry was prompted by a
story in The Washington Post last
Nov. 16. Two other recent Capitol
Hill leak investigations have in-
volved stories in The Washington
Times.
In one of those cases, the Senate
Judiciary Committee has asked for a
probe by the Federal Bureau of In-
vestigation. In the other, the House
ethics committee, after much de-
bate, decided against trying to sub-
poena a reporter's notes.
The November Post story dis-
closed the existence of "a draft
summary of a confidential House
Judiciary Committee report" con-
taining charges that "senior [EPA]
officials gave 'false and misleading'
documents and testimony to Con-
gress."
In the questionnaire to the Judi-
ciary Committee staff, the ethics
committee asked for written re-
sponses to eight questions, includ-
ing:
^ "Have you contacted, or been
contacted by, anyone from the news
media regarding the report, the
summary, or the contents thereof?"
^ "Do you have any knowledge of
any disclosure of the report ...
other than [to] committee members
and authorized committee staff?"
^ "Are you acquainted with or have
you ever talked with any of the fol-
lowing individuals?" Eight reporters
were listed-Mary Thornton and
Howard Kurtz of The Post, three on
the Los Angeles Times, and one
each at United Press International,
The New York Times and Congres-
sional Quarterly.
r "What is your relationship with
such person[s] and the substance of
your discussion with theme
Staffers with questions about the
questionnaire were advised to con-
tact John M.S. Hoefer, ethics com-
mittee counsel. To a press inquiry
about the questionnaire, Hoefer
replied: "I'm not going to comment
on anything this committee is doing
.. I'm not willing to discuss any-
thing."
Hoefer, however, did not feel
constrained from inquiring who dis-
closed the existence of the ques-
tionnaire.
In the Senate's recent inquiry,
Mark Godwin, spokesman for Ju-
diciary Committee Chairman Strom
Thurmond (-S. .), said Thurmond
"requested that the FBI investigate
the leak of classified materia to
Washington Times concerning
the omination of Stanley por in,
former genera counsel of e Cen-
tral Intelligence gency, to a fed-.
ra u es t .
The story involved classified data
disclosed by another CIA employe,
an issue that held u Senate a r v-
al of Sporkin's nomination for 17
months.
Thfie Times notes case was the
most serious recent confrontation
between a congressional committee
and the press. It developed in late
1984, when the House ethics com-
mittee sought to discover how a
reporter obtained results of a se-
cret investigation into the finances
of Democratic vice presidential
nominee Geraldine A. Ferraro.
The committee dropped the sub-
poena after major news organiza-
tions protested the attempt as a
threat to First Amendment guar-
antees of press freedom.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/17: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100010059-6