FBI Agents Can Pose as Journalists, Inspector General Says
FBI Agents Can Pose as Journalists, Inspector General
Says
The FBI also did not violate policy when an agent
impersonated an editor with the Associated Press in 2007, the Inspector General
found.
By Alan Neuhauser | Staff Writer Sept. 15, 2016, at 2:31
p.m.
FBI agents may impersonate journalists while conducting
undercover investigations, and an agent who posed as an editor with the
Associated Press during a 2007 investigation did not violate agency policies,
the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General found in a report
released Thursday.
The conclusion sparked consternation across social media
by journalists, civil rights groups and some legal experts, who have argued
that the practice – by its very existence – threatens to heighten public
mistrust of reporters, damage journalists' credibility and have a chilling effect
on sources and whistleblowers who may fear that their contacts in the media are
actually undercover agents.
"The Associated Press is deeply disappointed by the
Inspector General’s findings, which effectively condone the FBI’s impersonation
of an AP journalist in 2007," Associated Press Vice President Paul Colford
said in a statement. "Such action compromises the ability of a free press
to gather the news safely and effectively and raises serious constitutional
concerns."
The inspector general's report acknowledged that the
practice calls for "a higher level of approval" by FBI supervisors
than was in place in 2007. Policies on impersonating journalists at the time
were "less than clear," it found. However, a new interim policy
adopted this June – one that permits agents to pose as journalists so long as
they get approval from two high-ranking officials and an undercover review
committee at headquarters – meets that requirement.
"We believe the new interim policy on undercover
activities that involve FBI employees posing as members of the news media is a
significant improvement to FBI policies that existed," the inspector
general wrote in the 26-page report.
The Associated Press and the American Civil Liberties
Union, however, maintain the new measures are insufficient.
"The FBI guidelines adopted in 2016 in response to
this incident still permit the FBI to impersonate news organizations and other
third parties without their consent in certain cases, and fail to address the
host of other dangers associated with FBI hacking," ACLU legislative
counsel Neema Singh Guliani said in a statement.
The review stemmed from a June 2007 investigation into a
series of bomb threats sent by email to Timberline High School outside Seattle.
The emails sparked repeated evacuations over the course of a week. The culprit,
later found to be a 15-year-old student, masked his location by using proxy
servers, and local law enforcement ultimately appealed to the FBI for help.
An agent with the FBI's cybercrime task force, posing as
an editor for the Associated Press, contacted the suspect by email, eventually
sending the teen fake news articles and photographs that hid a trace program:
As soon as the boy clicked one of the photos, his location was revealed to
agents. He confessed shortly after his arrest, and he pleaded guilty July 18.
It wasn't until seven years later that the FBI's methods
were revealed: Christopher Soghoian, an activist and principal technologist at
the ACLU, and previously a technologist at the Federal Trade Commission,
tweeted a link in October 2014 to internal documents posted to the website of
the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which had been obtained through a Freedom
of Information Act request in 2011. Buried on pages 61 and 62 were apparent
copies of fake Seattle Times news stories the agents were then planning to
email.
The Seattle Times broke the story that day. It soon
spread nationwide. The Associated Press sent a letter to then-Attorney General
Eric Holder, protesting the method. Other newspapers also expressed concern,
joined by groups like the Committee to Protect Journalists and the ACLU.
FBI Director James Comey has previously called the
practice "lawful and, in a rare case, appropriate:"
"That technique was proper and appropriate under
Justice Department and FBI guidelines at the time," he wrote in a New York
Times op-ed in November 2014. "Every undercover operation involves
'deception,' which has long been a critical tool in fighting crime. The FBI’s
use of such techniques is subject to close oversight, both internally and by
the courts that review our work."
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