Officials say more CIA employees may be punished in computer case

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

http://www.techserver.com/noframes/story/0,2294,500201175-500277781-501475320-0,00.html

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (May 6, 2000 6:31 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - The
latest probe into security lapses by former CIA Director John Deutch
could result in reprimands or stronger action against a number of
present and former senior CIA employees, intelligence officials said
Saturday.

In addition to a new Justice Department criminal investigation into
the 1996 security breach, the officials said, a presidential advisory
panel criticized Deutch's successor, George Tenet, and other agency
officials last week for inordinate delays before they acted against
Deutch.

Once focused primarily on Deutch, inquiries by the Justice Department,
Congress and the CIA itself now are seeking to determine why the
matter was not pursued more aggressively within the CIA, said
administration and congressional officials who spoke on the condition
of anonymity.

The presidential advisory panel, headed by former Sen. Warren Rudman,
R-N.H., gave President Clinton and congressional intelligence
overseers a classified report containing sharp criticism of the spy
agency.

Those familiar with the report said its wording is remarkably harsh,
which is significant because Rudman was among the first to speak out
in support of the CIA's handling of the matter.

Among targets of criticism are Tenet, former CIA General Counsel
Michael O'Neil, former CIA Executive Director Nora Slatkin and what
one intelligence official characterized as "a handful" of officials
still at the Central Intelligence Agency.

Because of his own involvement in the matter, Tenet has removed
himself from the case and turned over the internal investigation to
Air Force Gen. John A. Gordon, the agency's deputy director.

"General Gordon is reviewing the Rudman report to determine if
additional steps are warranted," CIA spokesman William Harlow said
Saturday.

Any reprimand of Tenet would have to come from Clinton, administration
officials said Saturday. Officials said White House officials were
reviewing the case closely to see whether a public reprimand of Tenet
was warranted.

Aboard Air Force One, carrying Clinton to a weekend in Arkansas, White
House press secretary Joe Lockhart said he knew the report had been
completed, but he has not seen it and would not discuss it.

The Deutch case gained renewed attention with subsequent disclosures
that at least three laptop computers, one with highly classified
material in its memory, disappeared from the State Department. Last
week's "Love Bug" e-mail virus, which infected scores of government
computers, further showed vulnerabilities of government computers.

The CIA said the "ILOVEYOU" virus showed up on fewer than a dozen
computers at the agency, none of which held classified information.
The CIA has two separate computer systems - one secure, one not.

Deutch, who concedes he unintentionally violated security rules, kept
classified CIA documents on home computers that also contained an
America Online account that he and other members of his family
routinely used to connect to the Internet.

Although the Justice Department initially reviewed the matter and
decided not to prosecute Deutch, Attorney General Janet Reno asked for
a new review and named former Justice Department official Paul Coffey
to oversee it.

A message left Saturday at Deutch's office at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, where he is a professor, was not immediately
returned. A woman who answered the telephone at Deutch's home in
Belmont, Mass., referred calls to that office.

The Justice inquiry reflects what top department officials say is
their concern that Deutch be held to the same standards applied to
nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, whom the government charged earlier this
year with mishandling atomic weapons secrets on computers at the Los
Alamos National Laboratory.

After a review in early March, Justice officials requested that the
FBI conduct more interviews, according to a senior Justice official,
who said in effect the criminal investigation was reopened at that
time.

The Rudman panel report covers little new ground, basically repeating
findings by CIA Inspector General L. Britt Snider last year, said
officials familiar with the new report.

The report does focus more criticism on other CIA officials and is
somewhat less critical of Tenet, the officials said.

They said the report asserts that O'Neil, the former CIA general
counsel, refused to turn over to CIA investigators four computer
storage cards that were retrieved from Deutch's Bethesda, Md., home,
and suggested that he was planning to destroy the cards.

O'Neil declined to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee,
citing Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.

O'Neil, a Washington lawyer, left the CIA in 1997. His lawyer in the
matter, Roger Spaeder, has denied "an unlawful cover-up."

Associated Press Writer Michael J. Sniffen contributed to this report.


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