(This is an older article, but it highlighter how a dormant/dead bug
can go undetected for quite some time. -jma)
Pentagon memo reveals bugging
By Rowan Scarborough
WASHINGTON TIMES
Published July 26, 2004
When the Bush administration took over the Pentagon's beleaguered inspector
general office in 2002, officials found something startling: The director's
office, at some point, had been electronically bugged.
Sorting out why the listening device was inside the walls of the office,
with a cord leading to another office, is just one issue that had to be
addressed by Joseph E. Schmitz, President Bush's pick three years ago to be
the Defense Department's top cop.
A Naval Academy graduate and civil litigation lawyer, Mr. Schmitz was
tapped to run the office responsible for investigating million-dollar fraud
in the far-flung defense industry and criminal misconduct by senior Defense
Department employees.
His nomination delayed by Senate Democrats, Mr. Schmitz finally came on
board a year into the Bush administration. He set out to right a ship dogged
by charges of corruption and cronyism.
But he also had to deal with an electronic bug apparently left over from
eight years of the Clinton administration.
An internal "info memo," a copy of which was obtained by The Washington
Times, was written by a staffer in Mr. Schmitz's office:
"On June 19, 2002, during a routine meeting with the director of
security for the Department of Defense, it was reported to my staff and me
that a potential 'listening device' was previously discovered in the
infrastructure of DoDIG.
"The DoD directorate of security conducted a routine sweep for
electronic listening devices in certain areas of the ninth and tenth floors
of the DoDIG on Aug. 7, 2000. The sweep revealed that a wire had been
installed inside the wall structure leading to and from the ninth and tenth
floors of the DoDIG (areas which comprise the Defense Criminal Investigative
Service and the personal office space of the inspector general)."
And there was another touchy issue for Mr. Schmitz.
A second series of internal memos from his staff showed that a Muslim
who was employed as an auditor and granted a "top-secret" security clearance
was not an American citizen.
"He possesses a Social Security number tied to multiple confirmed
aliases," a May 2002 memo said. Another paper said, "Using the improper
granted interim clearance, [the employee] visited numerous installations
where he had access to sensitive information. ... The Department of Justice
Joint Terrorism Task Force is currently considering a criminal investigation
into this matter."
The Times faxed copies of the memos to Mr. Schmitz's office for comment.
John R. Crane, his spokesman, responded in an e-mail: "Both matters
contained in your fax ... have been addressed and resolved."
"The memos provided contain information that is not releasable to you.
In particular, the Privacy Act protects the personal information contained
in one of the memos," he continued. "I would note that DoD [regulations]
state 'unauthorized disclosure of ... information that is protected by the
Privacy Act may also result in civil and criminal sanctions against
responsible persons.' "
A U.S. official later said the employee in question had resigned.
On the bugging issue, this official said, "No one knows who was spying
on who. They just removed it."
Mr. Schmitz's biggest public headache was corruption inside an agency
that is supposed to be a model for weeding out fraud.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican and a longtime investigator of
Defense Department wrongdoing, conducted an investigation that highlighted
an inspector general office that falsified its investigative reports and
fabricated witness statements in at least two investigations in the
mid-1990s.
Mr. Schmitz, a former aide to Attorney General Edwin Meese III in the
Reagan presidency, did not take office until the second year of the Bush
era, because Democrats leery of his conservative credentials delayed a final
confirmation vote.
He inherited a bureaucracy of auditors and investigators that
Republicans think is more loyal to Democrats than to their party.
But Mr. Schmitz appears to have overcome objections by vigorously
investigating corporate fraud, while bringing in an independent assessment
team to proposed reforms.
"No member of the team has seen an organization, civil or military,
manned by so many talented people, so ill-served by its senior leadership,"
the assessment team subsequently reported.
A government official who has worked with Mr. Schmitz said, "He
inherited a total mess and did a ... good job of turning that sinking ship
around. He reorganized in order to eliminate offices that had demonstrated a
refusal to operate as a unified team. He empowered and motivated midlevel
and lower-level folks and brought back an esprit de corps the agency hadn't
had in nearly a decade."
In early June, Mr. Schmitz traveled to Iraq to advise the new government
on how to set up a system of inspectors general to play watchdog.
"I have a high level of hope," the Pentagon quoted him as saying. "The
issue isn't whether these folks want to do it. They clearly want to do it.
They want to go through the transition; they want to assume a sense of the
rule of law. But it's going to be hard. It's going to take time. It might
take a generation.
"They are scared for their professional success ... and they are
physically scared for their own lives and their families' lives," he said.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040726-122303-7795r.htm
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Received on Sat Mar 02 2024 - 00:57:20 CST