Web Site Posts Secret CIA Papers
AP Online
Story Filed: Sunday, July 23, 2000 9:01 AM EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A private Web site has published a secret CIA
overview of the U.S. intelligence community prepared for Japanese
intelligence officials who visited the agency's headquarters in
1998.
The briefing containing information on the CIA's budgets and
personnel trends was posted by John Young, 64, a New York City
architect whose Web site has displayed government documents on
intelligence and encryption issues since 1996.
Last month, Young published an unedited version of a secret
history of the 1953 CIA-mastered coup in Iran that was originally
published on The New York Times Web site with portions blacked out.
Young said he received the 1998 CIA briefing by e-mail from an
anonymous source in Japan.
``We have a standing invitation for anyone who wants to have
something published that governments don't want published,'' Young
said Saturday in an interview, noting that he does not verify the
authenticity of what he publishes. ``We put it up and let people
tell us if it's a spoof or if it's genuine.''
CIA spokesman Bill Harlow wouldn't comment on the documents, but
an unnamed senior intelligence official quoted in The Washington
Post's Sunday editions said official visitors from the Japanese
agency were authorized to receive the secret briefing at CIA
headquarters in June 1998.
``Public disclosure of that information is troubling,'' the
official said. ``In terms of the information (in the briefing), it
is not insignificant. We're always concerned when classified
information is disclosed publicly.''
The CIA briefing materials, described as presented by Charles E.
Allen, the assistant director of central intelligence for
collection, say that the number of people working for the National
Foreign Intelligence Program, encompassing all civilian and
military foreign intelligence activity, fell by more than 20
percent -- 20,559 employees -- between 1991 and 1998.
Allen's calling card, including his home telephone number, is
part of the materials. Allen could not be reached immediately for
comment.
Young has also posted a file obtained from the same source that
shows the names, birth dates and titles of hundreds of employees of
Japan's equivalent of the FBI, the Public Security Investigation
Agency.
Young said he was contacted Thursday by two FBI agents from the
New York field office who passed along a request from the Japanese
Ministry of Justice that he remove the lists of agents from his
site. Young said he refused the request and was told to expect
direct contact from the Japanese government.
FBI headquarters spokeswoman Julie Miller said she wasn't
familiar with Young or his Web site. James Margolin, FBI spokesman
for the New York office, was not immediately available for comment.
Ichiro Shinjo, head of the General Affairs Department of Japan's
Public Security Investigation Agency, was quoted by the Post as
saying the Japanese government believes the source of the materials
is an agency employee who resigned under pressure in December 1998.
