THERE'S SOME ENEMY FIRE FOR YA:

As the Swift Boat saga continued in Washington, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a Freedom of Information Act Request (FOIA) with the White House asking it to detail its contacts with individuals connected to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. CREW asked the White House to release information regarding contacts between the Executive Office of the President and: any member of SBVT and several SBVT donors, including Harlan Crow, Bob J. Perry and Paraclete Armor & Equipment. The White House has claimed no involvement with SBVT or the group's antiKerry campaign ads, a claim undermined by recent revelations that Mr. Cordier, who appears in one of SBVT's advertisements was on the Bush campaign's veterans steering committee at the time he made the ad, and by the fact that a Kerry campaign volunteer picked up a flier for SBVT at the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign offices in Gainesville, Florida.

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PRESS FREEDOM WEAKENING? A ruling last week ordering a reporter for Time magazine to jail for contempt and a subpoena later issued to a reporter for The New York Times in the same case are the latest examples in what legal experts characterize as an ominous trend for journalists: the weakening of fundamental protections for the gathering and publishing of news that had been generally viewed as settled since the Watergate era

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ANTITERROR, IRAQ, ETC.IRONY DEPARTMENT: Federal investigators concluded that Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) divulged classified intercepted messages to the media when he was on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, according to sources familiar with the probe.Specifically, Fox News chief political correspondent Carl Cameron confirmed to FBI investigators that Shelby verbally divulged the information to him during a June 19, 2002, interview, minutes after Shelby's committee had been given the information in a classified briefing, according to the sources, who declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the case.Cameron did not air the material. Moments after Shelby spoke with Cameron, he met with CNN reporter Dana Bash, and about half an hour after that, CNN broadcast the material, the sources said. CNN cited "two congressional sources" in its report.The FBI and the U.S. attorney's office pursued the case, and a grand jury was empaneled, but nobody has been charged with any crime. Last month it was revealed that the Justice Department had decided to forgo a criminal prosecution, at least for now, and turned the matter over to the Senate Ethics Committee

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HABEAS CORPUS LAWSUIT UNDERWAY: People For the American Way Foundation (PFAWF), a national civil rights and constitutional liberties organization, and the firm of Arnold & Porter have filed suit against the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) seeking the release of redacted DOJ records relating to secret court proceedings against post-9-11 detainees.PFAWF hopes that release of these records will help determine the extent to which the DOJ has taken the highly unusual step of trying to seal habeas corpus cases of detainees who challenge the legality of their detentions. Habeas corpus cases, used to determine whether or not a person is imprisoned lawfully, are traditionally open to public scrutiny.PFAWF's inquiry was prompted by the case of Mohamed Kamel Bellahouel, one of hundreds of Middle Eastern men detained by DOJ after the 9-11 attacks. After being released without being charged with any terrorism related crimes, Bellahouel brought a habeas corpus case challenging the constitutionality of his detention. The government sought and obtained a secrecy order that sealed all filings, making even the existence of his case a secret. Bellahouel's case, M.K.B v. Warden, only came to light due to a clerical error at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals when the case was briefly listed on the public docket.

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