Washingtonpost.com reports:
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.
No, that's not news. But if you read on you find some nuggets:
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....
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 disclosure involved two messages that were intercepted by the National Security Agency on the eve of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but were not translated until Sept. 12. The Arabic-language messages said "The match is about to begin" and "Tomorrow is zero hour." The Washington Post, citing senior U.S. intelligence officials, reported the same messages in its June 20, 2002, editions.
National security officials were outraged by the leak, and moments after the CNN broadcast a CIA official chastised committee members who had by then reconvened to continue the closed-door hearing....
Emphasis added by me to underscore an important difference -- at least in this case -- between Fox News, on the one hand, and CNN and
The Washington Post, on the other. The First Amendment protects the press from censorship, but it doesn't ban self-censorship.
