Blogs

Leaks, Flubs And Flummoxes

By Hillary Profita

June 23, 2006 / 12:05 PM EDT / CBS News

(AP)

Well, there's been a somewhat ironic turn of events in the Justice Department's investigation of how two San Francisco Chronicle reporters obtained and reported secret testimony from a grand jury investigation into steroid use in baseball. Prosecutors have issued subpoenas that would require San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams to reveal the identity of sources who provided them with transcripts of grand jury testimony, which they later published in The Chronicle.

"About eight pages of a 51-page government brief filed in federal court in San Francisco on Wednesday were electronically blacked out to protect what prosecutors said was sensitive material concerning a grand jury's investigation into steroid use in baseball," wrote The New York Times today.

So where's the irony?

As New York Sun reporter Josh Gerstein discovered first and reported in an article yesterday, "In a technical flub that has flummoxed the Justice Department before, the computer-generated filing yesterday used an ineffective method of blacking out the text of portions not to be released to the public. As a result, the redacted portions could be easily read by copying them into a word processing program."

And Gerstein proceeded to describe the redacted material:

Those portions detail e-mail correspondence between Mr. Fainaru-Wada and the founder of a drug lab implicated in the probe, Victor Conte Jr. According to the filing, Conte broached the possibility of giving the reporter a CD containing grand jury transcripts, but added "Just Kidding." Mr. Fainaru-Wada pursued the possibility and suggested moving the conversation to a "pay phone or cell or even meeting that would provide more comfort." Three days after that exchange in June 2004, the Chronicle published a story detailing testimony about steroid use by a sprinter, Tim Montgomery.

A spokesman for the United States attorney in Los Angeles told The Times: "The electronic filing by the Department of Justice — which appropriately redacted certain material — was not as secure as it should have been. It is an unfortunate error, one that we regret."

Chronicle Editor Phil Bronstein told The Times, "It's a little surprising and ironic in this case in particular, that this information which the government filed is somehow available to the public." Ah well, leaks happen. And so do flubs. The Times notes:

"Mistakes in handling sensitive materials electronically are relatively common. Indeed, the government made a similar mistake once before in the steroids investigation.
In February 2004, prosecutors in San Francisco sent documents to news organizations revealing that Gary Sheffield, a Yankees outfielder, had sent mail to the supplements laboratory at the center of the investigation: the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or Balco. In paper copies of the filings, Mr. Sheffield's name had been blacked out."