5 September 2001
This was prompted by messages yesterday from James Leusner, a reporter with the Orlando Sentinel, complaining about publication of his name on a "Crowley" list of alleged "CIA sources." Mr. Leusner's messages and Cryptome's responses:
http://cryptome.org/cia-2619-rc.htm#090401
From: NameBase@cs.com
Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 14:11:37 EDT
Subject: More on Crowley list -- okay to post this
To: jya@pipeline.com
September 5, 2001
Dear John Young:
I see that the reverberations regarding the "Crowley list" continue. Here is some more information, for what it is worth.
It is true that James J. Leusner is in NameBase, with one citation listing him as appearing in the 1996 AFIO membership list. However, our annotation for AFIO lists clearly states that some journalists belong to the AFIO. In other words, we are not misrepresenting the nature of the information we provide. Therefore, I do not think that Cryptome's listing of Mr. Leusner is comparable to our listing. At the same time, however, I stand by my earlier statement that you have fulfilled your responsibility by posting all the information at your disposal on the true origin of the "Crowley list."
I was contacted by Willis Carto of Liberty Lobby last March, and had occasion to advise him regarding my suspicions concerning the so-called "Crowley list." Mr. Carto has some sort of relationship with the provider of this list. His publication, The Spotlight, has published other material from this person.
Mr. Carto had access to the original "Crowley list." He sent me three photocopied pages from the original, as well as a sample of the green-bar computer paper. Mr. Carto seemed to be under the impression that the apparent age of the paper helped to validate the source of the list. In my response to Mr. Carto, reproduced below, I enclosed a copy of the 1996 AFIO membership directory and argued that his list was highly suspicious. Mr. Carto thanked me for my trouble, and acknowledged that my analysis was "enlightening."
That was the end of our correspondence. I have no idea what plans Mr. Carto had for the list, or whether he still has plans, or whether my analysis influenced those plans in any way.
-- Daniel Brandt
_______________________________
March 21, 2001
Mr. Willis A. Carto
Liberty Lobby
300 Independence Ave SE
Washington DC 20003
Dear Mr. Carto:
Thank you for the samples from the "Crowley list." This material convinces me that my basic premise -- that the so-called "Crowley list" was lifted from the 1996 AFIO membership directory and padded with about 100 extra names -- is supported by the evidence.
While comparing the pages you sent me with the list, it seems to me that whomever lifted the AFIO names in order to turn it into a "Crowley list" went to a certain amount of trouble:
* I believe the list was first digitized with OCR (optical character recognition). I've done a lot of OCR. The "Ztimbrum" on the Crowley list is a typical OCR mangling of "Zumbrum" (where the "u" on the AFIO list is misinterpreted as "ti"). Another example is apartment number "I18-S" for Mark Zaid. This is a common OCR error, and it is most unlikely that someone keying in the AFIO list manually would make this error.* Next, most of the OCR errors were corrected manually. The surnames were converted to lower case. The # signs were changed to "No" or "No." Some "Jr." were dropped. Some wives living at the same address were dropped. About 100 new names were slipped in. This must have taken one or two days of work. There are a lot of little inconsistencies that show that it was proofread line by line. If it weren't for the errors that appear to be OCR-generated, I'd suspect that the entire thing was re-keyed. Even after OCR, it had to be at least 70 percent rekeyed. The lower-case on the surnames is one reason. Another reason is that OCR typically does poorly on proper names, and on combinations of digits and alpha characters. Frequently, OCR is only useful on prose, where the words tend to appear in a dictionary.
* Finally, it was printed out in a new format. The tab for the address line could have been inserted during the proofreading. The fact that it appears on old paper means nothing -- old computer paper is widely available. It appears that an old daisy wheel printer might have been used. Again, this may only mean that this was the equipment that happened to be conveniently available. It does not serve to date the origin of the names.
My basic premise is that someone (it could have been Crowley himself, for all I know) is using the AFIO names, plus about 100 extra names, to generate a list that is falsely represented as a "list of CIA sources." There are wives, journalists, researchers, and others in AFIO. On page 56, you can see where virtually any U.S. citizen can be an Associate member under Article VI (E). The AFIO directory does not distinguish between full members and associate members.
I feel that the evidence for my premise is so strong, that any other so-called "Crowley documents" from the person who provided this list should be viewed with suspicion.
I've also included some material that I found on the web with respect to the recent strengthening of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. The portions I've included are those that would apply to persons such as John Young of Cryptome, or myself, who publish "lists" and who have never had access to classified information. The words "present or retired" were slipped into the law less than two years ago, attached to the appropriations bill. Porter Goss (R-FL), on the House Intelligence Committee, is a former CIA officer and an AFIO member. It's possible that AFIO lobbied for this change in the law after I rebuffed David Whipple's attempt to get the AFIO names deleted from NameBase. At least the timing is about right, although I could be overestimating the impact my rebuff had.
I've enclosed copies of correspondence I had with David Whipple over the AFIO names that are in NameBase [http://cryptome.org/cia-afio-names.htm]. The 1996 AFIO directory was the last that was published by AFIO and routinely made available to its members. The reason for this, I'm told by inside AFIO sources, is that the names were ending up on the Internet (which goes back to the Whipple correspondence). While I have some support from within AFIO for inserting AFIO names into NameBase, partly because I don't include the addresses in NameBase, John Young has zero support inside AFIO for the manner in which he posted this "Crowley list" and represented it as a "list of CIA sources." Without question, there is pressure from inside AFIO to file a lawsuit. I've also heard from two sources that the FBI was asking questions about how the list got onto the Internet. The FBI's jurisdiction could be the new wording in the law.
Fortunately, the 1982 definition of "covert agent" as one "who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States" means that the prosecution would have to establish that one or more names on the list qualified. Since AFIO members must be retired rather than active, and since John Young posted the list almost five years after the list was generated, he might be okay -- but just barely. (However, there are those other 100 names on the list that Mr. Young posted. Some of those could conceivably be dangerous for Mr. Young's legal position.)
I think you can see from all this that the "Crowley list" at best was misrepresented as a "list of CIA sources," and at worst is part of an operation to either embarrass someone, or set up a media feeding frenzy that could lead to even more restrictive legislation, or to actually set up a situation where John Young or I are forced to defend ourselves legally, thus generating a "chilling effect" that strengthens the 1982 law and effectively weakens the First Amendment. Be careful.
Regards,
Daniel Brandt