http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0419anderson-papers0419.html
FBI seeking muckraking columnist Jack Anderson's papers
Nick Timiraos Los Angeles Times Apr. 19, 2006 12:00 AM
WASHINGTON - Jack Anderson turned up plenty of government secrets during his half-century career as an investigative reporter, and his family hoped to make his papers available to the public after his death last December, but the government wants to see and possibly confiscate them first.
The FBI believes that the columnist's files may contain national-security secrets, including documents that would aid in the prosecution of two former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, who have been charged with disclosing classified information.
Lawyers for the family are preparing a letter refusing to comply with the FBI, said the columnist's son, Kevin N. Anderson.
"He would absolutely oppose the FBI rifling through his papers at will," Anderson said.
While some of the documents may be classified, he said, they do not contain national-security secrets, only "embarrassing top secrets - hammers that cost a thousand dollars and things like that."
Anderson said it was unlikely his father had papers relevant to the AIPAC case, since he had done little original reporting after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1990.
The FBI contends that classified documents belong to the government and cannot be retained as part of a private estate.
"The U.S. government has reasonable concern over the prospect that these documents will be made available to the public at the risk of national security and in violation of the law," FBI spokesman Bill Carter said Tuesday.
Anderson said the FBI would remove anything that was classified from the papers, which have not been cataloged. Confiscated documents would then be reviewed by the originating federal agency before being declassified and returned to the family, which has promised the papers to the George Washington University.
The FBI's attempt to seize papers of the Washington muckraker, first reported Tuesday by the Chronicle of Higher Education, comes as civil libertarians have decried growing limits on freedom of information since the Sept. 11 attacks. It also follows Monday's announcement by the National Archives that it would end agreements with federal agencies that want to withdraw records from public shelves.
Mark Feldstein, a journalism professor at George Washington University and Anderson's biographer, said he felt "intimidated" after two FBI agents showed up at his house.
"It smacks of a Gestapo state," said Feldstein, who spent 20 years as an investigative reporter and producer for ABC, NBC and CNN.