illegal activity and security bungling all in one

Secret call log in spying challenge mistakenly released.

A “top secret” document containing a “log of calls intercepted between an Islamic charity and its American lawyers” is at the heart of “the strongest case against the Bush administration’s warrantless eavesdropping program.” AP reports today though that the government has accidentally released it:

In 2004, as the Treasury Department was considering whether to include the group on its list of terrorist organizations, Al-Haramain’s Washington lawyer, Lynne Bernabei, asked to see the evidence.

That’s when, in a case of bureaucratic bungling, Treasury officials mistakenly handed over the call log — which has the words “top secret” stamped on every page — along with press clippings and other unclassified documents deemed relevant to the case.

Six weeks later, the FBI was dispatched to Bernabei’s office to retrieve it. But by then she had passed out copies to five other lawyers, a Washington Post reporter and two Al-Haramain directors.

(Think Progress)