Pentagon memo reveals bugging

When the Bush administration took over the Pentagon’s beleaguered inspector general office in 2002, officials found something startling: The director’s office, at some point, had been electronically bugged.

Sorting out why the listening device was inside the walls of the office, with a cord leading to another office, is just one issue that had to be addressed by Joseph E. Schmitz, President Bush’s pick three years ago to be the Defense Department’s top cop.

A Naval Academy graduate and civil litigation lawyer, Mr. Schmitz was tapped to run the office responsible for investigating million-dollar fraud in the far-flung defense industry and criminal misconduct by senior Defense Department employees.

His nomination delayed by Senate Democrats, Mr. Schmitz finally came on board a year into the Bush administration. He set out to right a ship dogged by charges of corruption and cronyism.

But he also had to deal with an electronic bug apparently left over from eight years of the Clinton administration.

An internal “info memo,” a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, was written by a staffer in Mr. Schmitz’s office:

“On June 19, 2002, during a routine meeting with the director of security for the Department of Defense, it was reported to my staff and me that a potential ‘listening device’ was previously discovered in the infrastructure of DoDIG.

“The DoD directorate of security conducted a routine sweep for electronic listening devices in certain areas of the ninth and tenth floors of the DoDIG on Aug. 7, 2000. The sweep revealed that a wire had been installed inside the wall structure leading to and from the ninth and tenth floors of the DoDIG (areas which comprise the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the personal office space of the inspector general).”

And there was another touchy issue for Mr. Schmitz.

A second series of internal memos from his staff showed that a Muslim who was employed as an auditor and granted a “top-secret” security clearance was not an American citizen.

“He possesses a Social Security number tied to multiple confirmed aliases,” a May 2002 memo said. Another paper said, “Using the improper granted interim clearance, [the employee] visited numerous installations where he had access to sensitive information. … The Department of Justice Joint Terrorism Task Force is currently considering a criminal investigation into this matter.”

The Times faxed copies of the memos to Mr. Schmitz’s office for comment.

John R. Crane, his spokesman, responded in an e-mail: “Both matters contained in your fax … have been addressed and resolved.”

“The memos provided contain information that is not releasable to you. In particular, the Privacy Act protects the personal information contained in one of the memos,” he continued. “I would note that DoD [regulations] state ‘unauthorized disclosure of … information that is protected by the Privacy Act may also result in civil and criminal sanctions against responsible persons.’ ”

A U.S. official later said the employee in question had resigned.

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