911 문자메시지 백악관에서 유출됐나 - 미의회 유출경위 조사 착수

911 테러당일의 문자메시지 57만여건 유출되자 미 연방 하원의원이 즉각 진상조사에 나서는가 하면
이 메시지가 백악관에서 유출됐을 것이란 추측이 나오는등 파문이 커지고 있습니다

뉴욕출신의 강경보수파의원인 공화당 피터 킹 의원은 지난달 25일 위키리크를 통해 57만3천여건의 메시지가
유출되자 자신의 보좌관들에게 유출경위에 대한 진상조사를 지시했습니다

미하원 국토안보위원회소속인 피터 킹의원은 일단 백악관 컴퓨터 시스템에 구멍이 뚫리면서
이 정보가 유출됐을 가능성이 가장 크다고 보고 있습니다
his office was currently focused on the White House party crashing

킹의원 보좌관들은 또 이 메시지를 전격 공개한 위키리크에 대해서도 조사를 시도하고 있지만
쉽지는 않을 것으로 보입니다

위키리크의 도메인은 캘리포니아 산 마테오에서 등록됐지만 서버는 스웨덴에 있으며
우편물 주소지는 멜버른대학과 아프리카 케냐의 나이로비로 돼 있습니다

위키리크가 공개한 문자메시지는 지난 2001년 9월11일 911테러당일의 새벽 3시부터 다음닐 새벽 3시까지
24시간동안 SKYTEL등 4개 통신망을 통해 오고간 것으로 모두 57만3천여건에 달합니다

특히 이 메시지에는 백악관 경호실, FBI, 연방위기관리위원회등 국가 중요기관의 메시지가 대부분을 차지하고 있으며
대통령 전용기인 미공군 1호기의 상황, 부시 대통령 딸들의 안전여부등이 모두 노출됐습니다

또 911테러가 발생한지 4시간이 지난 낮 12시 37분에도 연방위기관리위원회가 '아직 임무를 부여받지
못했다'는 문자메시지를 주고 받음으로써 국가위기관리체제에 큰 구멍이 뚫렸음도 드러났습니다

이외에도 10여분간 샌프란시스코로 향하던 대한항공 여객기가 납치됐다는 정보가 연방항공국을 통해 입수돼
백악관 경호팀이 초긴장했던 사실도 밝혀졌습니다

당시 미 재무부 장관이 일본 동경에 머물고 있었으며 오후1시를 전후해 백악관 경호팀이 이들에게
연락을 취하는 과정에서 재무부 장관의 호텔 룸넘버가 알려졌고 '조 클랜시'라는 고위 경호책임자 정보도
유출됐습니다

위키리크는 지난 2007년초 열린 정부를 지향하며 세계 각국의 반체제 인사와 수학자, 암호전문가등이
창설한 단체로 세계 각국 정부와 기업의 기밀정보를 공개함으로써 부패를 방지하고 사회적 부정에 맞서는
단체입니다

특히 기밀문건제공자의 신원 노출을 막기 위해 최첨단의 암호기법을 통해 문서를 제공할 수 있는 시스템을
마련해 두고 있습니다
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Congress May Probe WikiLeaks Over 9/11 Pages

(CBS)The senior Republican on the House Homeland Security committee has begun an investigation into how the WikiLeaks.org Web site obtained thousands of pager messages from September 11, 2001.

Rep. Peter King, who represents a congressional district east of New York City on Long Island, has directed his staff to look into last week's release of about 573,000 lines of messages sent to pagers on that day. The logs included Secret Service, FEMA, FBI, and private sector messages.

"The staff is in a preliminary investigation period," Kevin Fogarty, an aide to King, told CBSNews.com on Tuesday. He said that his office was currently focused on the White House party crashing, and would return to the WikiLeaks disclosure after a hearing on the White House breach scheduled for Thursday.

WikiLeaks did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some of the disclosed pager messages appear to show a less-than organized response from federal agencies. The Secret Service was deluged with alerts both true and false. One internal FEMA message at 12:37 p.m. ET, four hours after the attacks, says: "We have no mission statements yet."

It's not clear how far a congressional investigation into WikiLeaks, even if it becomes formalized, can go. Although the organization's domain name is registered through a San Mateo, Calif.-based company, the Web site is hosted in Sweden at an Internet provider known for once providing a home to The Pirate Bay.

In addition, the principals of WikiLeaks remain anonymous, and were not unmasked during the admittedly-brief lawsuit filed last year by a Swiss bank upset that some of its internal documents had been leaked. If congressional investigators can secure international cooperation, they could try to unearth which people are linked with WikiLeaks postal addresses at the University of Melbourne and Nairobi, Kenya.

To be sure, there's some embarrassment for the U.S. government after the logs apparently revealed that the Secret Service's presidential protective detail used unencrypted pagers for sensitive communications about the location of Air Force One and threats against President Bush -- even though news reports four years earlier had revealed that a hacker intercepted the unencrypted pager messages of President Clinton's entourage.

But there's also a federal law, 18 USC 2511(c), that criminally punishes anyone who "intentionally discloses, or endeavors to disclose, to any other person the contents of any wire, oral, or electronic communication, knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through the interception of a wire, oral, or electronic communication in violation of this subsection." (Emphasis added.) Violators are punished with fines and up to five years in prison.

Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. points out that a 2001 Supreme Court case called Bartnicki v. Vopper dealt with illegally intercepted broadcasts and found that their disclosure by a third party was permissible. The majority opinion said that the third party "played no part in the illegal interception. Rather, they found out about the interception only after it occurred... their access to the information on the tapes was obtained lawfully, even though the information itself was intercepted unlawfully by someone else."

"Wikileaks would have a good First Amendment defense," Rotenberg says.

To point out the obvious: A congressional investigation is one thing; there are no reports of a criminal investigation of WikiLeaks. Its armor of anonymity has survived other legal assaults in the past. Then again, it has never irked certain federal law enforcement agencies and members of Congress so thoroughly either.