by Steven Emerson
To the Editor of Haaretz,
You published an attack
on me and my reporting without providing a shred of evidence to back up
your assertions. My Israeli lawyer sent this letter to you more than 24
hours ago, but no response has been received. I repeat my question: Do
you have the intellectual guts or honesty to publish such a letter? The
answer appears to be no. And that should tell your readers volumes about
your intellectual honesty or lack thereof.
In uncritically publishing the statement of senior U.S. officials criticizing my article regarding
the retraction of the U.S. Government's offer to help in the search for
Oron Shaul, the IDF soldier taken by Hamas, Haaretz has proven its
manifest left-wing political agenda. That a newspaper that is championed
and promoted so many times by Hamas and its terrorist front groups in
the West devotes such a lengthy portion of its article to attacking me
is not a coincidence.
In relying on the
unsubstantiated reporting of ideologically biased commentators, and by
judging me guilty merely by association with others who the author
detests, the Haaretz article ironically reveals your unprofessional
journalistic bias rather than mine. The article's author, of course,
brings not one iota of evidence for what he claims I believe or do.
It is clear that
Haaretz used this reporting in an attempt to further its political
agenda, especially in its longstanding vendetta against Sheldon Adelson.
Haaretz may disagree with Mr. Adelson's policies but it is not entitled
to change the facts. Facts, as they say, are stubborn things. And in
contrast to Haaretz, at least Mr. Adelson does not support groups like
Hamas.
It is also rather
strange that a newspaper like Haaretz that prides itself on routinely
challenging the facts presented by the Israeli Government now suddenly
uncritically champions a narrative put out by the U.S. Government, which
has experienced its own severe credibility problems of late.
If the Haaretz author
had done his homework, he would have seen that I am not a "right wing
Republican." I have written critical articles about President Obama, but
I did the same for President George Bush when I thought it necessary.
Further, my investigative reporting has been praised by the entire
political spectrum from the Left to the Right, in addition to having
been awarded numerous prestigious journalistic awards.
In my original article
from last Friday, I reported that after IDF Staff Sgt. Oron Shaul was
reported missing and suspected to have been kidnapped on July 20, Israel
reached out to the U.S. Government for assistance in getting private
internet server information on Shaul's Facebook page, which Hamas had
hacked into. In turn, the FBI contacted a United States Attorney's
Office in a nearby district to initiate the legal process to get a court
order to serve Facebook for server information on the account belonging
to the soldier.
"Due to HAMAS status as
a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO), there is a great effort to
locate those who kidnapped and/or killed ORON," read an FBI email to the
U.S. Attorney's Office.
"HAMAS is already using the kidnapping as
propaganda, which is material support to a DTO."
In their email, the FBI
noted there was unusual activity on Shaul's Facebook account after his
kidnapping and said it needed more information from Facebook that it
could only obtain with a court order. Shortly thereafter, the U.S.
Attorney's Office replied that it was ready to obtain a court order, but
before it could do so, it needed specific information on Shaul's
Facebook account that it could present to the judge.
In fact, I have since
learned that in their original request, the FBI also noted that they had
served Facebook with a "2702 request"-- a government order that
authorizes internet service providers to provide limited information to
the government without a court order under emergency conditions. But the
FBI noted that the limited information provided by Facebook to the FBI
under the "2702 request" was not useful in the search for the missing
Israeli soldier. So the FBI stated that it needed to obtain a court
order from the U.S. Attorney's office that contained a "2703D order" --
which is a government order mandating Facebook (or any other internet
service provider) disclose all records pertaining to a specific account
referenced in the court order.
Prosecutors determined
that they could in fact legally and quickly obtain a court order, and
sent emails saying so at noon on July 21.
Only at 5 p.m. on July
21 did the FBI respond to the U.S. Attorney's Office. In their email,
FBI agents revealed that they were told to stand down, that their
request had been over-ridden, and that permission was withdrawn from
them to seek a court order. In other words, the rug was inexplicably
pulled out from underneath them in their valiant efforts -- and they
made no bones in expressing their deep and unabiding frustration with
the decision.
Their email did not
explain why their request had suddenly been denied. Nor did they explain
who made this decision. Nor did they explain when this decision had
been made.
A former assistant FBI
director for counter-terrorism has said that such a decision to revoke
the authority for this request, "could only have come from or through
the senior management levels of the FBI or the Attorney General's Office
or higher."
In light of this
evidence, the statement of a "senior U.S. official" in Tel Aviv that the
U.S. Government had provided "useful" information to the Israelis on
the social media account of Oron Shaul was not correct. The initial
information that was provided to the Israelis was deemed not in fact
"useful," which is why the FBI had turned to the U.S. Attorney's office
to seek a court order to compel Facebook to reveal all data associated
with the Israeli soldier's account. But that, of course, never happened.
The questions still
remain "why and who revoked the authority to seek a court order to
obtain the Facebook information on the missing Israeli soldier?"
Congress should begin to probe this mystery. Perhaps we will soon learn
the answers.
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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