Web site publishes secret CIA briefing papers

WASHINGTON - A private Web site has published a secret CIA overview of the U.S. intelligence community prepared for Japanese intelligence officials who visited the agency's headquarters in 1998.

The briefing containing information on the CIA's budgets and personnel trends was posted by John Young, 64, a New York City architect whose Web site has displayed government documents on intelligence and encryption issues since 1996.

Last month, Young published an unedited version of a secret history of the 1953 CIA-mastered coup in Iran that was originally published on The New York Times Web site with portions blacked out.

Young said he received the 1998 CIA briefing by e-mail from an anonymous source in Japan.

''We have a standing invitation for anyone who wants to have something published that governments don't want published,'' Young said Saturday in an interview, noting that he does not verify the authenticity of what he publishes. ''We put it up and let people tell us if it's a spoof or if it's genuine.''

CIA spokesman Bill Harlow wouldn't comment on the documents, but an unnamed senior intelligence official quoted in The Washington Post's Sunday editions said official visitors from the Japanese agency were authorized to receive the secret briefing at CIA headquarters in June 1998.

''Public disclosure of that information is troubling,'' the official said. ''In terms of the information (in the briefing), it is not insignificant. We're always concerned when classified information is disclosed publicly.''

The CIA briefing materials, described as presented by Charles E. Allen, the assistant director of central intelligence for collection, say that the number of people working for the National Foreign Intelligence Program, encompassing all civilian and military foreign intelligence activity, fell by more than 20 percent - 20,559 employees - between 1991 and 1998.

Allen's calling card, including his home telephone number, is part of the materials. Allen could not be reached immediately for comment.

Young has also posted a file obtained from the same source that shows the names, birth dates and titles of hundreds of employees of Japan's equivalent of the FBI, the Public Security Investigation Agency.

Young said he was contacted Thursday by two FBI agents from the New York field office who passed along a request from the Japanese Ministry of Justice that he remove the lists of agents from his site. Young said he refused the request and was told to expect direct contact from the Japanese government.

FBI headquarters spokeswoman Julie Miller said she wasn't familiar with Young or his Web site. James Margolin, FBI spokesman for the New York office, was not immediately available for comment.

Ichiro Shinjo, head of the General Affairs Department of Japan's Public Security Investigation Agency, was quoted by the Post as saying the Japanese government believes the source of the materials is an agency employee who resigned under pressure in December 1998.

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On the Net:

Central Intelligence Agency: http://www.cia.gov

Federal Bureau of Investigation: http://www.fbi.gov

Japan's Ministry of Justice: http://www.moj.go.jp/ENGLISH/preface.htm

Japan's Public Security Investigation Agency: http://www.moj.go.jp/ENGLISH/PSIA/psia-01.htm