Pentagon denies data leak to Hollywood

While addressing the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the Defense Department had been working with award winning director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal, but no “unauthorized information” was leaked.

“We want to make sure that the information that they do use is accurate. And we do assist them with regards to the accuracy of that information,” Panetta said.

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, however, show that the two individuals were provided with unusual access to CIA officials and met top officials such as the head of the Counter Terrorism Center, who is undercover. They were also guided to a room at the CIA headquarters where the officials planned for the bin Laden raid.

Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King had earlier criticized the CIA and Pentagon for jeopardizing national security by cooperating too closely with the filmmakers.

King said the documents, obtained by Judicial Watch last month, revealed that the filmmakers received “extremely close, unprecedented and potentially dangerous collaboration” from the US administration.

The filmmakers were allowed a “visit to a classified facility so secret that its name is redacted in the documents. If this facility is so secret that its name cannot even be seen by the public, why would the [US President Barack] Obama administration allow filmmakers to tour it?” he asked.

King added that the pair also toured the CIA’s vaults “which is absolutely shocking to those of us who know the sensitive nature of materials kept there.”

The Times reported last month that the Pentagon and CIA routinely cooperate with filmmakers working on movies or TV shows that could reflect favorably on the spy agency or the military.

Obama claimed on May 2, 2011 that bin Laden was killed by US forces after he was found hiding in a compound in Pakistan.

SAB/JR/HMV/HJL/IS

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