Confidential Fbi Report Faxed To Wrong Place

Militia-linked terrorists may be plotting to bomb government agencies in several cities, including Spokane, during the coming holiday season.

You’ll never guess how I became privy to such shocking news.

Someone in an out-of-state FBI office dialed a wrong number and sent an 11-page classified report over the fax wires to a Spokane man who peddles movie posters.

The highly detailed document, which bears the FBI logo and is marked “confidential,” was intended to alert field agents scattered throughout the West.

That the security of the nation’s top law enforcement organization could be so easily compromised has embarrassed and alarmed FBI officials. They are examining ways to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.

“At first I thought somebody had sent me a screenplay,” says Eric DuBois, 52, who runs Hollywood Sunset Posters in Spokane. “The more I read the more I started thinking, ‘I probably shouldn’t be reading this.”’

What fell into DuBois’ lap has all the ingredients to make one thriller of a script. Based on the allegations of an informant, the report names radicals who have allegedly stockpiled assault rifles and handguns as well as explosives.

Not wishing to blow the FBI’s investigation, I’m being vague about names, places and other facts included in the papers.

It’s also important to note that the report is raw data, meaning the information has yet to be confirmed or denied. Yet the report is filled with such specifics that it is hard not to take seriously.

Two pages actually show hand-drawn maps of where contraband is supposedly stored.

That this ended up in civilian hands has rocked the bureau, says Burdena Pasenelli, who directs the FBI for the Northwest region. “It is alarming,” she says. “It raises a great deal of concern. … That fax should have never gone to that machine.”

Aside from the obvious implications about public safety, this also raises serious questions about FBI procedure. It’s almost beyond imagination that something like this could happen thanks to a couple of misdialed digits.

“We’re sitting here thinking the same thing,” Pasenelli says.

DuBois found the amazing bundle of papers stacked in the tray of his fax machine sometime on the evening of Oct. 9. “It packs a wallop when you start reading something like this,” he says.

The revelation of possible anti-government terrorists and bomb plots made the businessman nervous enough to take a few days off to go fishing.

He called the FBI before he left. The agency had no idea any of their sensitive material had been waylaid.

When DuBois returned, he delivered the original to a downtown FBI office. Nobody ever called to say thank you.

That’s all right. DuBois kept a copy. After mulling his situation over, he brought it to the newspaper and gave me a look.

“It poses a threat to the well-being of our community to not put this out,” he reasons. “I’m beginning to think my local law enforcement agencies provide me more security than the FBI.”

Living in the Information Age can have dark consequences.

Everyone has fallen in love with the high-tech ease of beaming data like a Star Trek transporter with the punch of a button or two.

But the trade-off for convenience is a loss of control.

Can anyone ever be sure where their information goes?

Or who is looking at it?

I thought FBI agents relied on sophisticated codes and scramblers, but maybe that’s just in the movies.

DuBois might consider making a screenplay out of this after all.

“I’d probably go to Oliver Stone,” the owner of Hollywood Sunset Posters says. “He’d run away with something like this.”

, DataTimes