DoD investigates leaks for bin Laden film

DoD investigates leaks for bin Laden film
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jan 5, 2012 12:55:11 EST
The Defense Department is investigating whether classified information was improperly provided to a filmmaker working on a movie about death of Osama bin Laden, and the Central Intelligence Agency is changing its procedures for working on similar projects in the future.

The action comes in response to complaints made in August by Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, that movie director Kathryn Bigelow, screenwriter Mark Boal and Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. may have had access to highly classified material to help produce a film on the May 2011 raid by a Navy SEAL team of a compound in Pakistan where the al-Qaida leader was hiding.

King expressed concern in a letter to DoD and CIA that granting access to classified information would endanger future missions, and that the expected October 2012 release of the film about the raid raises questions about whether the timing is politically motivated to help Obama get re-elected.

Bigelow and Boal, who worked together on the 2008 film “The Hurt Locker,” about an Army bomb disposal unit in Iraq, were working on a film about the hunt for the terrorist leader before the May raid that led to bin Laden’s death. The two have been working with DoD and CIA to get more information to finish the film, but it is not clear if they received classified information.
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