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Banned
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Snooze on folks....enjoy your holidays. Next year at this time, maybe you'll be wondering how republicans polled so poorly but still "won" the 2008 presidential election, or if the latest terror threat jusitifies demands by Bush/Cheney for an indefinite "term extension". Don't worry about any of that now, enjoy the holidays, post on the "6 questions" thread about advocacy for the death penalty (without fully considering who is of an integrity high enough to entrust to determine guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.) and your belief that taxes are not for balancing wealth distribution, even though politics are exclusively about distribution of wealth and power, because the alternative, is, and has always been, violence!
Quote:
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'
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Snooze on, nothing to see here......
Quote:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/...bbit_hole.html
When it comes to surveillance and the treatment of classified information, President Bush is making up the rules as he goes along
Marcy Wheeler
December 26, 2007 7:00 PM
....The executive order governing surveillance may not be the only one that Bush has modified without revealing he has done so. It appears that Bush has also <a href="http://www.fas.org/sgp/bush/eoamend.html">modified</a> the executive order governing the treatment of classified information from its plain text meaning.
That particular executive order is one that the office of the vice president (OVP) seemed to be violating for years. Starting in 2003, OVP refused to reveal its classification and declassification activities, as the order required. And when the National Archives came to inspect OVP's classification procedures in 2004, OVP staffers refused to let the inspection take place. Finally, Bill Leonard, who as the head of the information security oversight office is the person in charge of reporting on classified materials, <a href="http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20070621094929.pdf">appealed</a> to the department of justice for guidance. For six months, Leonard got no response. It wasn't until Congress threatened to withdraw funding from Cheney's office that the administration <a href="http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/files/28/files//2007/12/eos-7-12-07-sen-brownback.pdf">bothered to inform anyone</a> that the executive order didn't mean what it appeared to mean. "The president has asked me to confirm to you that ... the office of the vice president, like the president's office, is not an 'agency' for the purposes of the order." And even then, they only <a href="http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/files/28/files//2007/12/eos-7-20-07-doj-to-leonard.pdf">informed Leonard indirectly</a>. As Leonard describes it: <h3>"I was told that the order meant something other than what I (and others) thought a plain text reading would indicate, especially in the context in which it was originally developed."</h3>
This is the stuff of <a href="http://sundials.org/about/humpty.htm">Alice in Wonderland</a> or <a href="http://www.simplych.com/cb_rules.htm">Calvinball</a>, in which cartoonish figures can simply change the rules mid-game. "'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less." "Any player may declare a new rule at any point in the game ... The player may do this audibly or silently depending on what zone ... the player is in." Only in this case, the rules the cartoonish figure keeps changing have very real consequences - affecting our civil rights and our ability to keep classified information secure.
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Quote:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81883/output/print
Challenging Cheney
A National Archives official reveals what the veep wanted to keep classified--and how he tried to challenge the rules
By Michael Isikoff
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 12:57 PM ET Dec 24, 2007
J. William Leonard learned the hard way the perils of questioning Vice President Dick Cheney. The veteran National Archives official challenged claims by the Office of Vice President (OVP) to be exempt from federal rules governing classified information. His efforts touched off a firestorm—and a counter-strike by Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington, who tried to wipe out Leonard's job. (Addington did not respond to requests for comment on the subject.)
Now, Leonard is quitting as director of the Archives' Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO)—the unit that monitors the handling of government secrets. He tells NEWSWEEK that his fight with Cheney's office was a "contributing" factor in his decision to retire after 34 years of government service.
Leonard-described by National Archivist Allen Weinstein as "the gold standard of information specialists in the federal government"-spoke to NEWSWEEK's Michael Isikoff. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: Explain how all this happened.
Leonard: Up until 2002, OVP was just like any other agency. Subsequent to that, they stopped reporting to us…At first, I took that to be, 'we're too busy.' Then we routinely attempted to do a review of the OVP and it was at that point in time it was articulated back to me that: 'well they weren't really subject to our reviews.' I didn't agree with it. But you know, there is a big fence around the White House. I didn't know how I could get in there if somebody didn't want me to.
So how did matters escalate?
The challenge arose last year when the Chicago Tribune was looking at [ISOO's annual report] and saw the asterisk [reporting that it contained no information from OVP] and decided to follow up. And that's when the spokesperson from the OVP made public this idea that because they have both legislative and executive functions, that requirement doesn't apply to them.…They were saying the basic rules didn't apply to them. I thought that was a rather remarkable position. So I wrote my letter to the Attorney General [asking for a ruling that Cheney's office had to comply.] <h3>Then it was shortly after that there were [email] recommendations [from OVP to a National Security Council task force] to change the executive order that would effectively abolish [my] office.
Who wrote the emails?
It was David Addington.</h3>
No explanation was offered?
No. It was strike this, strike that. Anyplace you saw the words, "the director of ISOO" or "ISOO" it was struck.
What was your reaction?
I was disappointed that rather than engage on the substance of an issue, some people would resort to that…
<h3>What rules were they saying didn't apply to them?
The ones that tell you how you mark [classified documents], how you declassify, how you safeguard them, how you store…</h3>
Ultimately, the White House said the president never intended that the vice president would have to comply. This had to have been frustrating -to have been publicly thwarted for doing what you saw as your job?
Well, you know, that I've had 34 years of frustration. That's life in the big city. I also accept that I'm not always right….But this was a big thing as far as I was concerned.
A number of people have noted that the vice president's office stopped reporting to you and complying with ISOO in the fall of 2003 when the whole Valerie Plame case blew up. Do you think there was a connection?
I don't have any insight. I was held at arms length [from that.] But some of the things based on what I've read [have] given me cause for concern. A number of prosecution exhibits [in the Plame-related perjury trial of I. Scooter Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff] were annotated, 'handle as SCI.' SCI is Sensitive Compartmentalized Information, the most sensitive classified information there is. As I recall, [one of them] was [the vice president and his staff] were coming back from Norfolk where they had attended a ship commissioning and they were conferring on the plane about coming up with a [media] response plan [to the allegations of Plame's husband, Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson.] <h3>That was one of the exhibits marked, 'handle as SCI.'</h3>
These were internal communications about what to say to the press?
Let me give you some the irony of that. Part of the National Archives is the presidential libraries….So we're going to have documents [at the libraries] with the most sensitive markings on it that isn't even classified. If I were going to do a review [of OVP], that would be one of the questions I would want to ask: What is this practice? And how widespread is it? And what is the rationale? How do we assure that people don't get this mixed up with real secrets?
Is too much government business conducted in secret?
One of the things I've reflected on lately is that I truly believe we need to introduce a new balancing test. In the past, we've looked at it as, 'we have to balance national security against the public's right to know or whatever.' My balancing test would be national security versus national security: yes, disclosing information may cause damage, but you know what, withholding that information may even cause greater damage… And I don't think we sufficiently taken that into greater account.
The global struggle that we're engaged in today is more than anything else is an ideological struggle. And in my mind….that calls for greater transparency, not less transparency. We're in a situation where we're attempting to win over the hearts and minds of the world's population. And yet, we seem to have a habit—when we restrict information, we're often times find ourselves in a position where we're ceding the playing field to the other side. We allow ourselves to be almost reduced to a caricature by taking positions on certain issues, oh , we simply can't talk about that.
(Note: Asked for comment, Lea A. McBride, spokeswoman for Cheney, pointed to recent comments by Cheney in an interview with the online publication, Politico, on his office's dispute with the National Archives. In the interview, the vice president specifically referred to his position that, because he serves as Secretary of the Senate, his office was not an "entity" in the executive branch governed by the executive order relating to classified information.
"I'm aware of the kerfuffle here a few months ago — is he or isn't he; is he part of the executive branch, part of the legislative branch?" Cheney said. "And the answer really is, you've got a foot in both camps. I obviously work for the president. That's why I'm sitting here in the West Wing of the White House. But I also have a role to play in the Congress as the president of the Senate. I actually get paid — that's where my paycheck comes from, is the Senate. So I try to keep lines open to both sides of the Congress, both the House and the Senate.")
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Last edited by host; 12-26-2007 at 12:15 PM..
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