As a general proposition, a government has the right to keep sensitive information classified and to fire employees who disclose it. But that is a power that also can be abused. The mere fact that information is classified does not mean that it ought to remain concealed. It has been extremely common for our government to attempt to conceal its wrongdoing by classifying information because it would reveal that wrongdoing. Whether the power to maintain the secrecy of classified information is being used properly or abusively is typically reflected by which type of unauthorized disclosures prompt strong action.
The Bush administration is extremely and transparently selective about the leaks it seeks to investigate and punish. The only leaks which they dislike are the ones which bring the President political embarrassment, not which generate harm to our national security. They exhibit anger and concern about leaks only when the leaks expose conduct by them which is highly controversial and where even its legality is dubious, at best.
A substantial part of the case for the invasion of Iraq was made by the administration through selective leaks of classified information to The New York Times. Almost every front page Judy Miller story was based upon leaks from anonymous "senior administration officials" designed to plant evidence of Saddam's massive WMD arsenal. None of those leaks has been decried by the administration or investigated, because they were employed in the service of the administration's political goals. Here is how Miller herself described what she did:
My job was not to collect information and analyze it independently as an intelligence agency; my job was to tell readers of the New York Times as best as I could figure out, what people inside the governments who had very high security clearances, who were not supposed to talk to me, were saying to one another about what they thought Iraq had and did not have in the area of weapons of mass destruction.
The very process which the administration and their followers claim to despise -- feeding classified information to the press -- is the primary tactic the administration used in order to convince Americans that Saddam was a danger and that we needed to go to war. Needless to say, none of those helpful-to-the-administration leaks to Miller has ever been the subject of an internal CIA investigation, polygraph tests to uncover the leaker, or criminal prosecutions by the Justice Department.
The administration does not dislike leaks of classified information. To the contrary, it is one of the most enthusiastic practitioners of such leaking. How many times over the past five years were we subjected to "leaked" information revealing supposed terrorist plots which were disrupted by the heroic administration or which revealed its super-intense anti-terrorist efforts?
When the NSA scandal first emerged, an extremely pro-administration leak suddenly appeared designed to vividly underscore (a) how dangerous and potentially destructive Muslims in this country are and (b) how heroic and vigilant is the administration in combating those threats. We thus learned from an anonymous government leaker that the administration had a super-top-secret program in place to detect unusual radioactivity in the nation's mosques and the detection is even conducted without warrants (!) -- a leak which suddenly depicted, at the height of the NSA controversy, that Muslims in this country may radiate your children but that the administration is using super-sophisticated and stealth means even if they are a little bit illegal (just like warrantless eavesdropping) to protect and save us all:
In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities, U.S. News has learned. In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program. . . .
News of the program comes in the wake of revelations last week that, after 9/11, the Bush White House approved electronic surveillance of U.S. targets by the National Security Agency without court orders. These and other developments suggest that the federal government's domestic spying programs since 9/11 have been far broader than previously thought.
The source even helpfully tied the very uncontroversial radiation detection program into the highly controversial NSA warrantless eavesdropping program, in order to make the point, as I noted at the time:
Is it really necessary to comply with all of that paperwork – all of those bureaucratic warrant procedures which the subversive hippy losers are always yapping about – in order to stop terrorists from using nuclear weapons against us?
No investigation of that leak was ever announced. No cries of protest were heard from the administration over disclosure of this program. Why is that? Because that leak brought no political embarrassment to the administration; very few people would object to the use of such instruments to detect high levels of radiation in the country's neighborhood mosques. Indeed, this reflected well on the administraton, and it is hard to imagine who would have an incentive to "blow the cover" of this classified program other than those friendly to the administration. Where was the furor over that leak? Why aren't we investigating to find out who anonymously disclosed this program?
And then, of course, there is the indisputable leak by the administration of the indisputably classified information that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA, along with the leak by the President of various NIE statements to the press, and the frequent game-playing engaged in for years by the administration of selectively declassifying national security documents in order to achieve political aims.
All of the leaks about which Bush followers are so upset have a common attribute - they all reveal conduct by the government which is highly controversial and, in many cases, opposed by most citizens. None of the leaks falls into the category of the clear-cut case where national security is harmed without any public interest being served (the classic example being the advanced disclosure of troop movements, which is designed only to help the enemy without sparking any serious debate over a legitimately controversial issue). All of the leaks which are targeted by Bush followers for outrage and criminal prosecution all exposed government misconduct while avoiding any genuine national security harm. Their most significant impact, by far, was on the political front, not the security or military front.
There is virtually no significant government scandal in our country's history which did not rely upon disclosure of classified information to the press in order to expose the government's misconduct. The illegality of the Nixon administration was exposed almost exclusively through leaks by government employees of classified information, and virtually every Clinton scandal was achieved via leaks of classified and other secret information by sources hostile to the administration. Leaks of classified information are a critical part of how we check abuses on government secrecy; both sides have always used them and still do; and the government's power to punish leakers -- when used selectively and aggressively -- becomes the power to conceal one's wrongdoing.
If we had the society which Bush followers are seeking to impose -- where anyone is imprisoned who discloses, or writes about, any information marked "classified" by the government -- Watergate misconduct would never have been exposed. We would not know that the administration was eavesdropping on us without warrants in violation of the law. We would not know that our government systematically used torture as a routine interrogation device nor that it disappeared terrorist suspects to black prisons. And we would not have learned of the substantial doubts which existed, and the evidence bolstering those doubts, regarding Saddam's weapons capability prior to our invasion. Nor, for that matter, would we have recently learned about the administration's apparently advanced plans to wage war on Iran.
These types of unauthorized disclosures, more than anything else, are what accounts for the fact that Americans finally realized what type of government we really have, and caused literally millions of Americans to abandon this President and his administration. Is it really any wonder why the president's followers are so eager to imprison the people responsible for these types of leaks, while insistently ignoring the leaks designed to help the president? This has nothing to do with national security or with safeguarding classified information. It is about punishment, vengeance, and deterrence -- all focused on those who have exposed, or who could expose, government misconduct that results in political harm to George Bush.
UPDATE: For a summary of the current state of the law governing disclosure of classified information -- including the prohibition against classifying information in order to "(1) conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error; [and] (2) prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency" -- see here.
So condi has a bladder control problem?
ReplyDeleteLawyer: Rice Leaked to AIPAC Lobbyist
http://famulus.msnbc.com/ famulusgen/ ap04-21-163636.asp?t=APNEW
Great post. Here are some more examples from The New Republic:
ReplyDeleteDuring this spring's Commission hearings, Attorney General John Ashcroft tried to undermine Democratic Commissioner Jamie Gorelick by releasing secret memos she wrote as a Justice Department official in the 1990s. Around the same time, Condoleezza Rice quoted from a classified national security memo in an effort to discredit former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke. And, each time Bob Woodward has come calling for his insider accounts, he's walked away with armloads of secret documents that cast the president in a heroic light.
Guess this sounds like another example where our "Decider in Chimp" gets to proclaim when to leak and when not to leak.
ReplyDeleteRemember, this is a man that reportedly "leaked" on the White House carpet and walls when daddy was there...
Ya know, he is still an abusive, drunk, cokehead today.
That is why he was the perfect tool for the military-industrial complex and their band of thieves.
TNR has another, even better article on the abusive classification and declassification here.
ReplyDeleteclarification, and sorry for the triple post: I meant better than the first TNR article I linked to, not better than Glenn's post, which I said was "great."
ReplyDeleteOops. My comment that I just posted on the last thread actually belongs on this thread.
ReplyDeleteWhat used to be called 'National Security' is now 'Bush Security'.
ReplyDeleteIf the leak enhances Bush's security it's a good leak. Otherwise it's a bad leak.
Anonymous has an excellent point. We should all try to spread that meme and variants of it:
ReplyDelete*The CIA employee that leaked will be punished for damaging "national security" (read: CIA security)
*The 9/11 commission was barred from obtaining relevant documents for "national security" (read: political security) reasons.
And so on.
Glenn:
ReplyDeleteThe Bush administration is extremely and transparently selective about the leaks it seeks to investigate and punish. The only leaks which they dislike are the ones which bring the President political embarrassment, not which generate harm to our national security.
No, you have it backwards. Most of the leaks at issue are politically motivated and intended to cause the WH embarrassment. The damage these leaks do to our national security are brushed off by the leakers. If the information would not achieve a political goal, there is usually no motivation to leak it.
The political motivations of the NSA Program publication have been beaten to death on this blog and need not be revisited.
The CIA analyst who was recently fired for blowing the cover of our al Qaeda detention centers in Europe just so happened to be an appointee of Sandy Berger, the perp who was caught smuggling out and destroying embarrassing classified material used by the 9/11 commission. She was also a donor to the Kerry campaign. One guess what her motivations were...
In general, CIA has been waging a leak war against the WH since Bush placed Goss in charge with orders to clean house. These members of CIA seem to have forgotten their oaths and are more than willing to flush national security down the toilet to play political games. They should be rudely reminded of their responsibilities to the country with felony convictions and prison terms.
A substantial part of the case for the invasion of Iraq was made by the administration through selective leaks of classified information to The New York Times. Almost every front page Judy Miller story was based upon leaks from anonymous "senior administration officials" designed to plant evidence of Saddam's massive WMD arsenal. None of those leaks has been decried by the administration or investigated, because they were employed in the service of the administration's political goals.
Every single President who has gone to war has decided what intelligence to declassify (not leak) to make his case for war to the public. Those shows put on by the US at the UN during the Cuban Missile Crisis and before the Iraq War all relied upon selectively declassified top secret materials.
This is fundamentally different from an individual intelligence agent leaking classified materials to the press to score political points at the expense of national security.
The ONLY legitimate reason to leak classified material to the press and thereby the enemy is if clear criminal wrongdoing was classified. Simple policy disagreements are not grounds for disclosing secrets to the enemy.
nd then, of course, there is the indisputable leak by the administration of the indisputably classified information that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA, along with the leak by the President of various NIE statements to the press, and the frequent game-playing engaged in for years by the administration of selectively declassifying national security documents in order to achieve political aims.
Unlike you people, I do not play political favorites when it comes to national security. If Fitzgerald can prove that anyone in the Administration actually violated the various classified information statutes, by all means try him or her and chuck them in prison along with the NSA leaker(s) and the CIA wench who blew the al Qaeda prisons cover.
However, Novak has recently reported that Fitzgerald knows all the players in this "scandal" and declined to bring charges because he doesn't have a case of revealing classified information against any of them.
If the 1995 Executive Order signed by Clinton is still binding, then it is the perfect defence against prosecution of the leaks of illegal activity carried on by this criminal Administration.
ReplyDeletebart said:
ReplyDeleteNo, you have it backwards. Most of the leaks at issue are politically motivated and intended to cause the WH embarrassment.
Yeah, I can see how being caught violating the US Constitution and otherwise breaking the law must be pretty embarrassing for them.
Poor guys. I'm... I'm crying here.
Crying a river.
Unlike you people, I do not play political favorites when it comes to national security. If Fitzgerald can prove that anyone in the Administration actually violated the various classified information statutes, by all means try him or her and chuck them in prison along with the NSA leaker(s) and the CIA wench who blew the al Qaeda prisons cover.
ReplyDeleteHey Bart - do you know what the Official State´s Secret Act in England is? Do you think we have an equivalent law here? If not, why not?
Bart says:
ReplyDeleteShe was also a donor to the Kerry campaign.
It always amazes me that statements like this are used to imply some nefarious motive. Last time I looked, donating to the campaign of a candidate running for President of the United States was legitimate in every sense of the word: legal, ethical, moral, etc.
Why is it used as a smear?
One guess what her motivations were...
My guess is her motive was that she favored the candidacy of John Kerry over that of George Bush. Bart, I know in your world that is a nefarious motive, but to most of the rest of us, that is perfectly legitimate.
My own personal view is that the Kerry campaign advocated ideals that were closer to the ideals of the United States of America, but I don't impugn the patriotism of those who supported Bush. You (and many other die-hard Bush supporters) do exactly that: impugn the patriotism, honor, and integrity of those who disagree with your point of view.
Ryan Wil said...
ReplyDeleteHey Bart - do you know what the Official State´s Secret Act in England is? Do you think we have an equivalent law here? If not, why not
Actually, we do have something similar in the US called the Espionage Act. However, the US has not enforced it to nearly the extent that Britain has their Secrets Act.
Before Vietnam, there were very few cases of violations of the Espionage Act because the press had a modicum of civic responsibility and did not routinely disclose national security secrets to our enemies.
Starting with Vietnam, the press lost all sense of responsibility and have routinely compromised our intelligence gathering and intelligence agents.
Perhaps it is time to take the press to task for their violations of the law.
Perhaps it is time to take the press to task for their violations of the law.
ReplyDeleteYet another great American tradition and American value which scared pussy authortarian bitches like Bart want to piss on and throw away - all because they are afraid that the big bad Al Qaeda wolf will get them.
More power to EL PRESIDENTE! Reporters who speak of Il Duce - TO JAIL! Viva la Bush!!
That is you, Bart. It is really sick. Thank god you in a minority, which gets smaller and more hated by the day.
Bad Moon Rising said...
ReplyDeleteBart says: She was also a donor to the Kerry campaign.
It always amazes me that statements like this are used to imply some nefarious motive.
The military observes strict nonpartisanship to maintain a neutrality in political matters under the theory that partisanship by the military leads to coup de tats.
The CIA is a quasi military organization and should observe the same neutrality. Under those conditions, campaign donations are a definite tip off of partisan bias.
There is simply no room for partisanship in the national security departments. We cannot have lifetime bureaucrats of either political persuasion trashing national security simply because the people elect a President of the opposite party with whom they disagree.
If you do not feel that you can ethically work for an administration, resign your post.
If you disclose national secrets, go to jail.
From Bart at 12:42PM:
ReplyDelete"No, you have it backwards. Most of the leaks at issue are politically motivated and intended to cause the WH embarrassment."
Actually you have it sideways. Yes, in large measure, the leaks involved have been politically motivated, insofar as revealing ethically and legally questionable practices and policies by the Bush Administration that the public would otherwise be unaware of (and thus make a mockery of the notion of government transparency and the rule of law) is a 'political' action. Whatever embarrassment the White Houses suffers is a likely simply a happy side-effect, not the motivation in and of itself.
"The damage these leaks do to our national security are brushed off by the leakers. If the information would not achieve a political goal, there is usually no motivation to leak it."
Name one leak that been shown to seriously damaged the government's ability to respond to or anticipate or guard against any threat to our nation's physical security.
And please, DON'T go waving the NSA scandal as an example. Given the Administration's reticence in details or oversight, we've no idea how effective or well-targeted it was. Given this pack of jokers record to date, only an idiot would give them the benefit of the doubt.
"The CIA analyst who was recently fired for blowing the cover of our al Qaeda detention centers in Europe just so happened to be an appointee of Sandy Berger, the perp who was caught smuggling out and destroying embarrassing classified material used by the 9/11 commission. She was also a donor to the Kerry campaign. One guess what her motivations were..."
Your biases are showing Bart. First, Berger's 'smuggling and destroying' materials was concluded to be a deeply embarrassing if honest mistake; he kept classified papers with him after examining them, but returned them upon discovering this. I also believe none of them related, at least not directly, to the 9/11 Commission's work.
Next, the political affiliations and donation record of the CIA official involved (it hasn't been clarified in any reports I've read yet that she was an analyst or management) aren't really relevant...unless you're prepared to reduce all human activity to simple Pavlovian Response. This includes you, yourself, although you've already demonstrated a tendency towards that as it is.
Oh, and all that's been 'revealed' is the very open, very ugly secret that the CIA has been maintaining 'black' detention centers. These are 'Al Qaeda detention centers', given we've no idea who is being detained there or under what conditions or evidence.
Honestly, Bart. I ask you again and again to actually think about this stuff.
"The ONLY legitimate reason to leak classified material to the press and thereby the enemy is if clear criminal wrongdoing was classified. Simple policy disagreements are not grounds for disclosing secrets to the enemy."
So, programs and policies that ignore or go against US Statutes like FISA and international treaties like the Geneva Conventions DON'T constitute actually law-breaking? That's certainly an...interesting outlook.
Exactly which US States are you licensed to practice in, again?
"Unlike you people, I do not play political favorites when it comes to national security. If Fitzgerald can prove that anyone in the Administration actually violated the various classified information statutes, by all means try him or her and chuck them in prison along with the NSA leaker(s) and the CIA wench who blew the al Qaeda prisons cover."
Good to know you haven't totally discarded the Rule of Law.
Now, back up your assertions with something other than hysteronics and weakly-covered partisanship, and you might actually be taken seriously.
Every single President who has gone to war has decided what intelligence to declassify (not leak) to make his case for war to the public.
ReplyDeleteMore deliberately obfuscatory nonsense. Judith Miller was the gleeful recipient of a systematic pattern of selective leaks of classified information about "Iraqi WMDs" on the part of Administration officials both before and after the war. This has nothing whatsoever to do with declassification. I thought Glenn's crystal-clear formulation was altogether immune to dishonest attempts to muddy the waters and confuse the issue. Should have known you would try.
Ryan Sil said...
ReplyDeletePerhaps it is time to take the press to task for their violations of the law.
Yet another great American tradition and American value which scared pussy authortarian bitches like Bart want to piss on and throw away - all because they are afraid that the big bad Al Qaeda wolf will get them.
Disclosing intelligence programs which are spying on an enemy to that enemy is not a "great American tradition" nor is it protected by the First Amendment, it is a crime - PERIOD.
The press does not enjoy any more of a First Amendment right to disclose secrets to the enemy than you or I.
This has nothing to do with Bush or partisan party politics. It has to do with real world damage to the security of OUR Country.
From Bart at 1:23PM:
ReplyDelete"If you disclose national secrets, go to jail."
By that standard, several of the White House staff itself would presently be behind bars. Or at the very least under indictment and investigation.
Oh, wait...
From Bart at 1:28PM:
ReplyDelete"Disclosing intelligence programs which are spying on an enemy to that enemy is not a "great American tradition" nor is it protected by the First Amendment, it is a crime - PERIOD."
Given the program itself was of deeply questionable legality, and there has as yet been no accounting for either its targets or the criteria used for them, I'd say claiming it was "spying on the enemy" is a tad premature.
Then again, you've demonstrated only a conditional respect for the rule of law to begin with, so you're argument isn't all that out of character.
Bart replies:
ReplyDeleteThe CIA is a quasi military organization and should observe the same neutrality.
Let's be clear, this is a personal opinion of yours and not a constraint of the CIA.
Under those conditions, campaign donations are a definite tip off of partisan bias.
You're entitled to your opinion. To the rest of us, it simply indicates a preference that, by itself, doesn't indicate a lack of integrity.
Bart shat:
ReplyDeleteDisclosing intelligence programs which are spying on an ene--
Woah there cowboy -- how do you know they were even spying on the enemy, Bart? They didn't even report to the secret court to whom, by law, they had to report!
But who will compel the administration to abide by this section of the executive order? Congress in 1917 rejected the press censorship provision of the Espionage Act, but that doesn't seem to have stopped the DOJ from going after reporters. Can we count on the courts? What can we do, aside from lobbying our congress critters?
ReplyDeleteAnd although it wouldn't help these whistleblowers, what ever happened to the reporters' shield laws proposed by Senators Dodd and Lugar? The last I heard, the legislation was sitting in the Judiciary Committee. Are whistleblowers protected under any laws? They and the reporters are acting out of the best of motives, IMHO.
yankeependragon said...
ReplyDeleteFrom Bart at 12:42PM: "No, you have it backwards. Most of the leaks at issue are politically motivated and intended to cause the WH embarrassment."
Actually you have it sideways. Yes, in large measure, the leaks involved have been politically motivated, insofar as revealing ethically and legally questionable practices and policies by the Bush Administration that the public would otherwise be unaware of (and thus make a mockery of the notion of government transparency and the rule of law) is a 'political' action. Whatever embarrassment the White Houses suffers is a likely simply a happy side-effect, not the motivation in and of itself.
Nonsense. The perps are welcome to make that defense to a jury during their felony trials and see whether it will fly. If they do, the vast majority will go to prison.
Bart: "The damage these leaks do to our national security are brushed off by the leakers. If the information would not achieve a political goal, there is usually no motivation to leak it."
Name one leak that been shown to seriously damaged the government's ability to respond to or anticipate or guard against any threat to our nation's physical security. And please, DON'T go waving the NSA scandal as an example.
Informing al Qaeda the means and methods of how the NSA was listening in on their telephone calls and emails is a great example for the reasons I put forth in numerous previous posts. I an almost guarantee that this criminal leaker is going to prison if they try him and he tries to present your defense.
The disclosure of the location of the al Qaeda prisons is another example of concrete harm. al Qaeda has launched multiple rescue attempts to free their imprisoned leaders in Pakistan, Yemen and Iaq and have often been successful. We moved the most high value enemy prisoners out of muslim countries and kept their locations completely secret to prevent just some prison breaks.
Your biases are showing Bart. First, Berger's 'smuggling and destroying' materials was concluded to be a deeply embarrassing if honest mistake; he kept classified papers with him after examining them, but returned them upon discovering this. I also believe none of them related, at least not directly, to the 9/11 Commission's work.
Accident my ass. He was caught stuffing dozens of pages of top secret documents into his clothing.
"The ONLY legitimate reason to leak classified material to the press and thereby the enemy is if clear criminal wrongdoing was classified. Simple policy disagreements are not grounds for disclosing secrets to the enemy."
So, programs and policies that ignore or go against US Statutes like FISA and international treaties like the Geneva Conventions DON'T constitute actually law-breaking? That's certainly an...interesting outlook.
No.
For the legal reasons I have set forth in dozens of previous posts, the NSA Program is perfectly legal and it is FISA which is most likely unconstitutional in part.
The secret prisons in no way violate the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions expressly exclude illegal combatants like the terrorists we are detaining.
James T said...
ReplyDeleteBart: Disclosing intelligence programs which are spying on an enemy...
Woah there cowboy -- how do you know they were even spying on the enemy, Bart? They didn't even report to the secret court to whom, by law, they had to report!
Oh, I dunno...
From the leakers, the NYT, the WP, the NSA itself and everyone in Congress who has been briefed on the program.
Not a single person here has been able to provide a shred of evidence to the contrary.
When I read bart's post I rolled my eyes and assumed I'd have to set him straight. But it looks like folks beat me to it, so I won't bother. Basically Glenn's post here is a slam dunk. If thats the best your side has bart, I can't wait to let the American people decide which side is a threat to our way of life.
ReplyDeleteZack's post from the last thread was spot-on analysis of what Bush's approach makes this govt. Pretty much identical to every society on earth that we consider anathema.
Even FOXNews won't be able to convince anybody that selective prosecution of leaks is anything but an attempt to make Bush Fearless Leader For Life.
Bart once again shows his side assumes any action is done for political motives. It's pure projection. Like Scott Ritter, some people feel so strongly that certain behaviors on the part of our govt are so reprehensiblethet they are a threat to our Constitutional Republic. The fact that this causes political embarrassment for Bush is purely secondary. Secondary, but absolutely critical to getting this administration to stop doing things Americans consider evil and wrong.
If you saw a Dem POTUS doing any of these things, you'd attack them for it. Would your motives be nothing but politics, or do you consider that when you feel strongly that Democrats have broken the law, your attacks on them spring from purely patriotic reasons?
I would never be able to do what you are doing. Any admin that did things like this, even if I had supported them fervently at some earlier point, would lose me and have a citizen out to stop them. Your loyalty to this admin is unhealthy.
The bush cult rears its ugly hydra one mo time.
ReplyDeleteAccident my ass. He was caught stuffing dozens of pages of top secret documents into his clothing.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Novak has recently reported that Fitzgerald knows all the players in this "scandal" and declined to bring charges because he doesn't have a case of revealing classified information against any of them.
Your contradictions are pretty blatant. Why doesn't the fact that Berger wasn't prosecuted mean the same thing it means for "your team?"
Unclaimed Territory has been succesfully claimed...by BART!
ReplyDeleteFrom Der Vooshian Kommanda at 2:11PM:
ReplyDelete"Unclaimed Territory has been succesfully claimed...by BART!"
Actually, I think Glenn is just sitting back and enjoying the show.
Armagednoutahere said...
ReplyDeleteYour contradictions are pretty blatant. Why doesn't the fact that Berger wasn't prosecuted mean the same thing it means for "your team?"
Berger was prosecuted, admitted that his "accident" story was a lie, pled guilty to a lesser misdemeanor of taking classified docs and paid a fine.
He only avoided jail because he is a politically connected ex-high official.
It is said that other Presidents without congressional authority have taken possession of private business enterprises in order to settle labor disputes. But even if this be true, Congress has not thereby lost its exclusive constitutional authority to make laws necessary and proper to carry out the powers vested by the Constitution "in the Government of the United States, or any Department or Officer thereof."
ReplyDeleteDer Vooshian Kommanda said...
ReplyDeleteUnclaimed Territory has been succesfully claimed...by BART!
:::rolls eyes:::
You people have some sort of fixation with me as some sort of a secret squirrel spy from the Great Right Wing Conspiracy.
I am just here to chat about politics with the opposition, which is my favorite hobby after mountain climbing here in God's country Colorado.
For those of you who are reading some grand conspiracy in responding to blogs, my advice is to get therapy and a life.
What does a patriot do? Keep quiet? Meekly let the government get away with illegal behavior?
ReplyDeleteIn 1998 Congress passed a law especially for the benefit of whistleblowers in the Intelligence Community, in order to improve Congressional oversight and allow the IC to disclose classified info *to Congress* without legal repercussions. Cleverly titled as the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998, it establishes clear procedures.
Maybe a patriot ought to follow the law. Just an idea.
Link:
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1998_cr/s981008-intell.htm
Tom Maguire
BART saves us with sage advice to Get A Life! Thank you, Bart!!!
ReplyDeleteFrom Bart at 1:53PM:
ReplyDelete"Informing al Qaeda the means and methods of how the NSA was listening in on their telephone calls and emails is a great example for the reasons I put forth in numerous previous posts."
Your previous posts have trembled on the edge of outright incoherence. And now story I've read on the NSA program to date has given anything other than broad-brush overviews of the program itself. No concrete details of either the equiptment, software programs, or methodologies involved have been published (I welcome correction on this). Rather, the focus has been on the legality of it all and whether it runs afowl (deliberate misspelling there) with FISA and other US Statutes.
Incidentially, I believe it was President Bush's rather rash revealing shortly after 9/11 that US intelligence could and did monitor cell phone communications that actually tipped off Bin Laden and his immediate circle of their hazard. His escape from Tora Bora later was thanks to decoys using his personal cell leading the Americans in the wrong direction.
Given your proposed standards, Bart, are we now obligated to impeach and remove the President for compromising national security?
The detention centers, btw, are all 'black', meaning we don't know who is being held there or why. You *hope* its strictly Al Qaeda operatives, but as we've seen with Camp X-Ray in Gitmo, that likely isn't the case.
"For the legal reasons I have set forth in dozens of previous posts, the NSA Program is perfectly legal and it is FISA which is most likely unconstitutional in part.
The secret prisons in no way violate the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions expressly exclude illegal combatants like the terrorists we are detaining."
Ah, so there's been actual legal rulings on both the issue? Pray tell, when and where?
Otherwise this is simply your personal interpretation, one that runs afowl (again, deliberate misspelling) with established US Statute and past precedent. I'd suggest refraining from speaking in absolutes for the future until the Courts rule one way or the other.
From Bart at 2:20PM:
ReplyDelete"He only avoided jail because he is a politically connected ex-high official."
Didn't you just state the charges were plead down and he admitted to a misdemeanor?
Which is it: the Court was pressured or the Court choose to offer a lesser charge?
I checked and you're right. Berger pled guilty to removing docs. I thought they'd dropped even that but I was wrong. What I was remebering was an interview where the prosecutor said he accepted Bergers story that it was an honest mistake. I'll see if I can find it and see why I thought they weren't going after him.
ReplyDeleteI did a quick check and can't find the interview I saw. I didn't pay much attention to the Berger story because it seemed pretty low-grade stuff at the time, and does so even moreso now that I read a few stories. But it does look like he was being pretty stupid. I'd like to have been there when they asked him to let them see what he had in his socks.
ReplyDeleteNo, you have it backwards. Most of the leaks at issue are politically motivated and intended to cause the WH embarrassment. The damage these leaks do to our national security are brushed off by the leakers. If the information would not achieve a political goal, there is usually no motivation to leak it.
ReplyDeleteThis, however, is completely wrong. Every one of the stories I've read about the govt prisons in Europe, and the torture of anyone even remotely suspected of having some connection to Al-Quaida, some of whom have been clearly shown to be innocent victims of American security gone mad, have sprung from genuine horror that our govt would be capable of behavior that until recently was the stuff of totalitarian nightmares. Only regimes that represent everything America was created to stand against conduct themselves this way, and the vast majority of Americans agree.
Your unwillingness to admit that this administration's selectivity in its outrage over leaks is politically motivated (and grossly hypocritical.) I'll wager yours is a minority opinion even among the minority that still support Bush. I guaran-goddamn-tee you won't get any traction with the American public with this level of obvious hypocrisy. I look forward to seeing them try to go after any members of the press for what you consider politically motivated illegality. The public is fed up and any more of this outrageous behavior will have consequences the Bush team won't appreciate.
Bart said:
ReplyDeleteFusce lacus. Nulla facilisi. Nunc pharetra turpis vitae eros. Praesent massa leo, imperdiet quis, ultrices nec, ultricies nec, arcu. Vivamus in nisi. Nam aliquam blandit quam. Etiam placerat sapien ac leo. Aliquam metus massa, tristique nec, vehicula vel, dictum semper, felis. Cras fringilla odio ut augue. Vivamus nibh. Praesent sapien quam, condimentum a, malesuada ut, feugiat et, velit. Nullam laoreet tellus nonummy mi. Proin at est. Aliquam ullamcorper. Maecenas imperdiet urna eu purus. Morbi adipiscing tristique elit. Aliquam bibendum sapien quis turpis. Nulla in ipsum eu neque aliquet lobortis.
Etiam vehicula. Suspendisse quis arcu sed diam fringilla commodo. Cras placerat tincidunt ipsum. Nunc non ante non tortor suscipit sodales. Phasellus lacus magna, iaculis in, blandit vel, vestibulum vel, mauris. Duis egestas orci eget arcu. Etiam tempor. Donec luctus posuere velit. Vivamus lectus enim, imperdiet quis, tempus ut, convallis eget, est. Pellentesque quam. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Sed ac augue ac risus eleifend egestas. Proin dapibus laoreet augue. Fusce mi. In tempus ligula eu orci. Morbi imperdiet porta enim. Etiam fermentum, enim dignissim placerat posuere, eros enim luctus lacus, sed tristique massa mi sit amet pede. Donec vitae nisi. Maecenas condimentum ante a libero. Donec magna ante, dictum ac, luctus ut, tempus ut, odio.
Integer dui turpis, consectetuer in, auctor id, tristique nec, dolor. Maecenas commodo accumsan sem. Quisque sollicitudin, risus sit amet fermentum scelerisque, dui magna suscipit metus, sit amet consequat nulla purus non dolor. Quisque vel dolor non magna congue aliquet. Mauris feugiat leo non metus. Donec in sem sit amet dui cursus tincidunt. Suspendisse potenti. Mauris malesuada adipiscing dui. Quisque feugiat malesuada lacus. Suspendisse risus magna, consequat nec, porttitor at, lobortis euismod, nisi. Proin bibendum enim in risus. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Nunc risus. Etiam purus.
Nullam eget nunc. Phasellus eu neque. Aenean enim sem, imperdiet at, convallis lacinia, sollicitudin eu, nibh. Duis accumsan velit ut sem. Fusce eros. Pellentesque lobortis justo et leo. Mauris feugiat tempor risus. Fusce at felis. Suspendisse potenti. Nullam commodo ullamcorper mauris. Praesent in turpis. Vivamus eget lorem. Suspendisse diam quam, condimentum at, pellentesque at, scelerisque id, mi. Cras dapibus magna nec massa. Etiam vulputate mi eu massa. Vivamus vulputate. Maecenas sagittis nonummy urna. Curabitur in est non elit pharetra vulputate.
Nulla facilisi. Etiam lobortis placerat magna. Phasellus ornare consequat est. Phasellus erat augue, porttitor eget, volutpat nec, laoreet sed, felis. Suspendisse arcu dolor, gravida varius, lobortis eu, pellentesque eu, metus. Mauris porttitor rhoncus tortor. Ut lorem justo, consequat vulputate, aliquam a, porttitor aliquam, neque. Aliquam nunc. Morbi iaculis urna non leo. Sed facilisis, lectus et suscipit lobortis, lacus risus dapibus sem, eget commodo massa nisi sed est. Etiam ut sem. Vestibulum suscipit augue. Vestibulum varius, orci aliquet porttitor dictum, lorem ipsum tempor felis, mollis ultricies sem nulla ut urna. Quisque vulputate nonummy massa. Aenean vel eros in massa suscipit feugiat. Sed ut justo. Cras in arcu in neque tempus faucibus.
Curabitur nec ipsum venenatis felis luctus sodales. Etiam dictum leo vel turpis rutrum pretium. Vivamus molestie. Vestibulum ac leo iaculis velit iaculis suscipit. Quisque sodales mattis augue. Ut cursus bibendum nisi. Nam pulvinar elit a purus. Phasellus bibendum. Donec lectus diam, porta semper, vestibulum sit amet, lobortis eget, libero. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Curabitur pellentesque cursus mauris. Mauris sodales. Aenean suscipit risus eget orci convallis imperdiet. Sed quis lorem nec metus bibendum fringilla. Sed augue velit, imperdiet a, tincidunt id, ullamcorper at, dolor. Pellentesque faucibus. Morbi odio libero, euismod sed, luctus eget, blandit dictum, metus. Mauris egestas.
Sed felis. Donec turpis tellus, tristique id, ullamcorper in, porttitor at, massa. Maecenas pharetra. Suspendisse vitae arcu. In ac lacus in libero tincidunt venenatis. Donec vulputate tincidunt ante. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos. Aenean tincidunt felis. Cras enim pede, consectetuer at, egestas quis, molestie nonummy, felis. Morbi et dolor. Aenean a nibh vitae velit vestibulum luctus. Nam sem nunc, imperdiet consectetuer, mollis ut, suscipit congue, ligula. Proin sodales commodo justo.
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If the coup already underway is successful, do you think you will be arrested, Bart?
ReplyDeleteyankeependragon said...
ReplyDeleteFrom Bart at 2:20PM: [Berger] only avoided jail because he is a politically connected ex-high official."
Didn't you just state the charges were plead down and he admitted to a misdemeanor?
Which is it: the Court was pressured or the Court choose to offer a lesser charge?
Huh?
Justice charged Berger with a misdemeanor rather than the array of felonies of which he could have been charged in exchange for a tacit admission that Berger lied and a sweetheart deal for a fine.
The Courts only involvement was to accept the plea. Given that Justice had only charged Berger with a misdemeanor, jail really wasn't an option anymore under the federal guidelines for a first time misdemeanor.
What I was remebering was an interview where the prosecutor said he accepted Bergers story that it was an honest mistake. I'll see if I can find it and see why I thought they weren't going after him.
ReplyDeleteEven removing the documents inadvertantly is a crime. The prosecutor said he accepted that but that did not absolve Berger of guilt because it wasn't intentional. That's my unedumacated guess.
Tom Maguire says: Maybe a patriot ought to follow the law. Just an idea.
ReplyDeleteTom, I'm very sympathetic to your point, and have previously expressed my own concerns that the NSA leakers do not appear to have made recourse to that statute. After thinking about it long and hard, I decided that Glenn's explanation made sense: In a GOP-controlled Congress that is slavishly devoted to Bush in any national security area, it would have been futile.
Even after all the public outcry, what has Congress done? Stymie and prevent Intelligence Committee hearings and investigation, and engage in a charade of investigation in the Judiciary Committee. Nothing is going to come of that, not while the GOP controls both houses.
The only venue in which this mess can be settled is in court. The federal courts are never going to uphold this illegal surveillance, and until the NYT revealed it, no one was trying to put the matter into litigation. They are now.
The Bush Administration, we now know beyond all doubt -- as a result of its need to offer public defenses of its illegal NSA program -- is relying on very extreme legal theories that permit George Bush to do ANYTHING he wants, no matter what the law is, as long as he mutters "national security." And AG Gonzalez has conceded that there are other illegal programs operating pursuant to these extreme notions of untrammeled Executive power.
These are things the citizenry urgently needs to know, and to debate. None of the debate would be occurring, but for the NSA leakers.
So, at the end of the day, I concluded that that leak was the patriotic thing to do.
On July 19, 2004, it was revealed that the U.S. Justice Department was investigating Berger for taking as many as fifty classified documents, in October 2003, from a National Archives reading room prior to testifying before the 9/11 Commission. The documents were commissioned from Richard Clarke about the Clinton administration's handling of millennium terror threats. When initially questioned, Berger claimed that the removal of top-secret documents in his attache-case and handwritten notes in his pants and jacket pockets was accidental. He would later, in a guilty plea, admit to deliberately removing materials and then cutting them up with scissors. [1] Berger left the John Kerry campaign shortly after the incident became public. Some suggested that Berger's removal of the documents constituted theft and moreover had serious national security implications, while others claimed that the documents were taken, only drafts and all were flattering to Clinton and Berger (relating to the failed 2000 millennium attack plots). Noel Hillman, chief of the Justice Department's public integrity section, asserted that the documents Berger removed were only copies, and government sources have said that no original material was taken. [2]
ReplyDeleteOn April 1, 2005, in connection with the documents investigation, Berger pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material. Under a plea agreement, U.S. attorneys recommended a fine of $10,000 and a loss of security clearance for three years. However, on September 8, U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson increased the fine to $50,000 at Berger's sentencing. Robinson stated, "The court finds the fine [recommended by government prosecutors] is inadequate because it doesn't reflect the seriousness of the offense."
Ooops...
ReplyDeleteThe fired al Qaeda prisons leaker has a much longer record of contributions to the Dems than the NYT originally reported...
Mary McCarthy of the 20817 zip code in Bethesda Md. not only gave $2,000 to the Kerry campaign on 3/14/2004, she also gave $5,000 to the Democratic Party of Ohio on 10/5/2004. There’s also a $500 contribution to the DNC on 10/29/2004, and a $200 contribution to Steven Peter Andreasen, a Democrat Congressional candidate, on 11/1/2002.
There’s also a Michael McCarthy, also of 20817, that gave $2,000 to Kerry on the same day Mary did. Perhaps it’s her husband. He also gave $500 to Sen. Mikulski’s (D-Md.) campaign on 3/2/2004.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/06_04_16_corner-archive.asp#095635
I'm sorry, but only activists and large corporations give thousands of dollars to political campaigns.
bart said... The fired al Qaeda prisons leaker has a much longer record of contributions to the Dems than the NYT originally reported...
ReplyDeleteThat is shocking! These Islamosataniccommunofascistnihiloliberaldhimmicrats traitors must be expunged from our government!
Great post Glenn. This is one my favorite posts you have written because it speaks to what I consider one of the few most important dilemmas facing this nation.
ReplyDeleteA beam-like focus on the difference between leaks done for political purposes, whether to protect or harm any incumbant Administration, leaks done which help another country (or stateless enemy agents) and damage our own national security, and leaks done to expose grave government wrongdoing which damages the citizens of this country and threatens the very fabric of this nation is critical at this moment in time for a variety of reasons.
The issue of which leaks are justifiable and which are not seems to me to have two components: a legal one, and a moral one.
A. LEGAL
In times of peace this is a less murky issue. As a nation, we do have an adequate body of law which addresses enough issues to generally protect the citizens against government wrongdoing. There are, indeed, legal exemptions for certain kinds of whistleblowers, and protections in place for the press.
Generally speaking, if a government official, including the President, deliberately and with malice aforesight does something gravely wrong which betrays the trust of the American people, it will probably also be something which is illegal. That's why we have so many laws in place which are designed to protect the citizens in the event that elected officials commit this type of wrongdoing.
In times of war, however, everything is different. The Constitution gives the President broader powers. He can do certain things as CIC that he could not do in times of peace.
What makes this such a crucial distinction in 2006, whereas it would not have been in 1944, is that we have two situations operative now which are unique to the Bush Administration.
The first is that we are being told that the permanent state in this country for the foreseeable very long future will be one of Wartime. There won't be any tickertape parade when Victory is declared, as it's a different type of animal (and one I might add which is some kind of "mutant" species which was cloned exclusively in the labortory of Bushco's mind).
The second is that even given the above, the President has relied on legal opinions from certain legal sources (Yoo, Gonzales, etc.) that assert, to put it simply, if the CIC does it, it is not illegal. Therefore any discussion of normally applicable laws becomes sort of moot. Interesting, informative, learned, but ultimately moot. The Executive defines legality itself as anything the CIC does.
B. MORAL.
This gets us to what is, imo, the crucial question of the day. There are two schools of thought here. I call one the Orin Kerr/bart school, which I see as a strict emphasis on the letter of the law, and a fierce avoidance of anything which touches upon the "normative" aspect of law.
Nowhere is this more concisely illustrated than in this comment by bart above:
The ONLY legitimate reason to leak classified material to the press and thereby the enemy is if clear criminal wrongdoing was classified. Simple policy disagreements are not grounds for disclosing secrets to the enemy.
(Leave aside the deceptive way which bart inserts his own implicit definitions of "secrets to the enemy" and "simple policy disagreements".)
Bart's basic position is one I think most would have read and agreed with in 1944, but it is imperative to examine its implications in 2006. Contained within these two sentences is, imo, a prescription for the destruction of this nation.
Bart is saying that if an elected officical breaks a law he should be punished, and any leak of classified information which demonstates a law has been broken is therefore justifiable.
The defect in this otherwise reasonable argument is that it implies there are laws the President could break.
What laws?
The whole Bushco position is there are no laws which the President as CIC can break. By definition, if the CIC thinks he has to take a certain action, any action, in War time, he has the "legal" authority to do so.
As we are at War, any leak which exposes an act of the Executive which the citizens themselves would deem illegal, is really not about something illegal (because nothing the CIC can do is illegal) and additionally, it "aids the enemy" which exposes the leaker to additional charges of being a traitor.
This gets us to the MORAL aspect of all this.
The citizens of this country work under the assumption that the legal framework of this country (all laws up to and including the Constitution) are essentially at least to some degree moral laws. They are aware that when one lives among a community of others, definitions will vary as to what is moral, and battles will be fought about those differences. But their assumption is that there is at least some large group of people (enough to eventually prevail on the Supreme Court level) in whose view the laws are in fact moral.
They have a right to expect that, actually, since that essentially is the whole purpose of the Consitution, to evaluate whether any law violates certain guaranteed rights of the citizens, violation of which our nations's history has deemed immoral (against American values as put forth by the Founders) and that is why it is also illegal. The Constitution is thus a MORAL document as well as being a legal one. When it was found to also include an immoral component (slavery), the citizens rose up en masse to correct that defect.
A huge majority of people in this country (define them as "We the People") do not want things like lying a country into war under grievously false pretences, doing away with peacetime civil liberties unnecessarily and under false pretenses, committing crimes against humanity in the name of American Citizens, and various other horrific violations of all standards of morality, truth and decency to be legal. I submit that the Founders didn't want that either.
The President, however, has decreed all of the above to be legal. He has secured from his lawyers written opinions that they in fact are.
So I am not impressed with bart's basic position: let's judge everything by the strict rule of law as defined by the President and his advisors.
As a citizen, as a member of "We the People", I say, "No, let's not."
As a citizen, I say "Let's identify each leak by a different formula."
Let's now recognize there are two different "political" parties. One is Bushco, as they happen to be in office now.
The other is "We the People."
If leaks are done for the "political" advantage of the "We the People" party, I think that is not only acceptable, but a moral imperative.
That is because the "We the People" political party has been immorally and illegally stripped of all their own "political" rights.
The Attorney General was supposed to be working for the We the People party, but he was a turncoat and was working only for the Bushco party.
So in their defense of a moral system of government, if the We the People Party has to step outside of Bushco and Bart and Orin Kerr's interpretation of "legal", that is precisely what they should do.
Therefore if a "whistleblower" is defined by Bushco as a "traitor" and a "lawbreaker" and "motivated by political reasons", I say let the Court of Public Opinion which has to be given a chance to exercise its own expanded "inherent authority" in this time of national jeopardy from within, decide whether each whistleblower was a Patriot who acted as a representative of the "We the People" party, the owners of America, or a criminal who deserves to be punished accordingly to the legal definitions of the "Bushco" Party.
Let's take it to the SUPREME Supreme Court: the Citizens of the United States of America.
Sorry for the long post. I won't post any more today to atone for its length.
EWO at 5:09: Outstanding. With the exception of not sharing your harsh views of Orin Kerr(whom I would never lump in with a mindless, authoritarian Bush shill like Bart; Kerr has several times linked to Glenn's NSA stuff, and not disapprovingly), I found that all very elegantly stated.
ReplyDeleteBravo.
As I visit the various right-wing blogs so outraged over this leak, I have yet to come across any of them that actually mentions what information was leaked, and only a couple even mention Dana Priest – but not her article.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it’s time for a little refresher course for these blowhard patriots. Take it away,
Dana:
It is illegal for the government to hold prisoners in such isolation in secret prisons in the United States, which is why the CIA placed them overseas, according to several former and current intelligence officials and other U.S. government officials. Legal experts and intelligence officials said that the CIA's internment practices also would be considered illegal under the laws of several host countries, where detainees have rights to have a lawyer or to mount a defense against allegations of wrongdoing.
Host countries have signed the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as has the United States. Yet CIA interrogators in the overseas sites are permitted to use the CIA's approved "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques," some of which are prohibited by the U.N. convention and by U.S. military law. They include tactics such as "waterboarding," in which a prisoner is made to believe he or she is drowning.
Now when this article was published Powerline fumed:
Are the Post and the Times pursuing these stories for the sake of headlines, or for political purposes?….. I would add only that I hope there is a reckoning with them well before the war is over. Otherwise, Bill Bennett speaks for me.
“Political purposes” is also the charge leveled at Mary McCarthy, but let’s take a look at one more sentence in Dana’s article.
In November 2002, an inexperienced CIA case officer allegedly ordered guards to strip naked an uncooperative young detainee, chain him to the concrete floor and leave him there overnight without blankets. He froze to death, according to four U.S. government officials. The CIA officer has not been charged in the death.
Is reporting that obviously for “political purposes” or perhaps is it possible that we are doing something not quite in keeping with American values - and possibly a crime?
Hmmm. And what was Bill Bennett’s response to this cited so approvingly by Powerline?
Of course not; you'd go nuts, wouldn't you, if we weren't doing that?
So if we weren’t chaining people to cold concrete floors without blankets letting them freeze to death, the Bill Bennett’s of our country would go nuts.
Sorry, but I think they’ve already arrived.
I agree with Hypatia and Eyes Wide Open... as long as we can still go after the commies and pinkos.
ReplyDeleteI have been much maligned of late. None of it is true! I am a true American hero and patriot.
ReplyDeleteBart says:
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, but only activists and large corporations give thousands of dollars to political campaigns.
Bart, you are just making things up.
I am neither an activist nor a large corporation. But I have definitely given thousands of dollars to political campaigns. And not only to Democratic campaigns. I have given money to support the campaigns of candidates that I see as worthwhile.
Furthermore, have you verified there is only 1 Mary McCarthy in zip code 20817? And that Michael McCarthy is even related to Mary McCarthy?
And, if so, who cares????
We should debate and judge McCarthy's actions on her actions. Who she supported and what party she supported is irrelevant. In case you hadn't noticed, the Democratic party is one of the two major political parties in this country. Roughly half the voters supported that party in the last presidential election.
You see partisanship because you must. You just can't stand the thought of someone taking a principled stand because of what they believe in. At least not if they disagree with you.
What would you have said if it turned out that she supported Republicans in the past? You would have found another way to smear her.
Example: See your previous comments on Scott Ritter.
Bad Moon Rising said...
ReplyDeleteBart says: I'm sorry, but only activists and large corporations give thousands of dollars to political campaigns.
Bart, you are just making things up. I am neither an activist nor a large corporation. But I have definitely given thousands of dollars to political campaigns.
Not an activist? Contributing to political campaigns and political blogging like this is political activism. These activities are not indications of neutrality.
People ought to read James Bamford's "The Puzzle Palace" to get an idea as to why we need some control and some real independent oversight over "intelligence activities". There was a good reason for the Church Commission, and the FISA laws ... mainly that the U.S. gummint was abusing the vast powers of the NSA to get around the Fourth Amendment and to engage in snoops of American (as well as other) citizens for pretty much any reason any one of many agencies (CIA, FBI, NBDD, Secret Service, the armed forces) thought worthwhile. Nixon's "plumbers" came out of thus "anything goes" environment, and not surprisingly so.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Eyes WIde Open said...
ReplyDeleteB. MORAL.
This gets us to what is, imo, the crucial question of the day. There are two schools of thought here. I call one the Orin Kerr/bart school, which I see as a strict emphasis on the letter of the law, and a fierce avoidance of anything which touches upon the "normative" aspect of law.
As an attorney, I am an officer of the court and bound to follow the law.
If you want to change the law, do it through legislation or amending the constitution.
If you cannot morally follow the law and are engaging in civil disobedience, be prepared to do the time.
Nowhere is this more concisely illustrated than in this comment by bart above:
The ONLY legitimate reason to leak classified material to the press and thereby the enemy is if clear criminal wrongdoing was classified. Simple policy disagreements are not grounds for disclosing secrets to the enemy.
(Leave aside the deceptive way which bart inserts his own implicit definitions of "secrets to the enemy" and "simple policy disagreements".)
How are these definitions deceptive?
The proper purpose for classification is to keep information secret from the enemy. You cannot publish something to the public at large without also disclosing that information to the enemy.
Policy disagreements are distinct and different from government criminal acts.
Illegal acts need to be made public for resolution by the political process or the courts. It is an abuse of the classification system to attempt to hide criminal acts from public scrutiny.
Conversely, if a member of the government disagrees with a secret policy of an elected president, then they should resign and work to elect an alternative president, not to damage the nation by disclosing the secret policy to the enemy.
Bart's basic position is one I think most would have read and agreed with in 1944, but it is imperative to examine its implications in 2006. Contained within these two sentences is, imo, a prescription for the destruction of this nation.
I agree completely that my position concerning operational security was common wisdom during WWII and indeed at any time before Vietnam.
You have made a serious charge that this policy of concerning operational security which has served this nation so well before Vietnam would somehow be a "prescription for disaster" when implemented now. Make your argument as to why.
Bart is saying that if an elected officical breaks a law he should be punished, and any leak of classified information which demonstates a law has been broken is therefore justifiable.
The defect in this otherwise reasonable argument is that it implies there are laws the President could break.
How so? The President is the one with the Constitutional power as the executive to classify and declassify executive information and may delegate that authority to others. By definition, the President cannot break classification laws because he or she can declassify information at will. This is well established by law.
Glenn:
ReplyDeleteTheir [the unwanted leaks[ most significant impact, by far, was on the political front, not the security or military front.
Oh, but you see, Glenn, anything that harms this most righteous and capable administration politically is de facto harming the national security by weakening this most stalwart crew in their efforts to fight terraism and all, and by emboldening those that are in opposition to the things these brave warriors are doing to protect us all. No one can fight terraism better, and if the Dummycrats get in power, we all lose (plus the emboldened enemy will turn us all in to cinders soon, particularly with a Democratic gummint that doesn't even have a plan, when they're not outright going off and shaking hands with the terraists).
<*/BART*>
Cheers,
It was even anarchist communist Joseph Déjacque who first coined the term libertarian in 1857. Quit ripping us off. get some of your own ideas. Plagiarist!
ReplyDeleteAs an attorney, I am an officer of the court and bound to follow the law.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to change the law, do it through legislation or amending the constitution.
Hence the number of political hacks who go into law, like MBAs masquerading as MDs. Lawyer jokes will be making a comeback soon.
I know. It was my sincere intention at the time to only post once but I think this might indeed be a very big story.
ReplyDeleteRemember when that guy Petras wrote a while ago that there was a rift developing between two different factions of neo-con power players?
Is this story evidence that such a rift is now unfolding?
My opinion is that AIPEC, whatever it's role in everything, could legitimately not want to just "take the fall" and be smeared in the court of public opinion in this matter.
They certainly have the right to defend themselves if this is what is happening and point the finger at the real culprit in this story.
That's my first take on all this but I obviously know very few of the actual facts.
zach said...
ReplyDeleteAs I visit the various right-wing blogs so outraged over this leak, I have yet to come across any of them that actually mentions what information was leaked, and only a couple even mention Dana Priest – but not her article.
Perhaps it’s time for a little refresher course for these blowhard patriots. Take it away, Dana:
It is illegal for the government to hold prisoners in such isolation in secret prisons in the United States, which is why the CIA placed them overseas, according to several former and current intelligence officials and other U.S. government officials.
Try citing some actual law to that effect. The Geneva Conventions do not cover illegal combatants like the senior al Qaeda terrorist being held. Read it sometime.
Who the hell are "several former and current intelligence officials and other U.S. government officials" and what are their legal arguments?
Legal experts and intelligence officials said that the CIA's internment practices also would be considered illegal under the laws of several host countries, where detainees have rights to have a lawyer or to mount a defense against allegations of wrongdoing.
This is possible. So what? That is a matter for the host countries.
BTW, unless the Supreme Court goes brain dead, there is no current US law providing POWs, nevertheless foreign illegal combatants, with civilian constitutional rights to trials and lawyers. POWs can be held until the end of the conflict. Illegal combatants can be summarily executed.
Host countries have signed the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as has the United States. Yet CIA interrogators in the overseas sites are permitted to use the CIA's approved "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques," some of which are prohibited by the U.N. convention and by U.S. military law. They include tactics such as "waterboarding," in which a prisoner is made to believe he or she is drowning.
This is a misstatement of the law. The US added an amended version of this treaty defining torture as the intentional infliction of severe physical or mental pain. The coercive techniques were reviewed under this standard before being approved by Justice and DoD.
Other countries have difference views which are not in the least binding on the US.
let’s take a look at one more sentence in Dana’s article.
In November 2002, an inexperienced CIA case officer allegedly ordered guards to strip naked an uncooperative young detainee, chain him to the concrete floor and leave him there overnight without blankets. He froze to death, according to four U.S. government officials. The CIA officer has not been charged in the death.
Is reporting that obviously for “political purposes” or perhaps is it possible that we are doing something not quite in keeping with American values - and possibly a crime?
Yes, when the reporter places this alleged criminal act in an article about secret detention centers and falsel implies without evidence that this is standard treatment at those detention centers.
If true, this is not one of the techniques approved by Justice and DoD. The Military has charged, tried and often convicted several of its members for exceeding the guidelines and abusing prisoners.
My opinion is that AIPEC, whatever it's role in everything, could legitimately not want to just "take the fall" and be smeared in the court of public opinion in this matter.
ReplyDeleteThey certainly have the right to defend themselves if this is what is happening and point the finger at the real culprit in this story.
That's my first take on all this but I obviously know very few of the actual facts.
That's AIPAC, and why would you know any of the facts? To even suggest that Israeli agents may have infiltrated the highest levels of our government, like those damn commies and pinkos did back in my day, gets you branded as an anti-semite.
AIPAC
ReplyDeleteFounded in 1953 by I.L. "Si" Kenen, AIPAC's original name was the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs. According to UCLA political science professor and author, Steven Siegel, "the tension between the Eisenhower administration and Israeli supporters was so acute that there were rumors (unfounded as it turned out) that the administration would investigate...
How many people have been murdered in our prisons? And just how many have been actually convicted and punished? The abuse has been rampant, the charges few, and the convictions only a handful, and we don’t even know what the punishments are.
ReplyDeleteMost of these accusations have not been even investigated. And even those who have, the results are far from encouraging.
Take one example: Bagram. And these are not
isolated incidents. It’s policy:
"The White House always put forward, that Abu Ghraib was an exception, just some rotten apples," he said. "But US personnel in Afghanistan were involved in killings and torture of prisoners well before the Iraq war even started.
"The story begins in Afghanistan."
But you know what? We never would have known about Bagram and these murders if they hadn’t been leaked to the New York Times.
Nevertheless, exposing these murders and torture – by leaking it to the press – was soundly condemned by uber-patriotic Bush supporters wearing their orange “I love Gitmo” apparel that loudly proclaims their approval of such behavior.
Yes, puff out your chest, wave your flag, and look the other way about our real crimes while jumping up and down with your hair on fire about those who leaked these crimes to the press. The problem is not that we are torturing and murdering people, but that someone found out about.
Absolutely disgusting.
From Bart at 7:14PM:
ReplyDelete"As an attorney, I am an officer of the court and bound to follow the law."
This would almost be rich, even ironic assertion in view of your prior posts and comments. Indeed, you present a rather...conditional respect for either the rule of law or the law itself.
For example, your continued dismissal of FISA as 'unconstitutional' (an assertion without statutory of judicial support), your strange assertion we as a nation are "at war" (overlooking the fact no such Declaration has been passed by Congress), and now your insistence the leaks concerning CIA 'black sites' in Eastern Europe and warrantless surveillance constitute treason whereas those coming from the Administration itself (Valerie Plame's CIA position to reporters, AG Ashcroft's releasing the Gorelick memos, Secretary Rice's 'discussions' with AIPAC, the various elements of the NIE, etc.) do not...you get the idea.
Remind me again which US States you are licensed to practice in again?
Try citing some actual law to that effect. The Geneva Conventions do not cover illegal combatants like the senior al Qaeda terrorist being held. Read it sometime.
ReplyDeleteUh, you "read it sometime". Article 4. There is no illegal or unlawful combatant defined in the Conventions. You don't get to assign anyone you want into an imaginary group and then say they have no rights.
If you feel up to it by all means please present your argument that captured al Quaeda members
aren't prisoners of war - but given that we define them as a group and have "declared war on them" by your own admission you've already conceded the point.
OMG... Bart says:
ReplyDeletepolitical blogging like this is political activism. These activities are not indications of neutrality.
Oh, I see. In Bart's world, forming an opinion and stating it is an indication of bias. And if it doesn't agree with his opinion, this bias can be used to impugn your character.
Bart, it's you against the world (getting close anyway). But you've delivered me to a place that you've brought many others. On this subject... /bart
From Bart at 7:29PM:
ReplyDelete"Try citing some actual law to that effect. The Geneva Conventions do not cover illegal combatants like the senior al Qaeda terrorist being held. Read it sometime."
You've just put your finger on the fundamental problem with both these black sites and the current approach to dealing with Al Qaeda and its off-shoots.
Given we aren't really 'at war' with Al Qaeda, clearly those captured in the field are not allowed the same protections and considerations as traditional enemy combatants...
Overlooking of course how you have been almost religious about asserting we are "at war"...and how Al Qaeda is really a network of fellow travellers and not a formal organization with verifiable membership lists or the like...and how there's no way to know if the men and women being held in these black sites have anything to do with Al Qaeda or its off-shoots...
I further note you've declined to address the last point, despite it being brought up repeatedly.
So, which is it, Bart? Are we really at war? And if so, with what? Oh, "Islamofascism" just doesn't cut it, legally or practically, so don't both typing it.
Incidentially, I don't seriously expect a response this.
From Larry Johnson, former CIA agent, who happened to once work with the CIA agent recently fired for leaking information about the US overseas torture prisons:
ReplyDeleteI am struck by the irony that Mary McCarthy may have been fired for blowing the whistle and ensuring that the truth about an abuse was told to the American people. There is something potentially honorable in that action; particularly when you consider that George Bush authorized Scooter Libby to leak misleading information for the purpose of deceiving the American people about the grounds for going to war in Iraq. While I'm neither a fan nor friend of Mary's, she may have done a service for her country. She was a lousy manager in my experience, but she is not a traitor and has not betrayed the identity of an undercover intelligence officer. That dirty work was done by the minions of George Bush and Dick Cheney. It is important to keep that fact in the forefront as the judgment on Mary McCarthy's acts is rendered.
EWO, don't apologize for the lenght of your posts, or refrain from posting if you have more to say. I read all your stuff, as i do almost everybody here's, most of the time. (Stuff, that is.) Including AJ's.
ReplyDeleteBart:
BTW, unless the Supreme Court goes brain dead, there is no current US law providing POWs, nevertheless foreign illegal combatants, with civilian constitutional rights to trials and lawyers. POWs can be held until the end of the conflict. Illegal combatants can be summarily executed.
The problem I have with this whole thing is the confusion we've created by deciding that what we are at now is War, with Terror whatever they decide that is. So we now have a whole new gray area where we have a bunch of prisoners who are not POWs, (so they don't get military justice) but obviously can't have the kind of open access to civil/criminal courts that citizens get.
They're called "illegal combatants" so they can pretty much have anything done to them, including summary execution.
But after the truth managed to get past the Bush lockdown on it, we discovered that lots of these "illegal combatants" were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or had been sold to the CIA by warlords, or had been snatched from airports or off the streets of cities somehwere in the world. Many were tortured after being shipped off by the CIA to countries that have more practice at it than we do. (We're fast catching up though, smarties that we are.) Extraordinary rendition--what a name. You talk about these people like your biggest concern about them is the trouble they cause Bush when their horrifying circumstances are discovered and the stories released to the media. Most Americans don"t share your concerns for what this means for the political prospects of poor GW, but are more worried that we are on the verge of becoming a police state.
So what do we do with them. This does become a huge moral and legal issue and it does require creating something better than Stalinist style gulags or banana republic disapparacidos. The War on Terror threatens to turn us into something the Founding Fathers wouldn't recognize as having sprung from their efforts in Philadelphia. I don't know about you but I find the things we're doing to be shocking and utterly unAmerican. So do the reporteers that found out about this stuff and wrote stories warning us what the govt was doing in our name. Like the Bush regime, you make dismissive legal arguments that call on the law in whatever way allows it to most easily bend to defend the worst behavior of the govt. You make your legal arguments in a way that seems to want to utilize the laws we already have, to meet this unprecedented situation. But doing so ends up meaning the best these people can hope for is to fall into the hands of the jailers who hit them the least before they are summarily executed.
If it weren't for the fact that these are human beings, and because of that our current treatment of them means every claim America makes to itself about being a shining light of freedom and democracy and justice in a dark and evil world a bloody lie, you'd be making sound legal arguments.
In November 2002, an inexperienced CIA case officer allegedly ordered guards to strip naked an uncooperative young detainee, chain him to the concrete floor and leave him there overnight without blankets. He froze to death, according to four U.S. government officials. The CIA officer has not been charged in the death.
Is reporting that obviously for “political purposes” or perhaps is it possible that we are doing something not quite in keeping with American values - and possibly a crime?
Yes, when the reporter places this alleged criminal act in an article about secret detention centers and falsel implies without evidence that this is standard treatment at those detention centers.
If true, this is not one of the techniques approved by Justice and DoD. The Military has charged, tried and often convicted several of its members for exceeding the guidelines and abusing prisoners
Well I see what you have to tell yourself to be able to feel OK about your dismissal of the possibility that these leaks are actually about horrendously immoral and illegal activities. I'm a pretty discriminating consumer of news and everything I've seen tells me that the kind of treatment this murdered detainee got is far more common than Americans who believe in the priciples on which we were founded can live with.
I'm noticing something. Every time I engage your arguments it ends up falling on which set of facts we accept. You accept the govt line that these "illegal combatants" are being handled the way we always have handled them, (or would have if they'd ever existed in this quantity before) and our method of handling them is regulated and doesn't cross any moral or legal lines that should bother anyone except in extreme cases of 'bad apples" like the junior CIA officer in this story. I think most people here have gotten the distinct impression this kind of treatment is far more common than you want to believe, and is the result of Rumsfeld deciding the gloves needed to come off, among other things. That you stillm aintain the govt line amazes me. But that just reminds me why I've come to hate the loss of the Fairness Doctrine. I won't go into it again, but I think you're getting the facts from places that wish they were true as badly as you do.
The stories about gulags, if true, certainly rise to the level of activity that, if leaked, would have been so for the purposes of revealing illegal activity.
Not an activist? Contributing to political campaigns and political blogging like this is political activism. These activities are not indications of neutrality.
ReplyDeletePolitical activism: alternatively known as "citizenship." Or, to distinguish it from that passive legal status of having been born into a country, "participatory citizenship."
There is no requirement that any employee of the CIA or any branch of the civil services, or even of the military, renounce their rights as citizens to form opinions about domestic policy and to act on those opinions by voting for and contributing to the parties or candidates of their choice. Of course, no one disputes this, but the "revelation" that Ms. McCarthy donated money to the Kerry campaign is a cheap and easy way to decry her actions as motivated by purely partisan motives. I assume a CIA agent who strongly opposed the repellent practice of throwing persons unknown into secret prisons abroad would have leaked this no matter who was in office.
Actually, for those who object to Bart's posts here, I suggest to view his comments as valuable: they reveal the fascist mindset of partisan Bush supporters, (as well as of the Bush Administration), and they spur other posters to respond, to think about what kind of country America is and what kind of country we want it to be.
I don't necessarily think we can just give a free pass to leakers who reveal secrets we desire to have revealed, while calling for the punishment of those--even in government--who reveal secrets the revelation of which we oppose. We are a nation of laws, and we must be consistent. The civil rights marchers and Viet Nam protesters of the 60s did not commit civil disobedience with the expectation they would or should go unpunished because they were doing it for a "good cause," (a subjective appraisal). They expected to be punished, and even desired it, in some respects, as they knew--or hoped--the punishment meted out to them for the acts they committed in protest of the intolerable conditions of law or acts of domestic policy would arouse the public, inflame the popular consensus to outrage over the reality of governmental tyranny revealed.
I support Ms. McCarthy and other government employees who reveal abuses committed by our government and kept secret merely to evade public condemnation: she is a hero. But, sometimes being a hero means you will be made an example of. I hope, if they decide to prosecute her, the public will stand in support of her and demand she be acquitted or that laws be written to allow for such actions as she took. (Others here have pointed to the Whistleblower law, the particulars of which I don't know at all, but that may be sufficient defense for her. If not, then we must demand of Congress that they write such legislation.
Sorry for a few clumsy passages...I meant to hit "Preview" and I hit "Publish your comment" instead. I think my points are clear enough, though.
ReplyDeleteI've never commented on this site before,but have been reading for awhile.Always well written,high quality stuff.Thanks for your work.
ReplyDeleteI'd like your permission to ask your readers and commenters if they would like to become involved in the grass roots project first started by you,Jane Hamsher and John Amato.I'm involved in Maryland,and anyone in MD. interested can E-mail me at paradox65@comcast.net .This is starting up all over the country,contact Pachacutec over at FDL.We can make a differance if we choose to!
From the Rolling Stone article: The. Worst. President. Ever. Ever. Ever. ...
ReplyDeleteThe president came to office calling himself "a uniter, not a divider" and promising to soften the acrimonious tone in Washington. He has had two enormous opportunities to fulfill those pledges: first, in the noisy aftermath of his controversial election in 2000, and, even more, after the attacks of September 11th, when the nation pulled behind him as it has supported no other president in living memory. Yet under both sets of historically unprecedented circumstances, Bush has chosen to act in ways that have left the country less united and more divided, less conciliatory and more acrimonious -- much like James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson and Herbert Hoover before him. And, like those three predecessors, Bush has done so in the service of a rigid ideology that permits no deviation and refuses to adjust to changing realities. Buchanan failed the test of Southern secession, Johnson failed in the face of Reconstruction, and Hoover failed in the face of the Great Depression. Bush has failed to confront his own failures in both domestic and international affairs, above all in his ill-conceived responses to radical Islamic terrorism. Having confused steely resolve with what Ralph Waldo Emerson called "a foolish consistency . . . adored by little statesmen," Bush has become entangled in tragedies of his own making, compounding those visited upon the country by outside forces.
Bush Meets Privately With Think Tank Promoting Military Strike On Iran
ReplyDeleteChips Down, Bush prepares a Hail Mary bet
It's just like playing blackjack in Vegas.
Invariably, sitting right next to you is some guy, eyes shifty and body twitchy and making weird sounds with his mouth and smelling vaguely of sawdust and horse manure and dead dreams, with a huge pile of chips he is quickly turning into a very small pile of chips.
(...)
Now, here he is, sitting right next to all the other countries at the Big Table, representing America, it's little Dubya Bush, stewing in his own juices, his poll numbers hovering right near Nixon levels, mumbling to himself, smelling vaguely of sawdust and horse manure and dead Social Security overhaul plans.
He is pockmarked by scandal, buffeted by storms of disapproval and infighting and nascent impeachment. He authorized the leak of classified security information merely to smear an Iraq war critic, he lied about WMD and lied about Saddam and lied about making the United States safer and lied about, well, just about everything, on top of launching the worst and most violent and most expensive, unwinnable war since Vietnam.
His pile of betting capital is down to a tiny lump, nothing like back when he had the table rigged and all the pit bosses worked for him and the pile was as big as a roomful of Texas cow pies. But now, fortune is frowning. In fact, fortune is white-hot furious at being so viciously molested, spit upon, raped lo these many years. The truth is coming out: Bush has now lost far, far more bets than he ever won.
What's to be done? Why, do what any grumbling, furious, confused, underqualified alcoholic gambler does: reach down deep and say, "To hell with the nation and to hell with the odds and to hell with the rest of the planet," and pull out one more desperate, crumpled war from deep in your pants, slap it on the table and hear the world moan.
But this time, try to make it serious. Do not rule out the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Do not rule out another massive air strike, ground troops, special forces, a strategy so intense it makes Iraq look like a jog in the park. Think of yourself as creating a masterful legacy, going down in history as the guy who "saved" the world from Iran's nukes while protecting American oil interests. Yes? Can you smell the oily sanctimony in the air? Is God speaking to you again, telling you to damn the torpedoes and kill more Muslims? You are the chosen one, after all.
Sound far-fetched? Don't think even Bush could be capable of using nukes to slap Iran? Perish the thought. All reports from underground White House sources -- most notably by way of Sy Hersh's horrifying report in a recent New Yorker -- indicate that Dubya and his remaining team of war-happy flying monkeys have been secretly laying out plans to attack Iran for months, possibly including the use of tactical nuclear weapons to get at those deep Iranian bunkers, all because Iran just celebrated its entrance into the world's "nuclear club" by finally enriching some uranium for the first time. Cookies all around!
No matter that most analysts say that Iran is far from being a true threat, that a nuclear Iran is at least a good decade away, if not longer. No matter that 10 years is a good long time to work on ways to force Iran out of the game -- via negotiation, diplomacy, sanctions -- without unleashing another river of never-ending violence.
With Bush in power, there is no waiting. There is no thought of avoiding another hideous war at all costs. To the Bush hawks, diplomacy is a failed joke. Negotiation is for intellectuals and tofu pacifists. In the Dubya worldview, the planet is a roiling cauldron of nasty threats, crammed with terrorists and hateful Muslims and foreign demons suddenly growling on our doorstep when, curiously, they really weren't there before he stumbled into power. Amazing how that works.
It is now seven months before what could be a radically influential congressional election, a vote that could very well give power back to the Democrats, who will (with any luck) waste no time launching a number of long-overdue investigations into Bush's failed war and the various scandals and lies and fiscal abuses that led us all here.
For Dubya, now is the time. One last, desperate gamble. Slam that last drink, scrunch up your face, screw the rules and let the bombs fly. What, you don't think he could do it? Don't think a nuclear attack on Iran is possible? You haven't looked into the tiny, ink-black eyes of Dick Cheney lately. You haven't seen Rumsfeld's arrogant sneer, seen Bush looking confused and lost, wondering where all his "capital" went, desperately hunting for a legacy and finding only irresponsibility and self-righteousness and death.
But hell, as we already know, that's good enough for him.
Oh, look. The Nolan Test is good for something...
ReplyDeleteSenate Democrats more libertarian than their GOP counterparts…
Armagednoutahere said...
ReplyDeleteBart: BTW, unless the Supreme Court goes brain dead, there is no current US law providing POWs, nevertheless foreign illegal combatants, with civilian constitutional rights to trials and lawyers. POWs can be held until the end of the conflict. Illegal combatants can be summarily executed.
The problem I have with this whole thing is the confusion we've created by deciding that what we are at now is War, with Terror whatever they decide that is. So we now have a whole new gray area where we have a bunch of prisoners who are not POWs, (so they don't get military justice) but obviously can't have the kind of open access to civil/criminal courts that citizens get.
The Geneva Conventions applies to all military conflicts, no matter what we decided to call them or how we decide to authorize them. The Geneva Conventions were designed to extend POW protections to combatants who follow the laws of war set forth in the Conventions. Those who do not are illegal combatants and enjoy none of the benefits of the Conventions except a hearing to determine that they are in fact illegal combatants. Extending even POW benefits to illegal combatants undermines the intent of the Geneva Conventions to encourage a basic code of conduct by combatants.
But after the truth managed to get past the Bush lockdown on it, we discovered that lots of these "illegal combatants" were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or had been sold to the CIA by warlords, or had been snatched from airports or off the streets of cities somehwere in the world....Most Americans don"t share your concerns for what this means for the political prospects of poor GW, but are more worried that we are on the verge of becoming a police state.
The US has released hundreds of such detainees. Indeed, our policies have been liberal enough that we have found released detainees on the battlefield in Afghanistan again trying to kill our troops.
I could give a damn what they mean to the political fortunes of Mr. Bush. I do care about what this means to our troops.
So what do we do with them. This does become a huge moral and legal issue and it does require creating something better than Stalinist style gulags or banana republic disapparacidos.
Why? In WWII, we executed illegal combatants on the field of battle. The facilities in which we have allowed these prisoners to live today are far better than what they would face if we released them to their own countries of origin, which would not treat terrorists so leniently.
When you start feeling sorry for these prisoners, start googling for images of the women and children these animals are massacring in marketplaces, mosques and at funerals with their suicide bombing campaigns.
Lefter said...
ReplyDeleteBart: Try citing some actual law to that effect. The Geneva Conventions do not cover illegal combatants like the senior al Qaeda terrorist being held. Read it sometime.
Uh, you "read it sometime". Article 4. There is no illegal or unlawful combatant defined in the Conventions. You don't get to assign anyone you want into an imaginary group and then say they have no rights.
Illegal combatants are those who do not fall under the definitions of legal combatants in the Geneva Conventions.
If you feel up to it by all means please present your argument that captured al Quaeda members
aren't prisoners of war - but given that we define them as a group and have "declared war on them" by your own admission you've already conceded the point.
Not at all. al Qaeda do not follow any of the rules of war required to be a legal combatant which enjoys the protections of POWs. This isn't even a close argument.
bart.
ReplyDeleteoh, bart.
the problem is, bart, that all of your arguments rest on one unfortunate premise: that we should trust bush implicitly, and without question.
well, after all of the evidence to the contrary -- the faith-based missile programs, the faith-based governance, the borrowing $1.05 trillion (more than all 42 prior presidents combined), the drunken sailor spending (outspent clinton by his 5th year in office), the whether-you-agree-with-it-or-not-it's-a-freakin'-mess iraq war, heckuva job..., "we're against torture (but don't make it illegal)!", there may be no wmd's but there's still osama-, PLUS their international best-seller, "we never make mistakes" and MANY MORE of G.W. BUSH & THE TRICKY DICK DUO's GREATIST HITS (featuring condaleezza rice on piano!) -- i'm just not prepared to do that.
i can't imagine why you'd have a problem with someone wondering if, just maybe, these guys aren't exactly leveling with us.
yankeependragon said...
ReplyDeleteFrom Bart at 7:14PM: "As an attorney, I am an officer of the court and bound to follow the law."
This would almost be rich, even ironic assertion in view of your prior posts and comments. Indeed, you present a rather...conditional respect for either the rule of law or the law itself.
For example, your continued dismissal of FISA as 'unconstitutional' (an assertion without statutory of judicial support)
::heh::
My friend, I am the only one to offer as support the applicable provisions of the Constitution. I have all the case law on my side and apparently the support of the FISA judges. On the other hand, all you have is the baseless insistence that a case concerning property seizure during the Korean War has something to do with the Constitutional authority to conduct intelligence gathering.
your strange assertion we as a nation are "at war" (overlooking the fact no such Declaration has been passed by Congress)
Are you being purposefully obtuse or are you really this detached from reality? Congress authorized use of military force twice, our President sent troops into two different countries on those AUMFs, and out troops have been killing and dying in combat.
If you ask 10 people on the street if that sounds like a war to them, 10 will look at you as if you are stupid and say "of course."
and now your insistence the leaks concerning CIA 'black sites' in Eastern Europe and warrantless surveillance constitute treason whereas those coming from the Administration itself (Valerie Plame's CIA position to reporters, AG Ashcroft's releasing the Gorelick memos, Secretary Rice's 'discussions' with AIPAC, the various elements of the NIE, etc.) do not...you get the idea.
1) The President and his designees can classify and declassify materials. The Gorelick memos were legal memorandum about a subject which was no longer classified because some criminal in the NSA illegally disclosed the NSA Program.
2) I never said that the fired CIA analyst committed treason. She appears to have violated several lesser statutes prohibiting the disclosure of classified information.
3) You are free to prove that anyone in the Administration violated any of the statutes prohibiting the disclosure of classified information concerning Plame. Mr. Fitzgerald has failed to do so.
Remind me again which US States you are licensed to practice in again?
CO & FL. I would advise that you seek legal counsel if you ever get into legal trouble. Your posts show the truth of the old saw about how the person who represents himself has a fool for a client.
Poor, misguided, highly confused little bart, citing contradictory, convoluted, unprecendented "legalese" in order to offer blind, unwavering support for his dear boyfriend, Booshie. You get an "A" for effort, brownshirt.
ReplyDeleteRemind us again of when "war" was actually declared by congress. Then, we can talk about your boyfriend's endless power to destroy the constitution at his pleasure.
Does anybody else wonder how such a "great attorney" such as der bartster can possibly have so much free time to bloviate his ignorance on an anonymous forum? You'd think every wingnut attorney in the country would be booked solid, trying to defend the unending parade of corrupt GOP politicians.
In my eyes, setting aside whether her leaking was done for what she perceives as "the greater good", Ms. McCarthy has an ethical problem.
ReplyDeleteI believe she left the CIA in 2001 because she was unhappy with her treatment by the Bush regime, and probably because she disagreed with policies/practices of the administration. Then she rejoined that same organization under essentialy the same leadership a couple of years later.
I can think of three plausible reasons why one would do this:
(1) A change of heart regarding the thing(s) that precipitated the resignation.
(2) A realization, once outside, that working from within is the most effective way to change the status quo.
(3) Intention to undermine the leadership of the organization by one's actions/decisions once back inside.
#1 is not plausible in this instance, for obvious reasons.
#2 would be eliminated by virtue of her not going through channels to express her dissent and offer alternatives (I don't think she did, though she had done so under Clinton).
#3 remains, and is supported by the evidence we know so far.
Is it ethical to reenter the service of an organization with the intention of breaking its rules in an attempt to challenge it and make its leaders' mission harder to achieve?
I am taking no position re: the legality or even the wisdom of the secret prisons, or the issue of whether we are in fact in wartime, and I certainly am no Bush apologist. But I think we have to put those things aside when evaluating whether Ms. McCarthy's conduct was ethically defensible.
We all honor and value whistleblowers. BUT, I don't have the same soft spot in my heart for those who get involved in secret, illegal disclosures regarding foreign policy and national security. Especially if they enter an organization with that intent, which she may have done.
Have at me lawyers and McCarthy sympathizers. I try to keep an open mind.
When the NSA scandal first emerged, an extremely pro-administration leak suddenly appeared... We thus learned from an anonymous government leaker that the administration had a super-top-secret program in place to detect unusual radioactivity in the nation's mosques and the detection is even conducted without warrants... The source even helpfully tied the very uncontroversial radiation detection program into the highly controversial NSA warrantless eavesdropping program... No investigation of that leak was ever announced.
ReplyDeleteSo, here's another warrentless NSA monitoring program, assuming it isn't another helpful fabrication.
Sipping the Kool-Aid for a moment, if the need for secrecy in wiretapping is so great, how much greater should it be in a search for radioactive materials? Put another way, how much more damage did this "helpful" leak do to national security and the pursuit of the WOT?
Now, it's been noted in argument to the claimed need for secrecy on NSA wiretaps, no foreign operative with two working brain cells makes a phone call without assuming someone's listening in. Likewise, if the hypothetical operative had a dirty bomb kit, a mosque would be a stupidly obvious place to hide out.
Within the framework of 'reason' to which the Bushbots cling, it doesn't (or shouldn't) matter. Even if he was that dense, some helpful partisan gave him the heads-up on where not to hide out. Who would you rather have the goods on: a couple of guys planning a job, or the guy who's already here, with the materials, and who may already have his game plan in place?
Remember, border security has been tested and found wanting.
And curiously enough, no witch hunt for this treasonous leaky bastard.
Now how secure do you feel in Bush's post-9/11 America?
Bart said:
ReplyDelete"If true, this is not one of the techniques approved by Justice and DoD. The Military has charged, tried and often convicted several of its members for exceeding the guidelines and abusing prisoners."
Yeah like the WO that killed a detainee by putting a bag over the detainee's head and then sitting on him till he suffocated.
He got all of six months for that if I remember correctly.
bart bart bart
ReplyDeletedon't you guys get it?
The Simpsons-- every response to him is just a way for him to show his ploy.
bart BART bart
OHG bart
bart bart bart
ReplyDeleteOh, and let's not overlook the fact that this comes right on the heels of allegations that Condi Rice did a little leaking of her own, to AIPAC.
ReplyDeleteConsidering she was on the witness list (3rd to last graf) and, a month ago, the defence team was loudly asking why David Satterfield wasn't being prosecuted as "one of the government officials identified in the indictment as leaking information", the McCarthy firing coming up for the MSM to pile on top of seems rather well timed, doesn't it?
If it looks Rovian, and smells Rovian...
In the uniform military code of justice, you must follow orders unless you believe them to be illegal. We can argue that that’s military code and not civil law, and that civil law is a little murkier about the citizen’s legal responsibility when witnessing a crime or has knowledge of a crime.
ReplyDeleteHowever, we are losing sight of the fact that the administration can’t classify information to cover up a criminal act. And any citizen in a democratic republic who is in a position to know of criminal acts being committed has not only a right, but an obligation to expose it.
If "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s indicted former chief of staff, can establish a legal fund to pay for his defense in the CIA leak case (in which he claims that the President of the U.S. authorized him to leak for political gain) then certainly a longtime career government worker can, too:
Libby associates are soliciting money from friends and Republican donors. The same sources say Barbara Comstock, a Republican communications strategist hired to work with Libby’s defense team, has provided potential donors with a Washington address for sending checks.
Since Libby has left government, there are no legal requirements for public disclosure, and there are no limits on individual contributions. The Times reports that names of donors will not be made public.
The fund could prove troubling for Libby’s political supporters. They must weigh the benefit of providing financial support to a friend and political ally against the likelihood of public censure for supporting a man accused of a serious crime.
How about raising legal defense funds for CIA whistleblowers such as Mary McCarthy? To encourage more of them to come forward, without having to fear the hideous expense of legal defenses. Without these whistleblowers, who are the real patriots and heroes, we wouldn't know what our government is doing in our names. In this new "information age," paying the legal fees of whistleblowers may be the only way we can guarantee our right to a democratic republic.
With the firing and criminal prosecution of Mary McCarthy (with more to come) the Bush administration appears to want to frighten these heroic Americans into silence and submission. Just as what they hoped leaking Valerie Plame's name (and the cover company that she and other covert CIA agents worked for) would achieve. Congress has abdicated its' role of oversight while the most corrupt Presidential administration in U.S. history wreaks havoc and creates mayhem all over the world. The whistleblowers are all that stand between a democratic republic and a fascist dictatorship.
Mary McCarthy was one of the sources for the Washington Post's series of articles on the CIA’s rumored secret prisons in Eastern Europe. The information was allegedly provided to Dana Priest of the Washington Post, who wrote about CIA prisons in November and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize on Monday for her reporting.
The Washington Post report caused an international uproar, and government officials have said it did significant damage to relationships between the U.S. and allied intelligence agencies.
Goss thinks it's the disclosure of secret torture prisons that has damaged U.S. relations around the world, and not the fact that agents of the American government are kidnapping citizens off streets around the world, drugging them, shackling and blindfolding them, transporting them to secret underground prisons to be tortured and then murdered. In defiance of all international laws, as well as American law.
CIA Director Porter Goss told the Senate in February that leaks to the media had damaged national security. Subsequently, Goss ordered an internal investigation on leaks involving classified security data. The probe led to McCarthy.
McCarthy flunked a polygraph exam and acknowledged giving classified information to a reporter before being fired on Thursday and is now under investigation by the Justice Department.
Mary McCarthy, worked in the CIA's inspector general's office and had worked for the National Security Council under the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. For more about Mary McCarthy's bio.
Ironically, sources at the CIA spoke to the media about McCarthy on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk. As well, the Associated Press reports today that:
Investigations into reports that US agents shipped prisoners through European airports to secret detention centers have produced no evidence of illegal CIA activities, the European Union's antiterrorism coordinator said yesterday.
The investigations also have not turned up any proof of secret renditions of terror suspects on EU territory.
I think that this may be why the firing and prosecution of CIA employees for leaks is such a rare occurrence - the prosecution winds up asking a court to convict a person for leaking information that, *wink*, "isn't true."
The CIA said its own internal investigation into leaks was continuing. The probe began in January.
CIA Director Porter Goss made a strong case against media leaks before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in February.
"I'm sorry to tell you that the damage has been very severe to our capabilities to carry out our mission. I use the words 'very severe' intentionally. That is my belief. And I think that the evidence will show that," Goss said.
I understand that the 'after action' report in the Plame-Brewster Jennings outing was also severely damaging.
Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, Republican chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, called for prosecution in the case and said vigorous leak investigations should continue across the international community.
"Clearly, those guilty of improperly disclosing classified information should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," he said in a statement.
Too bad that Americans can't count on Senator Roberts' committment to the rule of law when it comes to the President and oversight of the NSA's illegal wiretapping program.
I don't know if registering Mary McCarthy to receive donations for a legal defense fund is legal, but I think that the idea itself (of citizens becoming active and donating to whistleblowers' legal defenses) is a good one. But until ActBlue says it's a "no go," give until you bleed at Hail Mary'!
Terry Ott says:
ReplyDeleteI believe she left the CIA in 2001 because she was unhappy with her treatment by the Bush regime... Then she rejoined that same organization under essentialy the same leadership a couple of years later.
I can think of three plausible reasons why one would do this....
and then, of course, only the ethically compromising reason survives the process of elimination.
Well Terry, the problem is that you present us with a false (or limited) set of choices. There are obviously many other possible reasons why Ms. McCarthy might leave her job and then go back.
Perhaps she left to retire and they asked her to come back. Maybe she just needed to work to earn money.
I really don't know the answer but using the process of elimination this way only gets you the answer you want.
From Bart at 12:41PM:
ReplyDelete"My friend, I am the only one to offer as support the applicable provisions of the Constitution. I have all the case law on my side and apparently the support of the FISA judges."
You have offered your *interpretation* of the applicability of Article II, vis-a-vis FISA and the NSA program; no Court at any level has yet to offer a ruling in support of your position. The 'case law' you have cited does not persuade me the fundamental issue has actually been addressed. Until there is a clear ruling, prescedent rules and FISA remains the law of the land, does it not?
And, incidentially, I haven't once mentioned 'Youngstown' or the Korean Conflict prescedent.
"Are you being purposefully obtuse or are you really this detached from reality? Congress authorized use of military force twice, our President sent troops into two different countries on those AUMFs, and out troops have been killing and dying in combat."
I distinguish between when Congress has declared a state of war exists between the United States and another power, and when Congress simply authorizes the President to use military force against more ambiguous opponents and towards less-defined goals. While I agree there is comparatively little empiracle difference to be observed between a 'state of war' and an 'authorized conflict', it is the latter case we find ourselves with, which as we've now seen have enormous practical, legal and ethical implications for the range of actions either enacted or tolerated by both Congress and the White House.
I will further grant the opponent the Bush Administration has designated is a loose, diffuse network of fellow travellers and militants, some of whom are motivated by a radical off-shoot of mainline Islam, Congress simply didn't have the option of declaring war against it.
That said, there is no excuse for the United States to enact policies and practices that, whatever their motives, cast the country and its government every bit as autocratic and authoritarian as those in Tehran, P'yŏngyang, and Beijing. Rejection of the Geneva Conventions *may* be defensible on legal grounds (I remain unconvinced on that score), but as both a philosophical, moral, and practical matter it widens the divide from our country and the rest of the civilized world *precisely* when we need our allies the most.
Your latter assertions that the President and his designees can selectively declassify materials has, so far as I am aware, no support under current statute. If you wish to make such an assertion, please cite the relevant ruling or statute.
The matter of Ms. McCarthy's dismissal is still under review, so while my talk of her being accused of 'treason' may have been misdirected (at least towards youself), I would withhold judgment as to whether she is actually found guilty of anything.
You're free to hold your own opinions, of course. But please don't present them as established fact, not when you have a depressing tendency of ignoring the fundamental issues raised. Its embarrassing.
Bad Moon Rising,
ReplyDeleteYou're right; her motivations cannot be clearly discerned --- may never be. But, my 3 alternatives were about as far as I could get at this point.
Sure, she may have needed the money --- that's possible --- but with her experience and connections I'm assuming there would have other ways to make a living. I recall reading that she and her husband have 2 homes, one in the Carribean (I think), so it doesn't seem they would need $$ for essentials.
And maybe she was called upon to return, but after she had been effectively moved out of her earlier position of greater responsibility, it seems to me unlikely she was perceived by those at the top to be an essential resource. Whatever the dynamics of that "invitation", and whomever was opening the door for her, she obviously had a choice as to whether to go back "inside".
Obviously I AM speculating without access to important details. But there are those who contend that her firing looks "fishy", and to me her reentering government service in the climate that prevails seems at least as odd.
I just have a hunch at the moment; it could easily change. Let's just stay tuned.
I think there are two reasons they hate the "bad leaks." First, and most obvious, is the fact that they hurt the dear leader and his image, personally. Second, is that is damage the perception they have of how "good" this country it. These things that come out that damage credibility are at odds with the narrative that the GOP likes to fashion of America being great and can do no wrong.
ReplyDeleteAn uninformed troll opined:
ReplyDeleteActually, we do have something similar in the US called the Espionage Act. However, the US has not enforced it to nearly the extent that Britain has their Secrets Act.
Actually, there are other laws much closer to the "Official Secrets Act" in the U.K. Now HWSNBN might know this if he got his nose out of Freeperville and bothered to pick up a book ... like, lesse, James Bamford's seminal book "The Puzzle Palace". When he finished educating himself with that, he might try Bamford's latest, "A Pretext For War", and then move on to Stephen Kinzer's books and James Risen's "State Of War".
Unfortunately, I think he keeps himself too busy tossing rhetorical monkey wrenches into Glenn's blog to have time for that.
But the rest of you ought to check these books out.
Cheers,