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Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: willcousa who wrote (25211)	7/11/2003 6:45:22 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Respond to of 25898

willcousa, Re: Did it ever occur to you that a lot about 9/11 might be classifed and should be? I'm a huge fan of transparency and sunshine in public administration. Secrecy is the hallmark of totalitarian states. Which George Bush appears hellbent on attempting to create in our Republic. This would be fatal to our way of life. I'm on a notification list for the National Security Archive, a watchdog group that keeps an eye on those in government who attempt to keep to many secrets from you and me. Here's the latest item I've received from them: <COPY> Proposed FOIA Exemption Would Provide National Security Agency With Virtually Unchecked Power to Keep Records Secret nsarchive.org Washington DC, June 11, 2003 – The Congress is poised to give the National Security Agency a free pass from complying with the Freedom of Information Act for any NSA "operational" files, even though NSA has failed to demonstrate a need for the exemption and the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office are abusing similar provisions previously granted by Congress. The proposed FY 2004 Defense and Intelligence Authorization Acts pending in Congress each include a provision that would, for the first time in the Freedom of Information Act's (FOIA) 37-year history, exempt the operational files of the National Security Agency from the FOIA. These proposed new FOIA exemptions have moved through the legislative process with little inquiry into whether they are needed and with little concern about the three different explanations that have been offered by the National Security Agency to three different audiences. The ease with which the proposal has passed through the congressional committees is due in large part to the fact that three other intelligence agencies, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), already have similar exemptions from the FOIA. Yet the NSA proposal is potentially broader in both its purpose and its application. More troubling still, in recent months both the CIA and the NRO have applied their FOIA exemptions well beyond the bounds that were authorized by Congress. The rationale for the exemptions is that so-called operational files - which, in the case of the NRO, are limited to records that describe scientific and technical means of surveillance - include information that would not ever be releasable under the FOIA. With no consideration for these limitations, the NRO has refused to search for records that were released with only partial redaction in 1992 to an FOIA requester and that discuss a wide range of historical and organizational matters. Similarly, the CIA - whose exemption is limited to protecting source and method information concerning the conduct of foreign intelligence or counterintelligence operations and the means of intelligence or counterintelligence collection through scientific and technical systems - has refused to search for histories of long obsolete and declassified CIA operations. One of the documents that the CIA refused to search for relates to covert operations not the collection of intelligence or counterintelligence, and was previously made available for review by author Evan Thomas during his research for the book "The Very Best Men," (Simon & Schuster 1995). For the full Archive analysis click on the following link: nsarchive.org <END COPY> I think it is a really serious matter that the Bushies are attempting to engage in exactly the sorts of behaviors that we in this country used to condemn in totalitarian states like the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Our government is becoming the enemy of the people. We need to remain vigilant about the abuses of John Ashcroft, George Bush and the wild crew at the Department of Death. They mean to do harm to the American people. And secrecy is one of their most important tools. -Ray