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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Spheres who wrote (164400)	6/18/2005 6:58:52 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

Here's a book I would like to recommend to you... twbookmark.com This book was written by John Dean -- Nixon's Chief Counsel...and I think he understands "secrecy" better than most folks.

To: Spheres who wrote (164400)	6/18/2005 7:12:48 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

nixon and bush _______________________________________________________ June 8, 2005 <<..Nixon's grand plan was to concentrate executive power in an imperial presidency, politicize the bureaucracy and crush its independence, and invoke national security to wage partisan warfare. He intended to "reconstitute the Republican Party," staging a "purge" to foster "a new majority," as his aide William Safire wrote in his memoir. Nixon himself forthrightly declared in his own memoir that to achieve his ends the "institutions" of government had to be "reformed, replaced, or circumvented. In my second term I was prepared to adopt whichever of these three methods -- or whichever combination of them -- was necessary." But now George W. Bush is building a leviathan beyond Nixon's imagining. The Bush imperial presidency is the highest stage of Nixonism. The commander in chief has declared himself by executive order above international law, the CIA is being purged, the Justice Department is deploying its resources to break down the wall of separation between church and state, the Environmental Protection Agency has been ordered to suppress scientific studies, and the Pentagon has subsumed intelligence and diplomacy, leaving the United States with blunt military force as its chief foreign policy. The three main architects of Bush's imperial presidency gained their formative experience amid Nixon's downfall. Donald Rumsfeld, Nixon's counselor, and Rumsfeld's deputy, Dick Cheney, one after the other, served as chief of staff to Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, both opposing congressional efforts for more transparency in the executive. With perfect Nixonian pitch, Cheney remarked in 1976, "Principle is OK up to a certain point, but principle doesn't do any good if you lose." During the Iran-Contra scandal -- when members of the Reagan administration formed an offshore, free-standing, unaccountable enterprise that sold missiles to Iran and deposited funds in Swiss banks in order to finance the Contras' war in Nicaragua -- Rep. Cheney, a Republican leader in the House, argued that the congressional report criticizing the administration's "secrecy, deception and disdain for the law" was an encroachment on executive authority. The other architect, Karl Rove, Bush's senior political aide, began his career as an agent of Nixon dirty trickster Donald Segretti -- "ratfuckers," Segretti called his boys. At the height of the Watergate scandal, Rove operated through a phony front group to denounce "the lynch-mob atmosphere created in this city by the Washington Post and other parts of the Nixon-hating media." Under Bush, the Republican Congress has almost completely abdicated its responsibilities of executive oversight and investigation. When Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, held hearings on Bush's torture policy in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib revelations, the White House prodded rabid House Republicans to attack him. There have been no more such hearings. Meanwhile, Bush insists that the Senate vote to confirm John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations while refusing to release essential information requested by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. One of the chief lessons learned from Nixon's demise was the necessity of muzzling the press. The Bush White House has greatly neutralized the press corps and even turned some reporters into their own assets. The disinformation on WMD in the rush to war in Iraq that was funneled into the news pages of the New York Times is the most dramatic case in point. By manipulation and intimidation, encouraging an atmosphere of self-censorship, the Bush White House has distanced the press from dissenting professionals inside the government..>> posted by avu \| 6/8/2005 lettrist.blogspot.com

To: Spheres who wrote (164400)	6/18/2005 11:39:24 AM
From: bentway	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

"I do not agree with your statement above; you have clearly described the Nixon administration (most secretive government)." Nixon TAPED all his conversations. If you want to know every (not EXPELITIVE DELETED) word, you can read it. The Bushies are by far the most secretive, closed administration we've ever had, and the most criminal. The theft and deception of the Bushies make the Nixonians look like pickpockets. washingtonpost.com

To: Spheres who wrote (164400)	6/18/2005 2:47:41 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

TOO MANY SECRETS: OVERCLASSIFICATION AS A BARRIER TO CRITICAL INFORMATION SHARING ======================================================================= HEARING before the SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS of the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION __________ AUGUST 24, 2004 __________ Serial No. 108-263 __________ The National Archives' Information Security Oversight Office, ISOO, reported that in 2003, more than 14 million documents were classified by the 3,978 Federal officials authorized to do so. They classified 8 percent more information than the year before. [ST's NOTE: For perspective, Clinton classified less than 4 million] ... The final report of the 9/11 Commission confirms what many of us already know too well. The Bush administration's excessive use of classification, delay in declassifying Federal materials and encroachments on the civil rights of individuals are antithetical to democratic principle; and it is our responsibility, as Congress, to provide effective checks and balances, which is really the purpose of this committee. ... fas.org ___________________________________________________________ ONE HUNDRED NINETH CONGRESS CONGRESS OF UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM ... My staff has investigated several examples of use of these burgeoning designations. We have found they are invoked improperly to block release of information that is not classified. Some of the examples we reviewed involved absurd overreactions to vague security concerns. In other examples, the Administration appears to have invoked the designation to cover up potentially embarrassing facts, rather than to protect legitimate security interests. Examples include the fallowing: o The State Department withheld unclassified conclusions by the agency's Inspector General that CIA was involved in preparing grossly inaccurate global terrorism report; o The State Department concealed unclassified information about the role of John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control, in the creation of a fact sheet that falsely claimed that Iraq sought uranium from Niger; o The State Department of Homeland Security concealed the unclassified identity and contact information of a newly appointed TSA ombudsman whose responsibility it was to interact daily with members of the public regarding airport security measures; o Over the objections of chief U.S. weapons inspector Charles A. Duelfer, the CIA Mr. Duelfer to conceal the unclassified names of U.S. companies that conducted business with Saddam Hussein under the Oil for Food program; and o The Nuclear Regulatory Commission sought to prevent a nongovernmental watchdog group from making public criticisms of its nuclear power plant security efforts based on unclassified sources. ___________________________________________________________ JUSTICE DEPT IMPEDES PATRIOT ACT OVERSIGHT In a challenge to congressional oversight of its activities, the Department of Justice is evading a series of probing questions concerning the government's implementation of the anti-terrorism USA PATRIOT Act that were submitted by the House Judiciary Committee. The House Committee sent a series of 50 questions to Attorney General Ashcroft in advance of an anticipated congressional hearing, inquiring as to how the Justice Department had used the "new investigative tools" that were granted by the USA PATRIOT Act, enacted by Congress last year in the aftermath of September 11. See the June 13 letter sent by Committee Chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr. and Ranking Member John Conyers Jr. here: house.gov In a partial reply dated July 26, Assistant Attorney General Daniel J. Bryant refused to provide certain classified information requested by the Committee concerning counterintelligence and counterterrorism surveillance activities. Although the information is clearly within the Judiciary Committee's oversight jurisdiction, Mr. Bryant wrote that it would only be provided to the House Intelligence Committee. That Committee is not conducting oversight of the USA PATRIOT Act. In its 27 page reply, Justice Department did provide answers to some of the Committee's questions. The Department reported, for example, that criminal wiretap information had been shared with the U.S. intelligence community on two occasions to date. See the Justice Department response here (1.75 MB PDF file): fas.org The exchange was first reported by Adam Clymer in "Justice Dept. Balks at Effort to Study Antiterror Powers" in the August 15 New York Times here: nytimes.com fas.org __________________________________________________________ Well, millions of Americans are responding with a different message: Dissent is patriotic. Three states and more than 215 communities, representing more than 27 million people, have passed resolutions against the rollbacks on civil liberties in the USA Patriot Act and related federal actions. New York City now has the opportunity to join the national movement by passing Resolution 909, which calls on government officials to uphold civil liberties when undertaking antiterrorism initiatives. The recent release of an FBI memorandum urging local police authorities to surveil anti-war demonstrators gives new support for the Bill of Rights defense movement. The memo's release is also one more reason why the New York City Council must act before its last stated council meeting on Dec. 15 to approve the bill. ... nyclu.org ___________________________________________________________ Washington -- For the first time, the number of secret surveillance warrants issued in federal terrorism and espionage cases last year exceeded the total number of wiretaps approved in criminal cases nationwide, according to new statistics released Friday. The data provide further evidence of how the Justice Department and the FBI have shifted their focus from traditional criminals to suspected terrorists and their associates and mark a milestone in the history of domestic surveillance by U.S. law enforcement agencies, government officials and legal and privacy experts said. Federal and state courts authorized the use of wiretaps and other electronic surveillance in 1,442 criminal cases last year, according to data released Friday by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. By comparison, the FBI says the number of warrants filed last year with the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in Washington jumped to more than 1,700. The volume of secret wiretaps has grown so rapidly over the past two years that the Justice Department has fallen behind in processing applications, resulting in serious "bottlenecks," according to a recent report by the commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The report said that the approval process "continues to be long and slow" and that the requests "are overwhelming the ability of the system to process them." ... sfgate.com _____________________________________________________ According to agents of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, President George W. Bush has signed a secret executive order approving the use of torture against prisoners captured in his "war on terror" -- including thousands of innocent people rounded up in Iraq and crammed into Saddam Hussein's infamous Abu Ghraib prison. FBI documents, obtained in a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and reported this week in the Los Angeles Times, detailed the agents' "disgust" at the "aggressive and improper" methods used by military interrogators and civilian contractors against prisoners, and the widespread, ongoing pattern of "serious physical abuses" they found at the American concentration camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Iraq. Most of the offences occurred long after the initial public scandal over "a few bad apples" at Abu Ghraib. For example, in June 2004, an FBI agent informed top officials in Washington that he had witnessed such torture techniques as "strangulation, beatings, [and] placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees' ear openings." The agent added that military officials "were engaged in a coverup of these abuses." ... globalresearch.ca