Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Now is the Time for All Good Men to Come to the Aid of Their Constitution

I'm old enough to remember Watergate so I hope you'll forgive me for being somewhat nostalgic for the era when Senators like Howard Baker (R-Tenn) would, in the end, put upholding the Constitution ahead of short-term political electioneering. Don't get me wrong, Baker is no personal hero but according to Wikipedia..
He is famous for having asked aloud, "What did the President know and when did he know it?", a question given him to ask by his counsel and former campaign manager, future U.S. Senator Fred Thompson.

A little history. Quoting Watergate Revisited By Richard J. McGowan
The Republican minority was led by Tennessee’s Howard Baker, the ambitious son-in-law of the powerful Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen. Baker, who maintained a close, personal relationship with the president, was the obvious White House plant on the rudderless committee. Baker was a “finalist” in Nixon’s original vice presidential sweepstakes, which went to Spiro Agnew. Later, Baker rejected Nixon’s offer of a seat on the Supreme Court following the rejections of Clement F. Haynsworth Jr. and G. Harrold Carswell.
I'm hoping that if the evidence shows that this administration violated the law, that there will be Republicans who will put their oath of office to the Constitution above the short-term fallout that may befall their political party. Remember that Watergate was not the death knell for the GOP.

I think Glenn Greenwald summed it up well in his recent blog posting.
Whatever else one might want to say about this administration, it is simply indisputable that the theories of executive power it has adopted are radical, extremist and extraordinary; the policies adopted pursuant to those theories -- including the efforts to intimidate the media, stifle dissent, and prevent disclosure of its conduct -- are wholly alien to our most basic political values and traditions; and the entire approach to governing the country is unlike anything we have seen for a very long time, if ever.

Regardless of whether one thinks those theories and policies are justifiable, there is simply no question that allowing them to fester and become legitimized and institutionalized -- and we are well on our way to that destination -- will change our country in fundamental and likely irreversible ways. The changes will be not just to our laws and system of government but to our national character.

The absolute worst and most inexcusable thing is for that to happen without Americans even having a debate about those issues, really without even being aware that these things are occurring. But outside of the blogosphere, we haven't had that discussion -- at all -- because the media, for multiple reasons, just doesn't report it, pundits don't discuss it, very few people with any real public voice outside of the blogosphere have explained and opined about the fact that all of these scandals stem from a common source: the President's expressly stated belief that he has the power to act without restraints and outside of the law, literally.
Well said.

Monday, April 24, 2006

Why Net Neutrality Needs to be the Law of the Land

This is an issue that I just recently became aware of. Let's say my ISP is VeriZomcast and they obtain a financial stake in the internet phone company Vonage, what's to stop them from degrading my connection from their hubs to any Vonage competitors? There are all kinds of ways VeriZomcast could make it appear that Vonage is better (and the competitor worse) by routing "competitor traffic" through older equipment or even introducing the equivalent of "static" to degrade the performance. The only way customers would learn of this would be by a VeriZomcast whistleblower. Even then they could argue that the routing of the "competitor traffic" through older equipment was not intentional. How would customers be able to prove otherwise? This is an open invitation for mischief.

It also has implications for the marketplace of ideas. I'll quote Digby and agree that "If a telco or cable company decides they don't like this blog, for political or any other reasons, they could theoretically slow it down or block it so that their customers cannot see it. In this environment that is a very scary thing."

Take a minute and watch this short video so get a sense of what it all means.


Write you representatives today.

Saturday, April 22, 2006

My Message to Harriet Miers

I posted this at the fictitious Harriet Miers blog but I really meant it. Some things are just plain wrong.

Look out for that bus, Harriet!

Rumor has it, you are about to be canned. I hope you can hang on to your job.

Josh Bolton seems to live in a fantasy world where shoving a few people overboard will somehow help the ship of state emerge from the hurricane it has been blindly plowing into full speed ahead.

Another recent example of "just plain wrong" is Michelle Malkin's decision to "sic 'em" on a couple of college lefties who tried to organize a protest against military recruitment on their campus. My daughter is an opinionated college freshman (is there any other kind?). Should national mouthpieces like Malkin behave this way?

I'm actually embarrased for her. She's a grown up (supposedly). I'd love to hear the recruiters say on the record whether they felt threatened in any way.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Northern (musical) Lights - Ann Pence

A lot of the indepentent artists that I particularly like hail from the colder parts of the Northern hemisphere. This is the second post in a series.

Ann Pence is a singer/songwriter from Anchorage, Alaska that writes some compelling music. Take a listen to the bluesy "1968" about a Vietnam veteran and you'll want to hear more. Some additional full length songs are available for streaming (you have to register if you want to download mp3s).
You can visit Ann's personal website at http://www.annpencemusic.com/.

Monday, April 10, 2006

It's not the declassification, its the motive and method.

I think it is pretty much indesputable that the president can declassify anything that was classified by an Executive Branch agency. He has supervisory authority over them all. But from my experience and everything I've read, the agency that classifies a document is normally the agency that DEclassifies a document. The reasoning behind this is fairly obvious if you think about it. That agency is the only one that is likely to know all the reasons (some not too obvious) why the info was classified to begin with and what the repercussions (and unintended consequences) might be.

The Bush Administration has not disputed that the President approved the declassifcation of selected portions of a National Intelligence Estimate to help rebut Ambassador Joseph Wilson's article debunking the myth that Saddam was actively trying to procure yellowcake uranium from Niger.

But...

According to the New York Times, while President Bush ordered the declassification of the selected portions of the NIE, he never specifically authorized Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney or anyone else to feed it to the media.

So, assuming this is true, this raises an interesting question... Why not declassify it the normal way? What am I missing? As I mentioned in the previous post, the Executive Order covering declassification says...

In some exceptional cases, however, the need to protect such information may be outweighed by the public interest in disclosure of the information, and in these cases the information should be declassified. When such questions arise, they shall be referred to the agency head or the senior agency official.

It doesn't say "in these cases the information should be declassified by having the Vice President's Chief of Staff reveal the information (mischaracterized as a "key judgement) to a sympathetic reporter for the New York Times with the proviso that it be attributed to a "former Hill staffer".

All this subterfuge makes one wonder if this so-caled de-facto declassification was motivated by the national interest or by a desire for political damage control. That's why I say it's not the declassification, it's the motive and method that needs to be justified.

According to CNN

President Bush said Monday that he had declassified intelligence documents in 2003 to help explain his administration's reasons for going to war in Iraq.

"I thought it was important for people to get a better sense of what I was saying in my speeches," Bush said, answering a question from an audience member at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. "And I felt I could do so without jeopardizing ongoing intelligence matters."

So again I ask... Why not declassify it the normal way? As Dan Froomkin of washingtonpost.com put it, these folks have got some explaining to do.

Elizabeth de la Vega has written the most concise summary of the President's leaking of classified info that I've found.
Is a President, on the eve of his reelection campaign, legally entitled to ward off political embarrassment and conceal past failures in the exercise of his office by unilaterally and informally declassifying selected -- as well as false and misleading -- portions of a classified National Intelligence Estimate that he has previously refused to declassify, in order to cause such information to be secretly disclosed under false pretenses in the name of a "former Hill staffer" to a single reporter, intending that reporter to publish such false and misleading information in a prominent national newspaper?

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Declassifying Info to Get Favorable Press in the New York Times?

Today's article in the New York Sun (not exactly a bastion of liberalism) reveals that Scooter Libby (Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff) told Patrick Fitzgerald (the prosecutor investigating the Valerie Plame outing) that he had been told by Cheney that President Bush (!) had OKed him to reveal portions of the "National Intelligence Estimate" to Times reporter Judith Miller. The secret bits were to be used to rebut the article by Valerie Plame's husband (Joseph Wilson) challenging the administration's claim that Saddam was trying to get yellowcake uranium from Niger for use in building nuclear weapons.

It's been decades since I held any kind of security clearance and I'm no lawyer but this seems like a highly dubious use of declassification authority to me. The law of unintended consequences often rears it's ugly head and revealing one piece of sensitive info can narrow the range of speculation on a host of other sensitive issues. If there is a reason for it to be secret to start with, you should assume there are people out there who are trying to learn what it is. Declassification is a seroius matter is all I'm sayin'. I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that usually the agency that classified it to start with is the agency that gets to decide if it can be declassified because they are the only folks who can potentially see where the dominoes may fall.

So I searched .gov domains for declassifation steps and found this White House Press Release

PART 3 DECLASSIFICATION AND DOWNGRADING

Sec. 3.1. Definitions. For purposes of this order:

(a) "Declassification" means the authorized change in the status of information from classified information to unclassified information.

(b) "Automatic declassification" means the declassification of information based solely upon:

(1) the occurrence of a specific date or event as determined by the original classification authority; or

(2) the expiration of a maximum time frame for duration of classification established under this order.

(c) "Declassification authority" means:

(1) the official who authorized the original classification, if that official is still serving in the same position;

(2) the originator's current successor in function;

(3) a supervisory official of either; or

(4) officials delegated declassification authority in writing by the agency head or the senior agency official.

(d) "Mandatory declassification review" means the review for declassification of classified information in response to a request for declassification that meets the requirements under section 3.6 of this order.

(e) "Systematic declassification review" means the review for declassification of classified information contained in records that have been determined by the Archivist of the United States ("Archivist") to have permanent historical value in accordance with chapter 33 of title 44, United States Code.

(f) "Declassification guide" means written instructions issued by a declassification authority that describes the elements of information regarding a specific subject that maybe declassified and the elements that must remain classified.

(g) "Downgrading" means a determination by a declassification authority that information classified and safeguarded at a specified level shall be classified and safeguarded at a lower level.

(h) "File series" means documentary material, regardless of its physical form or characteristics, that is arranged in accordance with a filing system or maintained as a unit because it pertains to the same function or activity.


I think this gives the President has the authority to declassify anything any Executive department agency classifies since he is a "supervisory official." Fair enough. But...
Sec. 3.2. Authority for Declassification.

(a) Information shall be declassified as soon as it no longer meets the standards for classification under this order.

(b) It is presumed that information that continues to meet the classification requirements under this order requires continued protection. In some exceptional cases, however, the need to protect such information may be outweighed by the public interest in disclosure of the information, and in these cases the information should be declassified. When such questions arise, they shall be referred to the agency head or the senior agency official. That official will determine, as an exercise of discretion, whether the public interest in disclosure outweighs the damage to national security that might reasonably be expected from disclosure. This provision does not:

(1) amplify or modify the substantive criteria or procedures for classification; or

(2) create any substantive or procedural rights subject to judicial review.

(c) If the Director of the Information Security Oversight Office determines that information is classified in violation of this order, the Director may require the information to be declassified by the agency that originated the classification. Any such decision by the Director may be appealed to the President through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. The information shall remain classified pending a prompt decision on the appeal.

(d) The provisions of this section shall also apply to agencies that, under the terms of this order, do not have original classification authority, but had such authority under predecessor orders.
If I'm reading this right, the information revealed to Judith Miller either
a) no longer met the standards for classification, or
b) the need to protect that information was outweighed by the public interest in disclosure of the information.

But if b) was the reason, didn't it need to be referred to the agency head or the senior agency official before it was declassified? I'm just reading what's there.

It would seem to me that whichever agency is responsible for producing that National Intelligence Estimate would need to approve the declassification. This may seem like legalistic nit picking but these rules were written for a reason.

Well, as I said before, I don't think upholding the laws you are sworn to obey is a "liberal" position but I gotta agree with Anonymous Liberal who writes:

So let's assume, for the moment, that Libby's testimony is accurate. That would mean that the President, instead of following normal declassification procedures and publicly releasing a redacted version of the NIE, authorized an aide to present a cherry-picked and manipulated version of that document to a friendly New York Times reporter on deep background. That aide then passed along the highly misleading information and asked that it be attributed to a "former Hill staffer." That may not be illegal, but it is sure as hell unethical. And that doesn't even take into account the fact that during this same conversation, Libby revealed the identity of an undercover CIA agent.

Meanwhile, National Security Counsel staff, unaware of this secret declassification, continued to go through the steps of formally declassifying portions of the document, and finally succeeded ten days later, on July 18, 2003.

I honestly don't know what to make of all this, but any way you slice it, it seems pretty dodgy. Hopefully our esteemed Washington press corps will now start asking some questions.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

"...except to convictions of honor and good sense."

I once had a boss who would stake out a position on an issue early on and who simply would not reconsider it no matter how much new information came to light. Sometime the new info showed that the original presumptions (which were not unreasonable at the time) were either clearly false or highly dubious at best. I consider this trait a form of neurosis but I'm no psychologist.

This came to mind today whan I read an article in the Washington Post about the funeral of Casper Weinberger. It said

Rumsfeld preferred to remember the unyielding Weinberger. "For many years, a quote from Winston Churchill hung in Cap Weinberger's office," he said. "It said: Never give in -- never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in." Rumsfeld left out the rest of Churchill's famous phrase: "except to convictions of honor and good sense."


I suspect that people like my former boss have a fear of being accused of "flip flopping" that is much greater than their fear of being dead wrong. Well, Gallileo flip flopped on his views of astronomy after his observations showed that the earth-centric view of the universe was CLEARLY WRONG (although not unreasonable at the time it was initially posited).

I agree with former CENTCOM commander General Tony Zinni (Ret.) - Rumsfeld should be fired. Watch the video if you want to see what straight talk looks like.
MR. RUSSERT: Should someone resign?

GEN. ZINNI: Absolutely.

MR. RUSSERT: Who?

GEN. ZINNI: Secretary of defense, to begin with.

MR. RUSSERT: Anyone else?

GEN. ZINNI: Well, I think that, that we—that those that have been responsible for the planning, for overriding all the, the efforts that were made in planning before that, that those that stood by and allowed this to happen, that didn’t speak out. And there are appropriate ways within the system you can speak out, at congressional hearings and otherwise. I think they have to be held accountable.

The point is, those that are in power now that have been part of this are finding that their time is spent defending the past. And if they have to defend the past, they’re unable to make the kinds of changes, adjustments, admit the mistakes and move on. And that’s where we are now, trying to rewrite history, defend the past, ridiculous statements that, “Well, wait 20 years and history will tell you how this turns out.” Well, I don’t think anybody wants 20 years to continue like it is now.

MR. RUSSERT: Should the president say to the country, “I was wrong about weapons of mass destruction, wrong about troop levels, wrong about the cost of the war, wrong about the level of insurgency. But we need to put all that behind us and come together as a nation, because this is too important to lose”?

GEN. ZINNI: I, I think the president of the United States ought to certainly say that there were mistakes made at each of those levels. In some cases, these were presented to him. It may not be necessarily the case that he was wrong. He was given bad information. Every president in history has held people accountable and moved on. Look at President Lincoln in the conduct of the war. He went through every general till he found Grant. Senator McCain mentioned Douglas MacArthur. Well, when he screwed up, the president relieved him. You know, you have to make tough choices. You know, integrity and getting on with the mission and doing it right is more important than loyalty. Both are great traits, but integrity, honesty and performance and competence have to outweigh, in this business, loyalty.


Full transcript here.

Northern (musical) Lights - Irene Jackson

I came to realize that a lot of the indepentent artists that I particularly like hail from either New England, Canada, Alaska or the Pacific Northwest. So this is the first post in a series.

Irene Jackson is a singer/songwriter from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada whom I've admired for years.

Take a listen to Let's Make Touble from her Catnip album and if you want to hear more click here. Her rendition of "Summertime" is friggin' awesome.