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By Saul Landau
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quinn.anya (CC BY-SA 2.0)
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From the memo detailing the right to assassinate U.S. citizens worldwide to the paper negotiating the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, the U.S. government has kept many documents classified for dubious reasons. David Wallechinsky of AllGov looks at 11 of them.
Posted on Dec 11, 2012
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125o4 (CC-BY)
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By Peter Van Buren, TomDispatch —
There can be little doubt that government retaliation against whistle-blowers is not an isolated event, nor even an agency-by-agency practice. The number of cases in play suggests an organized strategy to deprive Americans of knowledge of the more disreputable things their government does.
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An investigative video created by The Guardian examines alleged WikiLeaker Bradley Manning’s psychological condition before he was dispatched to Iraq, concluding that he was probably not fit for overseas duty and that security at his station was remarkably lax.
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AP / David Bachar
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In a plea deal with Israeli authorities, former soldier Anat Kamm has admitted to leaking more than 2,000 classified military documents to the Haaretz newspaper, including information on an Israeli operation aimed at killing West Bank Palestinian militants.
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Wikimedia Commons / Natural RX
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Ronald Goldfarb, writing in The Hill, points out that 90 percent of the 16 million classified documents generated each year should be open in the first place. “The burden,” he writes, “ought to be on those classifying confidentially to make the clear case for secrecy, and the presumption should be for openness.”
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wikileaks.org
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Acting as if we live in some sort of fantasy world, the Obama administration and the Pentagon have both forbid their hundreds of thousands of federal workers to view the WikiLeaks secret cables—unless those employees have the requisite security clearance.
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wikileaks.org
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U.S. officials are warning foreign governments that the WikiLeaks website is about to let fly with another batch of sensitive diplomatic documents that will be “harmful to the U.S. and our interests.”
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U.S. Army / Spc. Richard DelVecchio
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The release of some 400,000 classified military documents on the Iraq War has led the U.N. to call on the Obama administration to investigate American troops’ human rights abuses. Leaked documents tying British forces to possible war crimes sparked a demand for a public inquiry in the U.K. as well.
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Flickr.com / mindfrieze
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The Pentagon is once again articulating its oft-cited trope that release of classified documents on the WikiLeaks website could endanger U.S. and allied troops and Iraqi civilians as the whistle-blower site prepares to publish even more classified files on the Iraq War.
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U.S. Air Force / Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmon
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Since 2004, U.S. operatives have been crossing the borders of friends and foes alike in a secret global hunt for al-Qaida. According to a bombshell report in The New York Times, a dozen or so raids have been conducted in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere since Donald Rumsfeld issued a secret order with the backing of the president.
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By Marie Cocco — By simply deciding that something is a “state secret,” the Bush government has avoided answering for its brutal treatment of innocent victims in the war on terror. This is a perversion of the principle of American justice.
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Asked to what extent the State Department had covered up corruption in the government of Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the department’s top Mideast official told the House Oversight Committee that information that could “damage” the U.S. relationship with Iraq is considered “confidential.” That didn’t go over well with committee Chairman Henry Waxman, who then threw down the gauntlet.
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In 2005, the Justice Department issued two secret opinions on torture that endorsed and protected the administration’s desire to use physically and psychologically traumatizing interrogation techniques. Then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey reportedly warned his colleagues that they would be “ashamed” when their work became public.
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AP Photo/Eric Gay
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In his typically reassuring style, Dick Cheney has stated that his office is not a part of the executive branch of the U.S. government and is therefore not bound by certain White House rules, reports “The Blotter” on abcnews.com.
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You didn’t happen to see, oh ... let’s say, about 160 FBI laptops, did you? They’re really important and some of them have top-secret info inside them. The FBI seems to have lost track of them in the last four years. Oh, also while you’re looking, keep an eye out for the 160 weapons it just reported missing.
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from jwharrison.com
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Britain’s Sun newspaper has obtained a copy of a “top secret” tape that depicts the adolescent joy of two U.S. fighter pilots as they gunned down a British convoy, killing Lance Cpl. Matty Hull and injuring four others.
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unbsj.ca
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The Defense Department says it has learned of a plot to spy on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances traveling through Canada. Though it released few other details, the U.S. Defense Security Service says it found tiny transmitters hidden in Canadian coins.
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slate.com
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The National Security Council has blocked publication of an article critical of the Bush administration’s Iran policy, claiming that it contains classified information. The piece was written by two former government Mideast experts, who have accused the NSC of playing politics: “They don’t want us to say how many opportunities this administration has missed to put relations with Iran on a better track.”
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From crooksandliars.com
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When Pa. Sen. Rick Santorum went on Fox to make what turned out to be a bogus claim about WMDs in Iraq, did he violate federal law by holding classified documents up to the camera? Greg Sargent has more….
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The CIA officer reportedly fired for leaking classified intelligence information is Mary O. McCarthy, who until 2001 was senior director for intelligence programs at the National Security Council.
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By Molly Ivins — “Personally, I think this is a really good time not to keep up. The more you try, the less sense it makes.”
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Vice President Cheney’s indicted former top aide, Scooter Libby, has told a grand jury that his “superiors” granted him permission to give secret information to reporters to help bolster the White House’s case for war on Iraq. | story
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Judges will question Dept. of Justice, others, on legality of warrantless wiretaps | more
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Greenland’s Great Melt Is Pinned On Climate Change
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