Defendario wrote:

May I respectfully snip?

<snip> The thing I'm about to post is pretty long.
Respectfully, you may not know the half of it. This is from "Firedog Lake".

I know it's long but it's well worth a read or two.

It shows another facet of this king georgie iv crime syndicate the
Rightards call "the administration".

___________________________________________________

"Insta-De-Classification and Other Bedtime Stories"
By looseheadprop @ 6:00 pm
http://www.firedoglake.com/

Dear sleepy little Firepups,

Put on your footsie pajamas, get your warm blankie, snuggle under the
covers and Looseheadprop will tell you a bedtime story about a mythical
event called Insta-De-Classification. Unlike unicorns or Santa Claus or
Sasquatch which have all had multiple sightings and for which there
exist a vast treasure trove of both testimonial and documentary
evidence, Insta-De-Classification is a fable made up to help the simple
minded avoid nightmares.

Once upon a time there was a President. This President issued an
Executive Order called 12958 (funny name that). Anyway, 12958 was a
noble, though verbose Executive Order. It laid out the rules for
classifying and de-classifying government documents.

Among other things, our friend 12958 created an Information Security
Oversight Office which had as its job both making sure that the rules
for classifying and de-classifying secret information were followed, but
also for keeping the records that would let people know what was and was
not classified at any given time.

You see, pups, section 5.1(b) of 12958 defined a violation of that
Executive Order as among other things

(b) “Violation” means: (1) any knowing, willful, or negligent action
that could reasonably be expected to result in an unauthorized
disclosure of classified information;

And section 5.7 (b) states among other things

(b) Officers and employees of the United States Government, and its
contractors, licensees, certificate holders, and grantees shall be
subject to appropriate sanctions if they knowingly, willfully or
negligently: (1) disclose to unauthorized persons information properly
classified under this order or predecessor orders

[snip]

(4) contravene any other provision of this order or its implementing
directives. (c) Sanctions may include reprimand, suspension without pay,
removal or termination of classification authority, loss or denial of
access of classified information, or other sanctions in accordance with
applicable law and agency regulation

Now you may be wondering, what “applicable law?”

Well, our good friend Citizen Spook has a theory about that and
excerpted and added emphasis to two sections out of Title 18 of the US
Code. Title 18 is where they keep all the crimes BTW.

793:

(d) Whoever, lawfully having possession of, access to, control over,
or being entrusted with any document, writing…or note relating to the
national defense, or information relating to the national defense which
information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the
injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation,
willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be
communicated, delivered, or transmitted or attempts to communicate,
deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered or transmitted
the same to any person not entitled to receive it…

(e) Whoever having unauthorized possession…(followed by same as above)

(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or
control of any document, writing…or information, relating to the
national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be
removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in
violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed…
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years,
or both. (g) If two or more persons conspire to violate any of the
foregoing provisions of this section, and one or more of such persons do
any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each of the parties to
such conspiracy shall be subject to the punishment provided for the
offense which is the object of such conspiracy.

—————————————————————————-

And now 794:

(a) Whoever, with intent or reason to believe that it is to be used
to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign
nation, communicates, delivers, or transmits, or attempts to
communicate, deliver, or transmit, to any foreign government, or to any
faction or party or military or naval force within a foreign country,
whether recognized or unrecognized by the United States, or to any
representative, officer, agent, employee, subject, or citizen thereof,
either directly or indirectly, any document, writing…or information
relating to the national defense, shall be punished by death or by
imprisonment for any term of years or for life, except that the sentence
of death shall not be imposed unless the jury or, if there is no jury,
the court, further finds that the offense resulted in the identification
by a foreign power (as defined in section 101(a) of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978) of an individual acting as an
agent of the United States and consequently in the death of that
individual, or directly concerned nuclear weaponry, military spacecraft
or satellites, early warning systems, or other means of defense or
retaliation against large-scale attack; war plans; communications
intelligence or cryptographic information; or any other major weapons
system or major element of defense strategy.

So, as you can see puppies, if a person can commit a big ugly federal
crime with up to A LIFE SENTENCE for “caus[ing classified information]
to be communicated, delivered or transmitted the same to any person not
entitled to receive it…” this is a very serious matter. Consequently,
under the authority of our friend 12958, the Information Security
Oversight Office was created.

The current Director of ISOO is one William Leonard. Yes! That same nice
Mr. Leonard who testified before BIG HANK Waxman’s committee on Friday.
Wasn’t Mr. Leonard a credible witness? He wouldn’t let anybody left or
right side of the aisle spin his testimony or get away with telling any
fibs. Mr. Leonard strikes the Looseheadprop as a pretty straight arrow
based on his performance in front of BIG HANK.

Well, Mr. Leonard set up a system for all the people who have authority
under 12958 to report to ISOO what they had classified or what they had
de-classified so that there would be one central definitive list. After
all, if you want to throw somebody in jail for LIFE you better be able
to prove that the thing they “communicated, transmitted o delivered” was
actually classified at the time they did it. N’est pas?

Well in 2001 and 2002, everybody in the government was reporting every
time they classified something or de-classified something. So far, so
good. However beginning in 2003 (perhaps coinciding with that energy
task force thingy?) the Office of the Vice-president decided it wasn’t
going to comply any more. Mind you, the Office of the President still
had to comply, but not OVP. Odd? According to the SeattleTimes:

A standing executive order, strengthened by President Bush in 2003,
requires all agencies and "any other entity within the executive branch"
to provide an annual accounting of their classification of documents.
More than 80 agencies have collectively reported to the National
Archives that they made 15.6 million decisions in 2004 to classify
information, nearly double the number in 2001, but Cheney insists he is
exempt.

[snip]

Bush has a partner — some say mentor — in Cheney, who from the start
resisted all efforts to disclose the inner workings of a task force
devising energy policy. He defeated an unprecedented lawsuit by the
Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to
unveil that task force and carried his fight successfully to the Supreme
Court

The New Standard tells us:

In its 2005 report to the president released last month, the
Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), a branch of the National
Archives, provides a quantitative overview of hundreds of thousands of
pages of classified and declassified documents. But the vice president’s
input consists of a single footnote explaining that his office failed to
meet its reporting requirements for the third year in a row.

[snip]

In a May 30 letter to J. William Leonard, director of the ISOO, the
Project on Government Secrecy contended that Cheney’s rationale was
illogical, because additional legislative functions should have no
bearing on the vice president’s executive-branch obligations. Troubled
by the continued non-compliance, the organization warned that if the
ISOO did not act to enforce the vice president’s responsibilities under
the executive order, "every agency will feel free to re-interpret the
order in idiosyncratic and self-serving ways."

Each year, the ISOO publishes data on the amount of information
classified by government entities, such as the Department of Justice and
the Pentagon, and broadly analyzes how the bureaucracy processes
national-security secrets. Mandated by an executive order, the report is
intended to encourage greater accountability and minimize secrecy.

[snip]

In 2003 – around the time Cheney’s office stopped reporting to the
ISOO – the Bush administration affirmed and expanded the vice
president’s classification powers through a revision of Executive Order
12958, the same order mandating the yearly ISOO assessment. The amended
order explicitly granted the vice president unprecedented authority to
classify information "in the performance of executive duties," including
the ability to label information "secret" and "top secret" on par with
the heads of federal agencies and the president himself.

Critics also note another legal shield compounding the vice
president’s reticence about how he handles secrets: Cheney enjoys
general immunity from the Freedom of Information Act, which empowers
members of the public with a process for demanding the release of
government documents.

[snip]

Some question whether Cheney has wielded his power over secret
government information to smear opponents.

[snip]

In a February interview with Fox News, asked whether he had ever
exercised declassification powers, Cheney replied, "I've certainly
advocated declassification and participated in declassification
decisions," though he refused to elaborate on the nature of those
decisions.

Aftergood said that the ISOO could try to compel Cheney to comply
with the executive order through enforcement mechanisms. These could
include sanctions, which under the ISOO’s mandate might entail
"termination of classification authority" or "denial of access to
classified information" – or officially requesting an advisory ruling
from the attorney general to clarify the vice president’s obligations.

Since receiving the letter, Leonard of the ISOO told TNS that he is
"currently pursuing the matter." Noting the novelty of Cheney’s defense,
he added, "I am not aware of any other entity claiming any such
‘exemption.’"

Jennifer Gore, communications director for the watchdog group
Project on Government Oversight (POGO), pointed to a precedent for
public-interest advocates bringing legal challenges to curb executive
secrecy. Referring to the Watergate scandal, which also involved a court
battle over the White House’s refusal to disclose incriminating
documents, she said, "In the past, when members of the executive branch
have voiced privilege as a reason not to turn something over, then it’s
time to go to the courts."

And then there’s the Chicago Tribune:

Vice President ***** Cheney again refused to report his offices
activities in either classification or declassification of documents
during 2005, as he has refused to disclose since 2003.

And from “National Security Archive”:

Only 14 of the full 93 pages of the National Intelligence Estimate
that President Bush authorized Vice President Cheney's chief of staff,
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to disclose to New York Times reporter Judith
Miller has actually been officially declassified, according to a posting
today on the Web site of the National Security Archive at George
Washington University.

In May 2006, Steven Aftergood , Director of the Project on Government
Secrecy, Federation of American Scientists wrote a letter to William
Leonard at ISOO pointing out that Cheney was flouting the law and urging
Mr. Leonard to excercise his authority under 5.5(b) of 12958 to sanction
the OVP for failing to comply with the reporting requirements.

So, you puppies may be wondering what has allXGCFHDXthis to do with
Insta-De-Classification? It’s like this, during the Summation in the
Libby trial Wells said that only 3 people in the world knew that Cheney
and/or Bush had Insta-De-Classified the NIE at the time Libby went to
leak it to Judy Miller and Libby went jumping through all kinds of hoops
to try to show that he wanted to be sure he had authority to leak it.

Two problems with that:

1) Libby had already leaked it to Woodward and Sanger (hat tip to
Marcy for reminding me of that on the phone last night) before the
Insta-De-Classification for Judy’s benefit

2) I don’t think anyone can find contemporaneous proof of the
Insta-De-Classification anywhere or we would have seen Wells introduce
it at trial.

Now, we know OVP doesn’t do the required reporting to ISOO, but there
was no indication that the Office of the president wasn’t doing it.

So, here is an interesting possibility: What if Insta-De-Classification
is a myth? What if it never happened? What if Libby leaked the NIE to
Woodward, Sanger and Miller just like that? Without a thought?

What if, after the fact, they decided to “confess” to leaking the NIE to
Miller to cover up the fact that the purpose of the 2 hour St. Regis
breakfast was to leak Valerie Plame’s ID and they also gave her the NIE
information?

One of the most classic ways to distract from liability for one crime is
to confess to another crime. It acts almost like an alibi “I couldn’t
have murdered the victim at 10 AM on April 12th because at 10 AM, I was
robbing the bank!” When using this method of false alibi, the criminal
usually tries to choose to confess to a crime that either carries
significantly less jail time or, better still, a crime he knows the
prosecution will have a hard time proving.

So, Libby cops to leaking the NIE, a crime not within Fitzgerald’s
mandate. Now, I suppose Fitz could have referred the leaking of the NIE
to, to, to –who? Alberto? Scratch that. Hmmmm? Who to refer to?

Well, if there is a conspiracy between Bush and Cheney to lie after the
fact and falsely claim that an Insta-De-Classification happened when so
such thing ever occurred, the only place to refer a high crime like that
to would be????????

First person to answer correctly gets a lollipop. Oh, extra hint for you
all, Pat actually alluded to it at the post verdict press conference and
he specifically talked about believing that violations of the Espionage
Act may have been committed during the indictment press conference.
Anybody got a guess yet?

wbuck1@bak.rr.com wrote:

On Sat, 17 Mar 2007 13:03:35 -0500, Scotius <wolvzbro@mnsi.net> wrote:

On Sat, 17 Mar 2007 15:20:31 GMT,

The Pretzel <salted@roldgold.net> wrote:

You fucking scumbags.
Waxman read into the RECORD that Valerie Plame was COVERT. You hear
me you THUGZ? Even the Rightards on the panel admit it, you sacks
of lying cocksuckers.
***** fucking Lying ***** RIGHTARDS.

Rightards don't care when one of their Furheres commit treason against
the United States. Rightards hate everything America stands for.

---
Welcome to Nazi America thanks to Christian Republicanism:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfhUaUuG1sM

Bush is a wannabee fuhrer; he's not smart enough to be an
actual one. By the way, most Republicans aren't Christians, and no
Christians are nazis.

The vast majority of christians are easily led. Wave a flag and sing a
hymn and their brains collapse and their souls disappear. Hitler knew
that and easily led the catholic sheeple into hell. So YES, so-called
christians are easily converted into NAZIs. They are the most easily
frightened because they REQUIRE a master and misleaders target them
first as the ignorant sheeple they are..

Not all.
Here are some REAL Christians. Not the ones we keep hearing about...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070317/war-protest-christians