Bush and Cheney are on the “leak hook” now from Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy
Bush and Cheney both were approving of a plot to discredit a war protestor who brought to public light the deception they were using to frame the attack on Iraq as a defence against Weapons of Mass Destruction. I don’t know what more can be said ... [Read More]

Tracked on April 7, 2006 10:42 AM

Plame affair gets muddied even further from Danny Carlton -- alias "Jack Lewis"
Here's the spin the Ass. Press puts on the latest development... I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby apparently had serious qualms about... [Read More]

Tracked on April 7, 2006 8:36 PM

Why the jump to absolve King Bush from responsibility? Can't you see Kate, that Bush has used his power to destroy the life of a loyal CIA agent and endanger he co-workers, all in a somewhat failed attempt to discredit the evidence her husband brought to light that Weapons of Mass Destruction was a lie to encourage Congress, and other nations even, to go along with the Iraq war?

Why don't you feel decieved, especially since Bush and his press secretary have said that they'd fire anyone in the White House involved in leaking the information that's made clear BUSH was the one who approved the leak. If he's so proud of it, and knew it was "legal" as you say, then why didn't he say so back then?

Kate...the "Bush can de-classify whatever he wants" defense has already been shown to be a lie and a dodge all over the web today. He authorized Libby to disclose the contents of a highly classified intelligence assessment to the media to defend the his decision to go to war with Iraq.

The firewall is crumbling. This goes all the way to Bush, and it looks like there might finally be some traction.

Bush does not have the final authority on classified information. If you read below it shows the requirements for declassification of information. This is only part of it. I suggest you read the whole Executuive Order. But basically, the person who classifies the information has the say to declassify it. The Prez just can’t go around declassifying material at his whim. Not gonna happen.

Executive Order 12356–National security information

Sec. 3.1Declassification Authority.
(a) Information shall be declassified or downgraded as soon as national security considerations permit. Agencies shall coordinate their review of classified information with other agencies that have a direct interest in the subject matter. Information that continues to meet the classification requirements prescribed by Section 1.3 despite the passage of time will continue to be protected in accordance with this Order.
(b) Information shall be declassified or downgraded by the official who authorized the original classification, if that official is still serving in the same position; the originator’s successor; a supervisory official of either; or officials delegated such authority in writing by the agency head or the senior agency official designated pursuant to Section 5.3(a)(1).2
(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 National Security Council. 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 that had such authority under predecessor orders.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Let me just say something about leaks in Washington. There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington. There's leaks at the executive branch; there's leaks in the legislative branch. There's just too many leaks. And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of.

I did you the favour of mentioning the supporting links were in the original post. However, as this seems to have escaped your notice, I'll extend that favour by providing it directly.

http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200602160841.asp

Notice also the date: February 16, 2006

In other words, it's old news.

Also, if you read more carefully, you'll realize that nothing in the cut and paste you've provided supports your assertion that Bush doesn't have final authority of declassification of information. (Furthermore, recent news reports have been conceding that point.)

Steve I think you would call the President or Commander in Chief a superviser wouldn't you. I suspect that gives him the authority.

We're talking declassification. Byron should read the whole thing. It makes sense to be skeptical of msm as you call it as well as blogs and biased media on the net, but "the corner"?...they report whatever comes off the fax from Cheney.

http://fas.org/sgp/bush/eoamend.html

It is not the best organized of orders, but as to who can declassify, a part of the info on this is hidden down at the end of the Order in the Definitions.

l) “Declassification authority” means:
(1) the official who authorized the original classification, if that official is still serving in the same position;
(2) the originators 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.

Traitor in Chief.

Like Mr. Taylor said to George...

Taylor: Okay, I don't have a question. What I wanted to say to you is that in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency, by the Senate...And I would hope -- I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration, and I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself inside yourself...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/04/20060406-3.html

Read the whole thing. Use the links.

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/006694.php
Still Crying Over The Lost Fitzmas
I understand how disappointing it was to the BDS
sufferers that Fitzmas turned into Fizzlemas, but this report is just another
non-story in a controversy full of them.

The New York Sun reported today that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has testified
that he released information from a
National Intelligence Estimate in 2003 to a reporter prior to its publication.
Predictably, the media and the blogosphere has overreacted, proving once again
that most people do not understand classified materials, unclassified materials,
and the process used to classify documents...Austin Bay: "So what’s the story
here? That someone who worked in the White House selectively passed properly
declassified material to the press? That’s not a scandal; that’s Beltway
business as usual...Power
Line: "This is the same "scandal" the press tried to sell a few months ago.
I wrote about it here...David
Ensor at CNN:If the
president decides to declassify information, he has that legal right. So, it's
not about a law being broken here, and it's not about Valerie Plame-Wilson's
name.

UPDATE: Once again, the President has the authority
to declassify materials at his discretion, a point hammered home by the
Washington Post as well:   Comments
(43) 

'The media has one mode: "Get Bush."'

"Anyone who has ever worked in intelligence for the US government knows
perfectly well that a President, any President, can declassify anything they
wish for any reason. Any President can delegate declassification authority down
to any level they wish, down to the most newly minted second lieutenant, if they
wish, as well."

It never ceases to amaze me how many people find reading comprehension a challenge!
Adding them to those who insist on not merely being thought a fool, but speaking and removing all doubt.
That dastardly combination is trumped a mile by those who take the realities and the facts and twist and turn them to attack one of the greatest defenders of democracy in our lifetime or any lifetime.
Still we have those who take this bs coming from the media about 'Bush leaking' information.
Fitzgerald has milked this thing for millions of dollars and he still has no case. There never was a case. Joe Wilson has been proven by his own words to be a liar.. Ms. Wilson cooked up this stunt to send her hubby to Niger deliberately to attempt to discredit the Administration. She ought to have been fired and she and Wilson up on charges of treason.
Now there's a few facts for ya.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people find reading comprehension a challenge!
Adding them to those who insist on not merely being thought a fool, but speaking and removing all doubt.
That dastardly combination is trumped a mile by those who take the realities and the facts and twist and turn them to attack one of the greatest defenders of democracy in our lifetime or any lifetime.
Still we have those who take this bs coming from the media about 'Bush leaking' information.
Fitzgerald has milked this thing for millions of dollars and he still has no case. There never was a case. Joe Wilson has been proven by his own words to be a liar.. Ms. Wilson cooked up this stunt to send her hubby to Niger deliberately to attempt to discredit the Administration. She ought to have been fired and she and Wilson up on charges of treason.
Now there's a few facts for ya.
She had not been covert for over 6 years, so anybody mentioning what she did and where she worked was free to do so and her husband did ad nauseum to anybody who would listen.
No crime. No leak. NO case. Poor Mr. Libby.
This should be thrown out and Fitzy sent packing.

From our own Mark Steyn at Hugh Hewitts:

"MS: Well, I think Joe Wilson does need discrediting, and I would support the government, actually...I would hope they were together enough to realize that what he was doing was he spreading disinformation, not only about general issues, but specifically about what people told him when he went on his ridiculous mission to Niger to find out whether Saddam Hussein had been trying to get yellowcake from Niger. The administration does need to discredit him, because he's a discreditable man who was very dishonest about what he found there. That's the story, and whether this ridiculous business about leaking this woman...she was practically driving around with a bumper sticker saying she worked for the CIA. This is a ridiculous...he's now on about the 12th version of his 15 minutes of fame, and there's no end in sight. "

As usual, Mark says it well.

And then there are the questions about why Joe Wilson met secretly with the French while in Niger and why that might have a great deal to do with those forged documents that turned up in Italy!

Just like the Oil For Food Scandal there are secret hands in many pies that ought to be chopped off!

The real issue is that Bush claimed repeatedly not to know who leaked this information. So he has been caught in another lie.

And, honestly, you Conservatives must be without shame. The guy goes after a political enemy by going after his wife. Similarly with Cheney. Shoot a guy and then make the victim's wife explain why it was really the victim's fault.

Dedicated to: saskboy, steve in bc, and bigcitylib: China watchers all. +

Database ensures Big Brother is watching in China(detailed dossiers for 98% of population)
Reuters ^ | 04/07/06

Posted on 04/07/2006 12:22:10 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster

Database ensures Big Brother is watching in China

2 hours, 24 minutes ago

China has recorded details of more than 96 percent of its population on a police database, state media reported on Friday, supplementing Internet and other state-sanctioned surveillance.

Since the 2003 launch of its "Gold Shield Program," the Public Security Bureau had collected information on about 1.25 billion of the country's 1.3 billion people.

"It has helped police uncover many criminal cases," Liu Shuo, a police official, was quoted by Xinhua news agency as telling a news conference on Thursday, adding that over 20 percent of criminal cases last year were solved with help from the database.

The database is just one way in which China keeps tabs on its citizens.

An estimated 30,000 Web police monitor the surfing habits of China's 110 million internet users, and restrict access to Web sites and blogs posting sensitive material, including topics related to democracy or independence for Tibet and Taiwan. +
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1610750/posts

The Pres. of the PRC meets with saskboy, steve in bc, and bicitylib in the kitchen of Sam Yong's Chinee Cafe to discuss a Citizen's complaint that him does not have freedom and democracy.

The President replies: +

THE PRESIDENT: I’m going to start off with what you first said, if you don’t mind, you said that I tap your phones—I think that’s what you said. You tapped your phone—I tapped your phones. Yes. No, that’s right. Yes, no, let me finish.

I’d like to describe that decision I made about protecting this country. You can come to whatever conclusion you want. The conclusion is I’m not going to apologize for what I did on the terrorist surveillance program, and I’ll tell you why. We were accused in Washington, D.C. of not connecting the dots, that we didn’t do everything we could to protect you or others from the attack. And so I called in the people responsible for helping to protect the American people and the homeland. I said, is there anything more we could do.

And there—out of this national—NSA came the recommendation that it would make sense for us to listen to a call outside the country, inside the country from al Qaeda or suspected al Qaeda in order to have real-time information from which to possibly prevent an attack. I thought that made sense, so long as it was constitutional. Now, you may not agree with the constitutional assessment given to me by lawyers—and we’ve got plenty of them in Washington—but they made this assessment that it was constitutional for me to make that decision.

I then, sir, took that decision to members of the United States Congress from both political parties and briefed them on the decision that was made in order to protect the American people. And so members of both parties, both chambers, were fully aware of a program intended to know whether or not al Qaeda was calling in or calling out of the country. It seems like—to make sense, if we’re at war, we ought to be using tools necessary within the Constitution, on a very limited basis, a program that’s reviewed constantly to protect us.

Now, you and I have a different—of agreement on what is needed to be protected. But you said, would I apologize for that? The answer—answer is, absolutely not. (Applause.) +
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1610749/posts

Where, in any of these news stories, does it suggest that a law has been broken? The stories accurately refelct the fact information was de-classified by the president.

Why does no one ask if Mrs. Wilson was 'working' while posted with her husband. Does it not seem strange that a CIA agent would be situated in these areas posing as a dutiful wife to an ambassador? This is just another example of the deviousness of the US government. As a CIA agent di she concur with her husbands information re the yellow-cake and is this another reason for Bush to discredit the pair of them? This stinks no matter how you lok at it. We are so easily focused on the wrong incidents in this situation.

Kate, I didn't see you address the important part where Bush ran deception and lied to the media saying he'd fire any "leakers". Clearly he wasn't going to fire Cheney, Libby or himself, so why tell the media he would when he found the people responsible for leaking the identity of Plame to Novak?

It bewilders me what interest you have in a President of the USA when he's been shown to be a liar and manipulator. How would you feel if Harper released the identity of family to a member of JTF2, in order to punsish that soldier for questioning the mission in Afghanistan?

Maz2, ask freerepublic.com how many individuals and agencies using what equipment monitor the internet and blogosphere in North America. While you're at it, you also might find out how many "bloggers" post in the line of official or paid duty.

I am not paranoid, but experience has made me cautious. Back in the '80s I was doing some research on the Middle East, and came across a published American report detailing the presence of some 550 Soviet agents in the ME. There was no mention of US counterparts, no doubt deliberately leaving a one-sided impression of foreign involvement in ME affairs.

I also know that every published letter to the editor in Canada was (and is) read by local and provincial police forces (where given,)as well as the RCMP, with the later addition of CSIS. So don't just accept negative reports about China, and assume lack of interest, activity or influence on our part.

Some minds are made up and confusing them with facts is just confusin' them even more!

Let's make it easy, kiddies:
President Bush, Stephen Harper: Good guys and tax cutters. Protectors of the citizens and their rights.
Saddam Hussein, Al Queda, Taliban: BAD guys. Blow people up. Blow up airplanes with good people in them and the good people in the buildings the planes explode into. Cut off heads. ( and don't care whose) Shoot women in the back of the head in soccer fields. Cut off women's heads in front of families. Shred people.
IF given the chance, all of us will be their next victims and they make it clear it is their intention and will to do so as soon as they can do it.
The ONLY thing standing in the way of that IS : Bush, Harper, Blair and the people who voted them into office and keep them there.
Liberals, Democrats: BAD: WASTE vast amounts of money and whine that they are no longer in power. Would allow Hussein, Al Queda, Taliban to do exactly what they want as long as they win an election somewhere around here. ANY election so they can continue to feed at the pork trough that is the taxpayers dollar.

Now does that lower it to the denominator that will allow some of the nitwits around here to actually GET what we are fighting and why they would LIKE you to think Bush lied?
Bush did NOT lie. Joe Wilson lied and so did his wife. SHE arranged to send him to Niger to bring back his report: NOT Cheney, NOT the CIA whose job it was and is to do these things. Joe lied and said the VP had sent him to make a report. Cheney did no such thing.
The REASON Joe Wilson dropped out of Kerry's campaign is that he was caught lying and the dems were caught supporting him and that campaign of disinformation and lies.

So, kids... get yer facts straight. KNOW who is the good guy and the bad guy. You sure don't seem to have it clear when you trash a president who has moved heaven and earth to keep the West and the American people safe yet say absolutely nothing of the derelection of duty that is and was Clinton. HIS eight years CAUSED this to happen but nary a whisper about that.
It is all a bunch of whining and spoilt brats who absolutely do NOT know what they are talking about.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch ( and I DON'T mean Crawford!) Newly translated tapes show that Saddam Hussein had ordered suicide missions inside the US.... all that while supporting Al Queda INSIDE Iraq.. HAVING and USING WMD.... (Associate has already told how they were moved from Iraq and where they went) Murdering and shredding people ( quite the multi-tasker) and then there is the Oil for Food scam aided and abetted by our dear friends and allies, France and Germany among many others whose bottom line was and always is more important than the safety and well-being of the people of Iraq or their own for that matter.
All of this documented fact, and still we have people here either just NOT getting what has happened and who has protected us since 9/11 and who is our enemy.
I would like to see as much vilification for the likes of Hussein, Taliban, Al Queda, Zarqawi, ANY of those who have avowed to wipe us off the face of the earth as I see for those who have done everything they can to not only be honourable and lawful but do a damn good job of kicking ass where needed.
Time to know who your friends are and some of you folks here are as confused as newborn rattlesnakes and just as dangerous.

Please tell me that the above message from Snowbunnie was parody.

Nicely said, Snowbunnie.

‘Progressive thought’ will never serve as an effective disguise for the gutlessness that drives leftists to that fantasy refuge. There is no safety in appeasement. The appeaser is simply a safe target.

Reality may suck, but Reality rules.

Those who avoid Reality by living in fantasy of their own design have every right to do so. What they have no right to – and what makes them the threat they are - is the expectation that others must, without objection, join in their ultimate suicide.

Michael Ledeen-

"But the media have their own burden to bear in these matters. It is just outrageous to give the same standing to Mohammed Ridha as to Lt. Colonel Swindell, and to refer to Swindell's account as simply "the American version" of events. By now, the press corps has the same eyewitness account as I do, and they know as well as I do that the source is excellent. They should tell the true story and alert their readers that, in this war, information is manipulated by our enemies and initial reports are often misleading.

Alas, as things currently stand, the only reporters who stay with a story long enough to get it right are the top bloggers, and the only citizens who have enough patience and attentiveness to wait before drawing conclusions are the readers of the blogs.

Which is why I read the dead tree media less and less, and spend more and more time in front of the damn monitor." +
via newsbeat1.com

It's amazing the knots of logic political partisans will tie themselves in to defend their man. Didn't Bush say he'd sack the person who did the leaking? Or am I not parsing that correctly?

Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

Regardless of your political stripes one would hope that you'd treat authority figures with at least a modicum of skepticism if not suspicion. Blind doublethink loyalty to a glorious leader doesn't do the cause of freedom any good.

maz2 "and the only citizens who have enough patience and attentiveness to wait before drawing conclusions are the readers of the blogs."

Are these the same readers who exposed the plot by a "liberal" scientist to wipe out the world using Ebola?

I'm not passing judgement on Bush over this matter just yet myself. But a blind automatic defence isn't rational either, not in the light of everything we've found out about that administration in the last couple of years.

But at least he doesn't go for blowjobs, I suppose that counts for quite a bit in a leader.

"... in this war, information is manipulated by our enemies and initial reports are often misleading."

Maz2, let me clue you in on a well-known secret: in all wars, information is manipulated by all sides, and all reports are misleading. That's why there are historians to separate fact from fiction after the event.

"President Bush, Stephen Harper: Good guys and tax cutters. Protectors of the citizens and their rights.
Saddam Hussein, Al Queda, Taliban: BAD guys. Blow people up"

Is it just me or does this read like Color By Numbers with Big Brother?

Jose, that's not a bad way of putting it and describing how propaganda works. The question is why people happily turn off their critical faculties and treat the propaganda of a particular side as articles of faith.

Bush states they are at WAR--and in the same breath states that the Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of prisoners does not apply because they are not at WAR--which is it???

"Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of prisoners..."

Psst, George. The Geneva Convention applies to PRISONERS-OF-WAR (PW) not prisoners.

The US has chosen not to recognize the Guantanamo detainees as PWs.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the American approach in Guantanamo, many people don't realize that if the US did choose to label the inmates as PW, they would then be fully entitled to hold them there for the duration of hostilities, i.e., for as long as the "war on terror" lasts.

JJM, I guess it was ok then for the Nazis to not recognize Jews as prisoners, or Canadians as POWs then?