Author Archive

Pentagon docs: expenditures in Iraq & elsewhere

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Today in its Freedom of Information Act reading room, the Pentagon has posted 202 pages of documents related to its Iraqi Freedom Fund transfers/expenditures from 2002 to 2006:

DOD reading room [PDF | 9 megs]

Memory Hole mirror

The Government Accountability Office explains the Iraqi Freedom Fund:

“The Iraqi Freedom Fund is a special account providing funds for additional expenses for ongoing military operations in Iraq, and those operations authorized by P.L. 107-40 (Sept. 13,2001), Authorization for Use of Military Force, and other operations and related activities in support of the global war on terrorism.”

Some sample pages from the Pentagon’s FOIA release:

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[exclusive] Readable redactions: DEA uses SearchPointe to investigate pharmaceutical diversion

In early June, a 2006 Justice Dept Inspector General’s report that had been posted online went missing. It concerned the Drug Enforcement Administration’s “Efforts to Control the Diversion of Controlled Pharmaceuticals” (i.e. prescription drugs being sold on the black market). The Memory Hole obtained a copy and posted it on July 9 [here]. Five days later, it reappeared on the Justice Dept Inspector General’s website [here], with no indication of why it had been pulled (in fact, there was no indication it had been pulled).

Comparing the newly posted version with the original version, I discovered that the first version is improperly redacted. A small black bar appears eight times in “Appendix 1: Group Supervisor Questionnaire,” in the subsection “D. Intelligence Support for Diversion Investigations” (pages 46-7).

Selecting the text under the black bars, then copying and pasting it into Word, I found that they all hide a single term: SearchPointe.

The website for SearchPointe (now called ChoiceTrust) explains its purpose:

Conduct an instant national search for doctors, dentists, chiropractors and nurses across several specialty areas. Check out their credentials, including general contact information, education and license details.

Nearly 100,000 sanctions and disciplinary actions exist for health care providers throughout the country. Before entrusting your health and your family’s health to a health care provider, confirm the provider you selected has an active license and clean credential history.

According to the questionnaire in the Inspector General’s report, the DEA uses SearchPointe/ChoiceTrust to generate tips and leads for opening pharmaceutical-diversion investigations. It also uses LexisNexis, FinCEN, ARCOS, and other sources, although none of these was redacted in either version. Only SearchPointe was deemed worthy of hiding.

In the newly posted version of the report, the redactions of “SearchPointe” are secure.

See The Memory Hole’s original post

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Gitmo interrogation video released

For the first time, video of an interrogation at Guantanamo Bay is available to the public. In it, we see 16-year-old Omar Khadr being interrogated in late February 2003. Khadr is a Canadian citizen, and a court in that country ordered the 7-1/2 hours of the video interrrogation released after Khadr’s attorneys filed a motion. DVDs containing the footage had been turned over to Khadr’s defense team by the Pentagon.

Today, the law firm released a 10-minute compilation culled from the entire footage. Several versions are available on YouTube and other sites, but most are truncated. The video below is the entire thing (9:54 long).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7b90ecYJVY

The full 10-minute version is also available as a Windows Media file at the CBC’s website here [WMV]

Fourteen pages of documents were also released, and were posted to the CBC website here [PDF]

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Further reading:

‘You don’t care about me,’ Khadr sobs in interview tapes [CBC]

The Unending Torture of Omar Khadr [Rolling Stone, 2006]

The Case of Omar Ahmer Khadr, Canada [Human Rights First]

Pentagon page on military commission proceedings against Khadr [Defense Dept]

{Added July 19:}

How did Omar Khadr end up in Guantánamo? [Guardian of London]

Book: Guantanamo’s Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr

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[exclusive] National Bio and Agro Defense Facility: Feasibility Study

Through the Freedom of Information Act, The Memory Hole has obtained the official feasibility study for the National Bio and Agro Defense Facility (NBAF) from the Department of Homeland Security.

CLICK HERE FOR THE DOCUMENT [PDF | 18 meg | 366 pages]

The report explains the NBAF:

NBAF is envisioned to provide the nation with the first integrated agricultural and zoonotic disease, research, diagnostics, training and evaluation (RDT&E) facility with the capability to address threats from high-consequence zoonotic disease agents and foreign animal disease (FAD) agents. The facility will also provide the additional infrastructure required for threat and vulnerability assessments and for testing and evaluating promising FAD and zoonotic disease countermeasures. NBAF will support the complementary missions of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The NBAF will replace the Plum Island Animal Disease Center. Unlike Plum Island, it will contain a Biosafety Level 4 lab, the highest level, where the most virulent germs will be studied - those that have no cure or vaccine.

The DHS’s site says that the NBAF scientists will work with Foot and Mouth Disease, Classical Swine Fever, African Swine Fever, Rift Valley Fever, Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia, Japanese Encephalitis virus,  Nipah virus, and Hendra virus. The feasibility report adds Avian Influenza viruses, Vesicular Stomatitis viruses, and Newcastle disease viruses.

While the Plum Island facility is located on an island off the coast of Long Island, New York, thus providing a bit of a barrier between the diseases and the rest of the country, the NBAF will be located on the mainland. (Five locations are currently being considered.)

I requested the feasibility study for this nerve-racking facility and was surprised and delighted to receive the report quickly and in completely uncensored form. No withheld pages, no blacked-out passages. (Kudos to the DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate, which oversaw the release.)

Thus, a lot of detailed information is now available, regarding both the NBAF and Level 4 biolabs in general. Lots of floorplans, cutaway diagrams, photos, charts, etc. I’ve pulled out a few of the most interesting bits below and on some separate pages:

>> Test fits for four of the proposed NBAF sites (in Georgia, Kansas, Miss., N. Carolina)

>> Floor plans of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center

Further reading: Official NBAF site | Official Plum Island sites from DHS and USDA | Wikipedia articles on the NBAF and Plum Island | Stop the NBAF | CRS report: The National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility: Issues for Congress [PDF]

CLICK ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE

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NBAF’s Biolevel 4 Lab

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Biosafety Level 4 Flow Diagram

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NBAF’s Proposed Radial Floor Plan (Ground Floor)

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NBAF’s Proposed Radial Floor Plan (Floor 1)

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NBAF’s Proposed Linear Floor Plan (Ground Floor)

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NBAF’s Proposed Linear Floor Plan (Floor 1)

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CLICK ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE

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Holding Room Utilization

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Viral Production (BSL-3)

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[exclusive] Test fits for the National Bio and Agro Defense Facility

The National Bio and Agro Defense Facility, which will study the most virulent animal diseases, including incurable ones, will be functional by 2013. At this point, five sites - all on the US mainland - are being considered for the NBAF.

The Memory Hole obtained the official feasibility study for the NBAF, and it contains - among many other revealing things - “test fits” in which the NBAF has been put into four of the proposed locations. These images show in detail just how the germ factory would be placed into each site. They are presented below.

For more about the feasibility study, click here.

CLICK ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE

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[exclusive] Floor Plans for the Plum Island Animal Disease Center

At the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, located off Long Island, New York, government scientists handle Foot and Mouth Disease and other virulent animal and animal-human diseases. The facility is being decommissioned and will be replaced by the National Bio and Agro Defense Facility (NBAF) by 2013.

The Memory Hole has obtained the official feasibility study for the NBAF. One of the surprises it contains is the complete floor plans for the hush-hush Plum Island facility. These are presented below.

For more on the feasibility study, click here.

Further reading: Official DHS website for Plum Island | Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government’s Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory

CLICK ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE

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Plum Island Basement

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Plum Island First Floor

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Plum Island Second Floor

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Proposed Tillman-Lynch report released by Oversight Committee

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From the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:

Committee Releases Proposed Tillman Report

A proposed Committee report on the investigations into the death of Corporal Patrick Tillman and the capture of Private Jessica Lynch discloses important new details about the incidents, but could not resolve “the key issue of what senior officials knew” because “the investigation was frustrated by a near universal lack of recall.” The full Committee will meet on Thursday to approve the report.

Documents and Links

Report: Misleading Information from the Battlefield: The Tillman and Lynch Episodes (383 KB)

The Memory Hole has posted an HTML version (automatically generated using DreamWeaver).

Recent docs on the web

Checking in with some of my favorite doc-posting sites over the past week.

>> Government Attic has posted the following:

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Monograph: Extremists Attack the Courts, 17-April-1970

National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance (CSNR) Bulletin, Number 2001-2, Fall 2001, and Combined 2002 issue

Air Force Entertainment Liaison Office Weekly Activities Reports, Oct-2005 – July-2006 - [05-July-2008]

>> From Cryptome:

Israeli Police Stations Eyeball

Eyeballing US Secret Service Headquarters

>> From Wikileaks:

Scientology “Justice Manual” (1959)

UK Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Recon ISTAR handbook 2002

>> And

Iranian Nuclear Science Bibliography: Open Literature References [Secrecy News]

Continuing to fight illegal surveillance

The ACLU’s lawsuit against the just-passed FISA Amendments Act [ACLU] (more)

Help EFF Continue the Fight Against Warrantless Wiretapping [EFF]

Looking Back, Moving Forward: The Continuing Fight Against Telecom Immunity [EFF]

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Preserving White House emails and other e-records

Two separate but related pieces of good news:

Court grants CREW’s stay: White House told to preserve e-mails [Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington]

House Passes Bill to Preserve Electronic Records [COGR]

>>> Some background from POGO

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