News

Docs in the news

Lots of document-related news to catch up on..

* Justice Dept releases nine Bush-era memos regarding legalities involving detainees, rendition, eavesdropping, using the military within the US, and that pesky thing called free speech: “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully.”

The memos are here. NY Times article here. ProPublica memo depository here.

* CIA admits in court that it destroyed 92 videotapes of interrogations [ACLU]

* “Major RAND study with 300 interviews: Intelligence Operations and Metrics in Iraq and Afghanistan” [Wikileaks]

* Obama Justice Dept helps hide Bush White House emails [AP]

* The White House’s missing documents [Politico]

* British Justice Secretary Vetoes FOIA Release of Iraq War Discussions [Antiwar.com]

* “Navy classifies ship inspection reports” [Navy Times]

* DHS Inspector General: Over 100,000 deportees had children in US [AP]

* Valenti’s Sexuality Was Topic For FBI [WaPo]

Related: “Bill Moyers Responds to Media Probe of His ’Homo Hunting’ Past” [Boston Edge]

* Canadian Government posts 9,500 files on UFOs [Library and Archives Canada]

* Canada: “Weird warnings on FOI material” [Tyee]

New Yorker: Obama & Biden chipped or wearing tracking devices?

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While profiling White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for The New Yorker, Ryan Lizza saw something interesting in Emanuel’s office. It’s mentioned only in passing:

Next to his computer monitor is a smaller screen that looks like a handheld G.P.S. device and tells Emanuel where the President and senior White House officials are at all times.

So, Obama, Biden, and other “senior White House officials” are lojacked? It makes sense that they’d be wearing/carrying something (or is it, as seems likely, an injected RFID chip?) that always gives their location in case of kidnapping, medical emergency, etc.

But here’s the kicker: The device is obviously giving off a signal, which is how it can be tracked, and that signal could theoretically be intercepted by unauthorized parties. And it could probably be blocked, faked, etc.

One of the main objections to Obama keeping his BlackBerry is that the signal could be used to track him. Now that he’s keeping it, he’s trackable in two ways. Undoubtedly, strong measures have been taken to prevent his trackability via the BlackBerry or the monitoring device. But in the case of the latter, it’s supposed to monitor his movements. Its whole purpose is to let certain people know where he is at any given moment. Thus, the signal can’t be completely blocked because then it would be useless.

More questions: Who besides Emanuel is authorized to have the receivers showing the real-time location of the country’s leaders? How many receivers are there?

{EDIT: Title of post was updated to include “New Yorker” on March 3.}

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Pentagon to allow photos of soldiers’ coffins when families permit

From the New York Times:

In a reversal of an 18-year-old policy that critics said was hiding the ultimate cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the press will now be allowed to photograph the flag-draped coffins of America’s war dead as their bodies are returned to the United States — but only if their families agree.

American Forces Press Service article.

No word on whether the military will be taking its own photos of the coffins and, if so, whether they’ll release them.

See also: Photos of Military Coffins

(Thanks, Fred.)

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Obama “reviewing” policy on military coffin photos

in 2004, The Memory Hole obtained and posted 288 photos of the war dead coming into Dover. During the Gulf War, the Pentagon banned the release of such photos taken by the military (and the taking of such photos by the civilian press), and it reiterated this ban soon after the invasion of Iraq.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, I requested these photos from Dover AFB, and they passed the request to the Air Force’s main FOIA Office, which denied it in full. I appealed, and – in a move that I never expected – the Air Force completely reversed itself and sent me all the photos on a CD. I posted them, the media swarmed, and the images have become iconic.

The Pentagon was not pleased, calling the release a “mistake.” Later, professor Ralph Begleiter and the National Security Archive successfully sued the Defense Department under FOIA, resulting in the release of more photos.

Obama was recently asked whether his administration will reverse or uphold the censorial policy, and his answer is um, er, well. The AP reports:

President Barack Obama says his administration is reviewing a policy that bans the media from photographing flag-draped coffins of fallen U.S. soldiers.

The president says his advisers are discussing with the Defense Department the prohibition on pictures of coffins returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Beyond that, Obama wouldn’t say whether he would keep the policy in place. He says he wants to understand all the implications involved before deciding how to proceed.

Agence France-Presse reports:

At the prompting of President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates Tuesday ordered a review of a ban on media coverage of the return of flag-draped coffins of fallen soldiers from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“From a personal standpoint, I think, if the needs of the families can be met, and the privacy concerns can be addressed, the more honor we can accord these fallen heroes, the better,” Gates told reporters.

Gates said he ordered the review after Obama said in a White House press conference Monday night that the White House was in the process of reviewing the ban “in conversations with the Department of Defense.” …

Gates said he had ordered a review of the ban over a year ago.

“The answer that I got back — and partly it was the result of contacts with the families — is that if the news media were at Dover, many of the families would feel compelled to be there for those ceremonies for their fallen hero.

“And for these families this would delay the return of the remains home. For others it would be a financial hardship to get to Dover. And there were some privacy concerns,” he said.

“I think that looking at it again makes all kinds of sense,” he said.

The Huffington Post has more.

Leaking News & Docs

ACLU posts three more torture memos from CIA and Justice Dept [ACLU]

53 new documents posted at the CIA’s FOIA site [CIA]

Pentagon Inspector General audit: “Accountability for Defense Security Service Assets With Personally Identifiable Information” [DOD IG] [News article]

Pentagon FOIA release: “National Security Personnel System payouts FY 2007″ [DOD]
>>> background: What is NSPS? [SecDef]

Terrorism-related DOJ / US Attorney indictments, January 1994 – April 2004 [Government Attic]

Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction audit: “Comprehensive Plan Needed to Guide the Future of the Iraq Reconstruction Management System” [SIGIR]

Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction report: “Key Recurring Management Issues Identified in Audits of Iraq Reconstruction Efforts” [SIGIR]

Justice Dept Inspector General report: “An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring by Monica Goodling and Other Staff in the Office of the Attorney General, July 2008″ [DOJ IG]

EPA graciously allows 3 Senators to briefly view document concluding that greenhouse gases contribute to climate change [WaPo]

>>> related: Republicans block effort to subpoena global warming documents [LAT]

>>> related: Documents show EPA staff ordered to stonewall investigators and media [PEER]

Authorized Classification Markings in U.S. Intelligence [Secrecy News]

Why Is It So Hard to Get Documents from the National Archives About the National Archives? [HNN via FGI]

NIOSH report shows prison staff & inmates exposed to toxic metals for years [PEER]

UK: Leaked witness statements in trial of Corporal Daniel James [Cryptome]

Want to know what’s in your FBI file? [Exhibit A Baltimore] (Thanks, M)

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Leaking news & docs

flashback: Key lawmakers – including Pelosi – were briefed on waterboarding, other torture techniques & the CIA’s secret prisons in 2002 [WashPost] Not only did they approve of these things, they encouraged them.

major investigative series: Deadly denial: Nuclear weapons workers who risked their safety in the Cold War now must fight for compensation [Rocky Mountain News] Includes primary documents

ACLU of Maryland Lawsuit Uncovers Maryland State Police Spying Against Peace and Anti-Death Penalty Groups [ACLU] Scroll down for the documents

>> related: COINTELPRO Returns: My First-Hand Experience With Government Spies [HuffPost/Alternet]

A CIA Lawyer’s Smoking Gun [ Village Voice]. Interrogators were told: ‘If a detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong.’

New Pentagon Top Watchdog: A Part-Time Job [CBS]

Controlled Unclassified Info May Be Classified, US-Czech Doc Says [Secrecy News]

Arlington Cemetery official fired for honoring the wishes of the families of deceased Iraq war soldiers. The Bush admin wants no media coverage [AmericaBlog/WashPost] (Thanks to DM)

E-mail public documents get erased, disappear [AP]

flashback: Government Concedes Vaccine-Autism Case in Federal Court – Now What? [HuffPost]

>> also: The goverment’s unprecedented vaccine-court filing [HuffPost]

Appeal of Vice-President Visitor Logs Lawsuit Dismissed [FOIA Blog]

Intel Official Blasts NYT Disclosure of CIA Interrogator’s Name [Secrecy News]

Book Cites Secret Red Cross Report of C.I.A. Torture of Qaeda Captives [NYT]

The Air Force brass is pushing lush travel accommodations for themselves while troops put up with mangled seats on cargo aircraft [POGO]

How reliable is DNA in identifying suspects? [LA Times] “A discovery leads to questions about whether the odds of people sharing genetic profiles are sometimes higher than portrayed. Calling the finding meaningless, the FBI has sought to block such inquiry.”

Embedded Photojournalist Accuses US Military of Censorship After Being Barred for Publishing Photo of Dead Marine [Democracy Now!]

The Dark Side of the Toyota Prius [In These Times]

The Counterculture Colonel [Bohemian]. “During the 1960s, the U.S. Army tested a potent form of synthetic marijuana on soldiers to develop a secret weapon. Meet the Santa Rosa resident who ran the program”

>> related: Reports on Psychochemical Weapons [Memory Hole]

Scientology’s Crushing Defeat [Village Voice]

Actor plans to film long-lost García Márquez screenplay [Guardian]

Lost Films and TV Programs [AFI]

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Leaking news

Leaked World Bank report: Biofuels causing food crisis [Guardian]

White House blocking EPA report on regulating greenhouse gases emissions [WSJ]

Head of CDC Admits on CNN that Vaccines can Trigger Autism [Mercola.com]

Nutrition labels are inaccurate, and that’s OK with the FDA [ABC News]

US Allowed South Korean Massacres of Political Prisoners [AP]

DOJ Oversight Office Isn’t Releasing Reports [ProPublica]

Do We Really Know the Amounts of Greenhouse Gases Being Released by Corporations? [Dirt Diggers Digest]

Internal EPA Document Shows 500 Enforcement Cases Adversely Affected [COGRO]

New Lobbyist Disclosure Requirements [Sunlight Foundation]

Missing reels from Lang’s ‘Metropolis’ discovered [London Independent]