The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
When Can a Court Reject an Agency Classification Claim?
Last year, DC District Judge Richard W. Roberts ordered the U.S. Trade Representative to disclose a classified document to a FOIA requester because, he said, the classification of the document was not properly supported. That ruling in Center for International Environmental Law v. Office of the U.S. Trade Representative was a startling judicial rebuff to executive classification authority of a sort that had not been seen in many years, and the government quickly appealed.
In oral arguments in the DC District Appeals Court last month, government attorneys all but declared that a court has no power to overrule an executive branch classification decision. The transcript of that February 21 hearing has just become available.
Judge Roberts’ “substitution of [his] judgment about likely harm to foreign relations [that could ensue from disclosure] fails to give the deference that’s due to the Executive in this sensitive area of foreign relations and national security, and is entirely inconsistent with this Court’s consistent case law over many decades that emphasizes the need for such deference,” argued H. Thomas Byron, III, on behalf of the U.S. Trade Representative.
Circuit Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh asked Mr. Byron whether there were any circumstances in which a court could reject a classification claim.
“When do you think a Court could ever disagree with the Executive’s determination in this kind of case?” Judge Kavanaugh asked.
Mr. Byron that if the agency’s declarations in support of classification are logical and plausible, then the agency is entitled to judicial deference.
“Isn’t that going to cover 100 percent of the cases?” Judge Kavanaugh asked.
“I certainly think, Judge Kavanaugh, that the Executive would not submit a declaration that was not logical or plausible,” Mr. Byron replied.
Then he went even further and suggested that the executive branch has exclusive constitutional authority over classification policy.
Judge Kavanaugh was inquiring how the government would respond to an argument made in an amicus brief filed by media organizations contending that Congress had mandated judicial review of classification when it amended the FOIA in 1974 in order to enable Courts to review executive classification judgments. Not only that, but when President Ford vetoed the measure, Congress overrode the veto.
Mr. Byron said, “The question is whether those changes [i.e. the 1974 amendments] altered the constitutionally required deference to the Executive in this area under the Separation of Powers Doctrine,” suggesting that the congressional override of President Ford’s veto was meaningless and without effect.
“That’s interesting,” said Judge Kavanaugh. “You don’t think Congress could put the courts in the position of second guessing” the executive?
“Well, when it comes to predictive judgments about harm to national security and foreign relations I think that’s a very difficult question,” Mr. Byron said.
“I agree,” Judge Kavanaugh replied.
Cogent arguments to the contrary were made by attorney Martin Wagner on behalf of the Center for International Environmental Law at the hearing and can be found in the transcript. An account of the hearing from the Reporters Committee on Freedom of the Press is here.
Continue reading “Steve Aftergood: When Can a Court Reject an Agency Classification Claim?”
Working Hypothesis – AQ and the Muslim Brotherhood
Ayman al-Zawahiri, current head of AQ, was an instrumental figure of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), the armed wing of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Zawahiri was imprisoned following the assassination of Anwar Sadat. He came to power within AQ following the death of Abdullah Yusuf Azzam (for which he has been occasionally implicated). With the death of bin Laden, he assumed the role of leader of AQ.
My hypothesis is that Zawahiri was instrumental in developing AQ toward its global stature, although bin Laden had always said that America was his primary focus. Bin Laden, however, was targeting America's economic stature more than anything else, with the current economic status of the US, it would seem he may have succeeded. The hypothesis continues that Zawahiri wanted to hijack the movement and use it as a tool to re-establish the Caliphate. The attached document, prepared prior to the turn of the century, suggests that the Arab Spring and all other efforts have been closely orchestrated to bring down those governments that have failed in their Islamic duties……..
Still working this line, however, nobody believes it. I have passed the attached around folks within the IC, nobody has seen it….their take, propaganda more than anything else. I found the document while downloading the current version of AQ's English language magazine from the IntelCenter….so I would think that it should be taken at face value. Further, it was published on IntelCenter's website in 2008, so if it is propaganda it still mirrors current activities….another reason most in the IC rejected it, it is Open Source and therefore suspect. Of course nobody can tell me why something obtained through second parties (clandestine activities) makes it more reliable…..
2013-03-11 HIST 1997 Seven_Stages_Towards_The_Khilafah_In_The_Year_2020
Continue reading “Cheery Waves: Seven Stages to the Khilafah in 2020”
Humanitarian Technology and the Japan Earthquake
My Internews colleagues have just released this important report on the role of communications in the 2011 Japan Earthquake. Independent reports like this one are absolutely key to building the much-needed evidence base of humanitarian technology. Internews should thus be applauded for investing in this important report. The purpose of my blog post is to highlight findings that I found most interesting and to fill some of the gaps in the report’s coverage.
I’ll start with the gaps since there are far fewer of these. While the report does reference the Sinsai Crisis Map, it over looks a number of key points that were quickly identified in an email reply just 61 minutes after Internews posted the study on the CrisisMappers list-serve. These points were made by my colleague Jeffrey Reynolds who spearheaded some of the digital response efforts from The Fletcher School in Boston:
“As one of the members who initiated crisis mapping effort in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake, I’d like to set the record straight on 4 points:
Thank you for telling this important story about the March 11 earthquake. May it lead to the reduction of suffering in current crises and those to come.” Someone else on CrisisMappers noted that “the first OSM mappers of satellite imagery from Japan were the mappers from Haiti who we trained after their own string of catastrophes.” Internews’s reply to this feedback was exemplary and far more constructive than the brouhaha that occurred over the Disaster 2.0 Report. So I applaud them for how positive, pro-active and engaging they have been to the constructive feedback.
Phi Beta Iota: In one sentence: unemployment is 23% (40% among recent college graduates and those well past mid-career); inflation is 9.1%.
Staring Armageddon In The Face But Hiding It With Official Lies
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US economy created 236,000 new jobs in February. If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I’ll let you have at a good price.
Where are these alleged jobs? The BLS says 48,000 were created in construction. That is possible, considering that revenue-starved real estate developers are misreading the housing situation. http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/08/us-housing-is-the-recovery-real/print
Then there are 23,700 new jobs in retail trade, which is hard to believe considering the absence of consumer income growth and the empty parking lots at shopping malls.
The real puzzle is 20,800 jobs in motion picture and sound recording industries. This is the first time in the years that I have been following the jobs reports that there has been enough employment for me to even notice this category.
The BLS lists 10,900 jobs in accounting and bookkeeping, which, as it is approaching income tax time, is probably correct; 21,000 jobs in temporary help and business support services; 39,000 jobs in health care and social assistance; and 18,800 jobs in the old standby–waitresses and bartenders.
That leaves about 50,000 jobs sprinkled around the various categories, but not in numbers large enough to notice.
The presstitute media attributed the drop in the headline unemployment rate (U3) to 7.7% from 7.9% to the happy jobs report. But Rex Nutting at Market Watch says that the unemployment rate fell because 130,000 unemployed people who have been unable to find a job and became discouraged were dropped out of the U3 measure of unemployment. The official U6 measure which counts some discouraged workers shows an unemployment rate of 14.3%. Statistician John Williams’ measure, which counts all discourage workers (people who have ceased looking for a job), is 23%.
In other words, the real rate of unemployment is 2 to 3 times the reported rate.
Nutting believes that the U3 unemployment rate has become too politicized to have any meaning. He suggests using instead the work force participation rate. This rate is falling substantially, reflecting the discouragement that occurs from inability to find jobs.
John Williams (shadowstats.com) says that distortions in seasonal factor adjustments overstate monthly payroll employment by about 100,000 jobs. The jobs data that is not seasonally adjusted shows about 1.5 million fewer jobs in the economy.
In a recent communication, statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) reports that the rigged official annual rate of consumer inflation (CPI) of 1.6% is in fact, as measured by the official US government methodology of 1990, 9.2%. In other words, the rate of inflation is 5.75 times greater than the reported rate. If Williams is correct, the interest rate on bonds is extremely negative.
The stories are getting simple enough and ridiculous enough for the average American to start getting it.
The Disturbing History of One of the Pentagon's Most Expensive Flying Turkeys
EXTRACT
The C-130 Hercules, or Herk for short, isn't a sexy plane. It hasn't inspired hit Hollywood films, though it has prompted a few photo books, a beer, and a “Robby the C-130” trilogy for children whose military parents are deployed. It has a fat sausage fuselage, that snub nose, overhead wings with two propellers each, and a big back gate that comes down to load and unload up to 21 tons of cargo.
The Herk can land on short runways, even ones made of dirt or grass; it can airdrop parachutists or cargo; it can carry four drones under its wings; it can refuel aircraft; it can fight forest fires; it can morph into a frightening gunship. It's big and strong and can do at least 12 types of labor — hence, Hercules.
Too Much of a Good Thing
Here's where the story starts to get interesting. After 25 years, the Pentagon decided that it was well stocked with C-130s, so President Jimmy Carter’s administration stopped asking Congress for more of them.
Lockheed was in trouble. A few years earlier, the Air Force had started looking into replacing the Hercules with a new medium-sized transport plane that could handle really short runways, and Lockheed wasn't selected as one of the finalists. Facing bankruptcy due to cost overruns and cancellations of programs, the company squeezed Uncle Sam for a bailout of around $1 billion in loan guarantees and other relief (which was unusual back then, as William Hartung points out his magisterial Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex).
Then a scandal exploded when it was revealed that Lockheed had proceeded to spend some $22 million of those funds in bribes to foreign officials to persuade them to buy its aircraft. This helped prompt Congress to pass the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
So what did Lockheed do about the fate of the C-130? It bypassed the Pentagon and went straight to Congress. Using a procedure known as a congressional “add-on” — that is, an earmark — Lockheed was able to sell the military another fleet of C-130s that it didn’t want.
To be fair, the Air Force did request some C-130s. Thanks to Senator John McCain, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) did a study of how many more C-130s the Air Force requested between 1978 and 1998. The answer: Five.
How many did Congress add on? Two hundred and fifty-six.
As Hartung commented, this must “surely [be] a record in pork-barrel politics.”
Continue reading “Penguin: Examination of Lockheed Lobbying and the C-130 Hercules”
Full Briefing: 2013-03-11 HIST 2012-06-10 Jeff Prager WTC Nuclear Dust Study
