Noooo....It's Only Ok When WE Leak Classified Information

Scooter: Cheny Ok'd Leak of Classified Information

http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2006/0209nj1.htm#
from JoeUser Forums
Bush & Cheney have done a lot of posturing lately about how dangerous, irresponsible, and reckless it is to have classified information leaked.

Now it seems that it's ok to leak classified information as long as it advances a cause for them.

By Murray Waas, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, Feb. 9, 2006

Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records.

Libby specifically claimed that in one instance he had been authorized to divulge portions of a then-still highly classified National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein's purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons, according to correspondence recently filed in federal court by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

Now I guess it's possible that Scooter is fibbing, but it certainly doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility given Cheney's very aggressive rhetoric in the build-up to the war.

Given these claims by Libby, it seems very likely that we'll see Dick on the witness stand at some point. That should be very interesting.
26,999 views 74 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
Ur, who is in charge of declassifying things again?
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
I'm not entirely sure how that process works, why don't you educate us baker?
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Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
In answer to the question, documents are typically declassified manually, after review, or at the end of either a 10 or 25 year period, depending on sensitivity. (Source: WikiPedia) Documents considered vital to National Security can be classified forever. On April 1, 2003 the Bush Administration issued a new executive order that delays the automatic declassification of documents for more than three years and makes it easier to reclassify some papers as having the potential to "damage national security." Documents that are considered vital to national security may never be released. There are papers regarding Los Alamos that have never come out, for example.

The most famous incident in this Administration was the pre-9/11 letter about Al Qaeda that the Bush Administration refused to show to Congress, then showed only excerpts, then released in full due to mounting public pressure.

But, David, BakerStreet asks a relevant question. If the Administration has the power to declassify a document and chooses not to do so, what could be the reason? Could it be because they only want to show or "leak" excerpts? I have in my hand a report that proves this conclusively. Unfotunately I can't show it you...National Security, you know.

Here is Executive Order 13292: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13292
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
Thanks for the info Larry.

I'm sure they didn't leak the entire NIE report to newspapers, or we would have known about it a long time ago. So yes, they did only leak a portion. It just so happens that in this instance, that the portions they leaked served to cast doubt on the credibility of Wilson.

I believe that parts of the NIE has now been declassified, but it certainly wasn't way back when this happened.
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
I think that if the administration feels that it is in the national interest to declassify something, even in part, to explain the actions of the administration, I can't see why they aren't allowed to. It is different when someone outside the administration with no power to declassify things does so for political motives.

What legally prevents the administration that classified it from releasing it? If I'm wrong I'll gladly accept proof otherwise. If I am not mistaken other Presidents have chosen to share classified information with the public during other wars.

In Wilson's case he was relying on the classified portions to cover the fact he was lying to the press when he was acting as an 'unnamed source'. Not my determination, but that of the congressional commission, to which he replied that perhaps he just remembered it differently than it actually occured when he went on his anti-Bush rampage.

Declassifying information to combat blatantly political DISinformation and educate the public seems perfectly honorable to me.
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top
The hinge point here would be, who classified the documents in the first place. The only office authorized to declassify documents is the one that classified it. If the president classified them (or they were classified using his authority) then he can choose to declassify any part or all of it at his own discretion.

However, if say, the secretary of the Army classified a document (either personally, or under his authority) then then not even the president, congress, the supreme court, or even the Secretary of Defense can legally declassify it.

National Intelligence Estimates are originated by the Director of the CIA, so were the NIEs in question classified by the CIA or the White House (since the CIA director is a White House Cabinet position).

That I don't know.

If they were classified by anyone using the authority of the President's office, then the word "leak" is nothing but rhetoric, since they are completely free to declassify any part of it.

However, if the CIA classified it independant of the White House, then there might be a case here.

Anytime there is a question of classified documents, the first question that needs to be asked is, "who classified it".
Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top

However, if the CIA classified it independant of the White House, then there might be a case here.

Actually since they work for the president, there still is no case.

This one should have gone under humor tho.  It is funny!

Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top

I believe that parts of the NIE has now been declassified, but it certainly wasn't way back when this happened


Neither you or I have any way to verify that, now do we?
Reply #9 from JoeUser Forums Top
Actually since they work for the president, there still is no case.


Do you have some precedent or law that you can cite that states that anyone who works for the President is authorized to disseminate calssified information?

Neither you or I have any way to verify that, now do we?


Actually it can be verified because there was much hoopla in the Senate regarding why they only declassified portions of the NIE.

Plus, Libby testified that the information that he leaked was still classified when he leaked it. He didn't say that it was declassified prior to him leaking it.

That pretty much shoots down the argument of the White House having the authority to declassify things to leak them.
Reply #10 from JoeUser Forums Top
If the Administration has the power to declassify a document and chooses not to do so, what could be the reason? Could it be because they only want to show or "leak" excerpts? I have in my hand a report that proves this conclusively. Unfotunately I can't show it you...National Security, you know.


By not declassifying marginal security objects or Intel, opportunity exists for the Intelligence community. To know what might be opportunity is to know the greater strategic intent. Leaking classified documents and Intel has been done selectively by various government agencies and Industrial communities for as long as I can remember. What's leaked high security info to some can be disinformation, misinformation even propaganda for others. By the way, the NSA, CIA or FBI doesn't need approval from the White House to classify anything as high security. If I recall, most doucments generated by any administration are classified, just not using access level security as those generated by the CIA or NSA, which meaning they require the Presidents approval to become public records. Not long ago, one political candidate released all this admins documents for public view, another said NO.
Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top
Actually since they work for the president, there still is no case.


Do you have some precedent or law that you can cite that states that anyone who works for the President is authorized to disseminate calssified information?


I'm guessing that's a no, then?
Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top
here's an illustrated chronology even drmiler may be capable of following from start to finish. Link
Reply #13 from JoeUser Forums Top
I would think that since the anti-Bushites are the ones making the accusation, they'd have to prove that the Bush administration didn't officially sign off on it. I mean, it's kind of like trying to prosecute someone for telling their own secret, isn't it?
Reply #14 from JoeUser Forums Top
I would think that since the anti-Bushites are the ones making the accusation, they'd have to prove that the Bush administration didn't officially sign off on it.


I don't happen to have access to that information, but as I said above, I'm sure it will come out in the trial.
Reply #15 from JoeUser Forums Top
It's just cute. A man acts as an 'unnamed source', claiming to be leaking classified information but really lying on behalf of his future career as a Democratic campain advisor. When the press lashes out at the administration, demanding answers, the administration combats it, but the administration is the one that is evil.

Wilson lied, coincidentally just before accepting a job at the Kerry campaign and making a fortune on the book (which relied on his name being leaked.) If you think it wasn't his intention for the world to know who he was from the start, you're nuts. Some of us have been watching (and blogging on) this farce since the beginning, and it never ceases to amaze me how the propaganda works for Dems.

If this was sincere concern, you guys would be addressing the fact that after acting as an intelligence agent for the US, Wilson began disseminating disinformation for political purposes and for financial gain. "Lying for Truth" is perfectly acceptable, but correcting those lies is a dandy excuse for a witch hunt.

It is telling that in this among many circumstances, it is the truth that Dems have a problem with, not the lies they tell.
Reply #16 from JoeUser Forums Top
A man acts as an 'unnamed source', claiming to be leaking classified information but really lying on behalf of his future career as a Democratic campain advisor


i just went back and reread your articles from mid-2004 in which you claimed wilson was lying (i couldn't get the 11th page to open so i may have possibly missed something you wrote prior to march 04). after digging up and re-reviewing the washington post and nyt articles as well as that damn senate select committee on intelligence report on pre-war intel assessments yet again one more time (i'm rapidly approaching a point where i could be convinced there is such a thing as eternal damnation..and it can be imposed before death), i'm as confused as i've always been by the gravity of your assertions as well as the seemingly unwavering confidence of your conviction regarding their accuracy.

if wilson, himself, claimed to be leaking classified information, i can't find it. perhaps you can provide a quote.

i can see how one might interpret a sentence or two of carefully crafted ambiguity in the senate select committee report as evidence of deliberate intent to prevaricate, but i would hardly consider that interpretation as gospel.

wilson incorrectly asserted he'd seen a forged document in early 2002. whether that was a lie or a mistaken recollection is open to question.

i don't believe the same can be said about the following two declarations:

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. --george w. bush, "iraq denial and deception" 3/17/2003 Link

"I'll repeat what I said to ABC News when this whole thing broke some number of months ago. I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name."--karl rove, 8/31/2004
Reply #17 from JoeUser Forums Top
gah, Kingbee. You aren't going to make me go back and do all that, surely. I don't want to. If I look at that grainy PDF one more time I'm going to puke. Wilson's assertion was that his mission to Niger disproved any assertion that Iraq was trying to buy yellow cake.

In reality it didn't, and it even bolstered some in the intelligence community to believe such. He was referring to classified information when he made that assertion, relying in the fact that no one could dig in and prove him wrong because the report itself was classified.

That's what's been overlooked by Dems the whole time. They want to make the administration out to be villains for releasing information to combat someone who did the same thing, only in a vague, backstabbing kind of way. What he released was a lie intended to have political effect relying on the fact that the proof was classified. Bush keeps it classified, he loses. He releases details, this happens.

As for Bush's statement, it's a mistake. Whether you believe he knew Iraq had nothing and proceeded anyway, or whether he leaned to heavily on dubious intelligence is a matter of personal interpretation. Other intelligence agencies around the world thought Hussein had them. Hussein's generals have stated that THEY thought he still had them.

So, sure, the "no doubt" think was an overstatement, but if Hussein's generals were mistaken about the armament Hussein had, it's understandable that intelligence agencies might have made the same mistake.
Reply #18 from JoeUser Forums Top
You aren't going to make me go back and do all that, surely. I don't want to. If I look at that grainy PDF one more time I'm going to puke


last thing in the world for which i'd wanna be responsible. i feel badly enuff bout doin to it to myself.

Wilson's assertion was that his mission to Niger disproved any assertion that Iraq was trying to buy yellow cake.

In reality it didn't, and it even bolstered some in the intelligence community to believe such.


wilson wasn't sent to niger to determine whether iraq was trying to buy yellow cake but rather whether niger had contracted to sell uranium to iraq as the fake intel docs alleged.

i cannot comprehend how a professional intelligence analyst could have concluded the fraudulent documents were bolstered by wilson's report.

it really don't make much difference whether it's the report as characterized by wilson himself, by the intelligence analysts or by the senate select committee--there ain't a hell of a lotta variation between the three.

He was referring to classified information when he made that assertion, relying in the fact that no one could dig in and prove him wrong because the report itself was classified.


you're not suggesting he somehow contradicted his own conclusion? how else could be be proven wrong?
Reply #19 from JoeUser Forums Top
(-_-)

I don't wanna, I don't wanna... okay, fine, back to the crappy PDF...

"(U) Conclusion 13. The report on the former ambassador's trip to Niger, disseminated in
March 2002, did not change any analysts' assessments of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal. For
most analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal, but State Department Bureau of
Intelligence and Research (INR) analysts believed that the report supported their
assessment that Niger was unlikely to be willing or able to sell uranium to Iraq."


...

"you're not suggesting he somehow contradicted his own conclusion? how else could be be proven wrong?"


No, it was the conclusion of the committee on intelligence that he contradicted himself. In addition to the outright lie about the forged documents, the whole point of the article was stating as a whistleblower that Bush had his report refuting the idea that Iraq was trying to restart its nuclear program. As you say, that wasn't even what he was sent to do, and even if it had been, he didn't disprove any such thing.

Wilson is the one that started taking his quasi-intelligence to the newspapers, and worse, lying about it. Then when the administration tries to refute the lies, the act is now considered 'leaking information'. Thick with irony.
Reply #20 from JoeUser Forums Top
There's a pretty good article today at WSJ.com about this.

CIA-Leak Case May Hand War Critics Momentum, But Legal Issues Are Slim
By ANNE MARIE SQUEO and JOHN D. MCKINNON

WASHINGTON -- The disclosure that Vice President Dick Cheney may have authorized his former chief of staff to release classified information to justify the war in Iraq has political consequences for the White House, but the legal fallout may be muted.

"The president can declassify anything," William Banks, a Syracuse University law professor and expert on national-security law, said. While the president would have to amend his own executive order governing secrets in order to declassify something on the fly, that can be accomplished very informally, even orally and in secret. "He could do it on a cocktail napkin," Mr. Banks said.

The vice president's authority to declassify is less clear. Some legal scholars believe that Mr. Cheney would share in the president's authority, as an elected official. Alternatively, the president could delegate his declassification authority to the vice president.

"The classification system is rooted for the most part not in statute but in executive order. ...In the case of the NIE, the White House was free to declassify it at a moment's notice," said Steven Aftergood, director of the project on government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, which favors increased public access to government information.

The implication from the disclosure that Mr. Libby had authority to discuss sensitive intelligence matters with the press "is that the White House -- the vice president -- has been using his declassification authority as a way to advance the administration's political agenda," said Mr. Aftergood. "In other words, information that supports the administration's position on Iraq or whatever is selectively declassified and other information is not. That's not a criminal offense, but it's kind of sleazy."

Mr. Fitzgerald makes clear in his letter that his interest in mentioning the authorization isn't to show some motive or intent. Rather, he notes that Mr. Libby's discussions with reporters, where he is alleged to have discussed Ms. Plame's identity, are "inextricably linked" to the administration's efforts to shore up support for the war, in part by citing the intelligence report.
Link
Reply #21 from JoeUser Forums Top
Some very different views on the issue today from two GOP Senators on the Sunday talk shows.

Sen. George Allen(R-VA) on Fox News Sunday;

The prosecutor here, Mr. Fitzgerald, seems to me to be a very articulate, professional prosecutor, and I think the facts will lead wherever they lead, and I think he will prosecute as appropriate. … I don’t think anybody should be releasing classified information, period, whether in the Congress, Executive Branch or some underling in some bureaucracy.

Sen Pat Roberts(R-KS) on Meet the Press;

TIM RUSSERT: Senator Roberts, let me ask you a very serious question. Do you believe that the Constitution gives the President of the United States the authority to do anything he believes is necessary to protect the country?

ROBERTS: Yes, but I wouldn’t say anything he believes. I think you go at it very, very carefully. And that’s been done by every president that I know of.
Reply #22 from JoeUser Forums Top
That's what's been overlooked by Dems the whole time.


I'd say "intentionally ignored" rather than overlooked, Baker. The whole point has been wounding Bush and the Republicans, by whatever means available, as opportunistically as necessary, at whatever cost, regardless of the consequences to the nation. There was a time the nation mattered more than politics. Sigh.
Reply #23 from JoeUser Forums Top
""The president can declassify anything," William Banks, a Syracuse University law professor and expert on national-security law, said. While the president would have to amend his own executive order governing secrets in order to declassify something on the fly, that can be accomplished very informally, even orally and in secret. "He could do it on a cocktail napkin," Mr. Banks said."


Which has been my point throughout the whole conversation.

"Some very different views on the issue today from two GOP Senators on the Sunday talk shows."


And as I also said, it is election year, wherein Republicans can make a show of dissent for their moderate voters without doing any harm to the lame duck administration.
Reply #24 from JoeUser Forums Top
And as I also said, it is election year, wherein Republicans can make a show of dissent for their moderate voters without doing any harm to the lame duck administration.


Do you honestly think that none of the "scandals" (using the word loosely) associated with the current administration cast anything negative on the GOP as a whole?
Reply #25 from JoeUser Forums Top
"Do you honestly think that none of the "scandals" (using the word loosely) associated with the current administration cast anything negative on the GOP as a whole?"


Pound for pound? Nope. GB1 was elected after years of Iran/Contra and other hearings questioning Reagan's methods. Gore lost by a hair, and that was because he was as dull as a post, not because he was tied to Cliton, and had been HIMSELF caught with this hand in the chinese cookie jar. And those are vice presidents, not the even more removed COngress. Those sins just don't leap from one to the other in terms of bias.

No one is going to decide not to vote for a local legislator because of what Bush does. On the other hand, if said legislator takes a moderate stance, and works the headlines seeming to be "independant" from what the people dislike about the President's administration, then he wins both ways. People who vote Republican are still gonna vote for him, and he's gonna seem to be apart from it to moderate voters.

Better yet, this focusing on the President just shifts focus from the real worry about corruption by Republicans in Congress. People aren't talking about all the subpeonas, they're talking about Scooter Libby who doesn't even have a horse in the race. The President understands that this half-hearted venom helps his party distract the public and keep people in office. Clinton did it, Reagan did it, they all do.