From Secrecy News:
BEHIND THE CENSORSHIP OF OPERATION DARK HEART
By censoring Anthony Shaffer's new book "Operation Dark Heart" even though uncensored review copies are already available in the public domain, the Department of Defense has produced a genuinely unique product: a revealing snapshot of the way that the Obama Administration classifies national security information in 2010.
With both versions before them (excerpts), readers can see for themselves exactly what the Pentagon classifiers wanted to withhold, and can judge for themselves whether the secrecy they tried to impose can be justified on valid national security grounds. In the majority of instances, the results of such an inspection seem disappointing, if not very surprising, and they tend to confirm the most skeptical view of the operation of the classification system.
The most commonly repeated "redaction" in Operation Dark Heart is the author's cover name, "Christopher Stryker," that he used while serving in Afghanistan. Probably the second most common redactions are references to the National Security Agency, its heaquarters location at Fort Meade, Maryland, the familiar abbreviation SIGINT (referring to "signals intelligence"), and offhand remarks like "Guys on phones were always great sources of intel," which is blacked out on the bottom of page 56.
Also frequently redacted are mentions of the term TAREX or "Target Exploitation," referring to intelligence collection gathered at a sensitive site, and all references to low-profile organizations such as the Air Force Special Activities Center and the Joint Special Operations Command, as well as to foreign intelligence partners such as New Zealand. Task Force 121 gets renamed Task Force 1099. The code name Copper Green, referring to an "enhanced" interrogation program, is deleted.
Perhaps 10% of the redacted passages do have some conceivable security sensitivity, including the identity of the CIA chief of station in Kabul, who has been renamed "Jacob Walker" in the new version, and a physical description of the location and appearance of the CIA station itself, which has been censored.
Many other redactions are extremely tenuous. The name of character actor Ned Beatty is not properly classified in any known universe, yet it has been blacked out on page 15 of the book. (It still appears intact in the Index.)
In short, the book embodies the practice of national security classification as it exists in the United States today. It does not exactly command respect.
A few selected pages from the original and the censored versions of Operation Dark Heart have been posted side-by-side for easy comparison here (pdf).
The New York Times reported on the Pentagon's dubious handling of the book in "Secrets in Plain Sight in Censored Book's Reprint" by Scott Shane, September 18.
Wrap...
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
Our Own Terrorism....
From Secrecy News:
AMERICAN JIHADIST TERRORISM, AND MORE FROM CRS
An apparent spike in Islamist terrorist plots by American citizens and residents is examined in another new report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service.
"This report describes homegrown violent jihadists and the plots and attacks that have occurred since 9/11." The report uses the term "jihadist" to refer to "radicalized individuals using Islam as an ideological and/or religious justification for their belief in the establishment of a global caliphate."
The 128-page report describes the radicalization process and the responses of government and law enforcement agencies. An appendix provides details about each post-9/11 incident of "homegrown jihadist terrorist plots and attacks" while a second appendix describes engagement and partnership activities by federal agencies with Muslim-American communities. See "American Jihadist Terrorism: Combating a Complex Threat," September 20, 2010.
Other new reports from CRS include the following (both pdf).
"The Mexican Economy After the Global Financial Crisis," September 9, 2010.
"Deflation: Economic Significance, Current Risk, and Policy Responses," August 30, 2010.
Wrap...
AMERICAN JIHADIST TERRORISM, AND MORE FROM CRS
An apparent spike in Islamist terrorist plots by American citizens and residents is examined in another new report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service.
"This report describes homegrown violent jihadists and the plots and attacks that have occurred since 9/11." The report uses the term "jihadist" to refer to "radicalized individuals using Islam as an ideological and/or religious justification for their belief in the establishment of a global caliphate."
The 128-page report describes the radicalization process and the responses of government and law enforcement agencies. An appendix provides details about each post-9/11 incident of "homegrown jihadist terrorist plots and attacks" while a second appendix describes engagement and partnership activities by federal agencies with Muslim-American communities. See "American Jihadist Terrorism: Combating a Complex Threat," September 20, 2010.
Other new reports from CRS include the following (both pdf).
"The Mexican Economy After the Global Financial Crisis," September 9, 2010.
"Deflation: Economic Significance, Current Risk, and Policy Responses," August 30, 2010.
Wrap...
Monday, September 20, 2010
Rule of Law Should Come First....
From Secrecy News:
STATE SECRETS VS. THE RULE OF LAW
The inherent tension between the state secrets privilege and the rule of law reached the breaking point last week when an appeals court dismissed the claims of several persons who said they were illegally transported and tortured through a CIA "extraordinary rendition" program. They would not be permitted to litigate their case, the court decided, because to do so would place "state secrets" at risk.
"This case presents a painful conflict between human rights and national security," the 9th circuit court of appeals noted in its September 8 opinion (pdf) in Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan, and by a 6-5 majority the judges determined that security considerations would take precedence.
"We have thoroughly and critically reviewed the government's public and classified declarations and are convinced that at least some of the matters it seeks to protect from disclosure in this litigation are valid state secrets, 'which, in the interest of national security, should not be divulged'," according to the majority opinion.
At the same time, the majority acknowledged, "Denial of a judicial forum based on the state secrets doctrine poses concerns at both individual and structural levels. For the individual plaintiffs in this action, our decision forecloses at least one set of judicial remedies, and deprives them of the opportunity to prove their alleged mistreatment and obtain damages. At a structural level, terminating the case eliminates further judicial review in this civil litigation, one important check on alleged abuse by government officials and putative contractors."
For these reasons, "Dismissal at the pleading stage" as in this case "is a drastic result and should not be readily granted." Yet grant it the court did.
But the majority seemed conflicted and apologetic about its own ruling. It ordered the government to pay the parties' costs, and it devoted several speculative paragraphs to identifying potential "non-judicial remedies" that might be available to the plaintiffs. Perhaps Congress could investigate the matter, the court weakly noted, or maybe pass legislation on behalf of the plaintiffs.
And just because the court ruled against the plaintiffs, the majority suggested, that "does not preclude the government from honoring the fundamental principles of justice" and providing reparations to the plaintiffs anyway.
But these suggestions range from "impractical" to "absurd," five dissenting judges wrote. "Permitting the executive to police its own errors and determine the remedy dispensed would not only deprive the judiciary of its role, but also deprive Plaintiffs of a fair assessment of their claims by a neutral arbiter."
Attorney General Eric Holder's September 23, 2009 policy statement on the state secrets privilege did hold out the possibility of seeking Inspector General review of allegations of misconduct whose adjudication was blocked by the use of the state secrets privilege:
"If the Attorney General concludes that it would be proper to defend invocation of the privilege in a case, and that invocation of the privilege would preclude adjudication of particular claims, but that the case raises credible allegations of government wrongdoing, the Department will refer those allegations to the Inspector General of the appropriate department or agency for further investigation...." (section 4C).
Given the court's extended discussion of non-judicial remedies, this case would seem to be a fitting subject for an Inspector General investigation under the 2009 Justice Department policy. But it could not immediately be learned if the Department has made such a referral to an agency Inspector General in this or any other state secrets case.
"The state secrets doctrine is a judicial construct without foundation in the Constitution, yet its application often trumps what we ordinarily consider to be due process of law," the five dissenting judges wrote. "This case now presents a classic illustration."
Wrap...
STATE SECRETS VS. THE RULE OF LAW
The inherent tension between the state secrets privilege and the rule of law reached the breaking point last week when an appeals court dismissed the claims of several persons who said they were illegally transported and tortured through a CIA "extraordinary rendition" program. They would not be permitted to litigate their case, the court decided, because to do so would place "state secrets" at risk.
"This case presents a painful conflict between human rights and national security," the 9th circuit court of appeals noted in its September 8 opinion (pdf) in Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan, and by a 6-5 majority the judges determined that security considerations would take precedence.
"We have thoroughly and critically reviewed the government's public and classified declarations and are convinced that at least some of the matters it seeks to protect from disclosure in this litigation are valid state secrets, 'which, in the interest of national security, should not be divulged'," according to the majority opinion.
At the same time, the majority acknowledged, "Denial of a judicial forum based on the state secrets doctrine poses concerns at both individual and structural levels. For the individual plaintiffs in this action, our decision forecloses at least one set of judicial remedies, and deprives them of the opportunity to prove their alleged mistreatment and obtain damages. At a structural level, terminating the case eliminates further judicial review in this civil litigation, one important check on alleged abuse by government officials and putative contractors."
For these reasons, "Dismissal at the pleading stage" as in this case "is a drastic result and should not be readily granted." Yet grant it the court did.
But the majority seemed conflicted and apologetic about its own ruling. It ordered the government to pay the parties' costs, and it devoted several speculative paragraphs to identifying potential "non-judicial remedies" that might be available to the plaintiffs. Perhaps Congress could investigate the matter, the court weakly noted, or maybe pass legislation on behalf of the plaintiffs.
And just because the court ruled against the plaintiffs, the majority suggested, that "does not preclude the government from honoring the fundamental principles of justice" and providing reparations to the plaintiffs anyway.
But these suggestions range from "impractical" to "absurd," five dissenting judges wrote. "Permitting the executive to police its own errors and determine the remedy dispensed would not only deprive the judiciary of its role, but also deprive Plaintiffs of a fair assessment of their claims by a neutral arbiter."
Attorney General Eric Holder's September 23, 2009 policy statement on the state secrets privilege did hold out the possibility of seeking Inspector General review of allegations of misconduct whose adjudication was blocked by the use of the state secrets privilege:
"If the Attorney General concludes that it would be proper to defend invocation of the privilege in a case, and that invocation of the privilege would preclude adjudication of particular claims, but that the case raises credible allegations of government wrongdoing, the Department will refer those allegations to the Inspector General of the appropriate department or agency for further investigation...." (section 4C).
Given the court's extended discussion of non-judicial remedies, this case would seem to be a fitting subject for an Inspector General investigation under the 2009 Justice Department policy. But it could not immediately be learned if the Department has made such a referral to an agency Inspector General in this or any other state secrets case.
"The state secrets doctrine is a judicial construct without foundation in the Constitution, yet its application often trumps what we ordinarily consider to be due process of law," the five dissenting judges wrote. "This case now presents a classic illustration."
Wrap...
Friday, September 17, 2010
Selection of Unusual Books On the Way....
FROM PUBLISHERS LUNCH WEEKLY...
FICTION
DEBUT:
Author of the memoir A Slippery Year, Melanie Gideon's debut novel WIFE 22, about a woman amidst a midlife crisis who agrees to anonymously participate in a survey about marital happiness only to experience a reawakening through the power of confession -- told through a story that unfolds via Facebook statuses, Google searches, questionnaires and first-person narrative, satirizing our obsession with the internet and the ease with which we can reveal things to strangers but not to those we love, to Jennifer Hershey for Ballantine, by Elizabeth Sheinkman at Curtis Brown UK (NA).
Film rights optioned to Working Title. Dutch rights to Bruna.
Translation: betsy@curtisbrown.co.uk
Aatish Taseer's A TREMOR IN THE EARTH, a family saga about India, Pakistan, and a young man straddling these two worlds as he attempts to make his way in an environment full of toxicity and moral danger, to Mitzi Angel at Faber, for publication in Fall 2011, by Anna Stein on behalf of Andrew Kidd at Aitken Alexander Associates (NA).
Princeton undergraduate writing award-winner and New School MFA graduate Julie Sarkissian's THIS IS HOW TO FIND ME, in which a mentally disabled girl is sent to live on a farm where she discovers the dark secrets of her caretakers, befriends a pregnant teen whose baby is taken after its birth, and ultimately, with the help of a talking chicken, embarks on a brave, captivating journey to reunite mother and child, to Sarah Knight at Simon & Schuster, by Judy Heiblum at Sterling Lord Literistic (World).
THRILLER:
Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Senator Bob Graham's THE KEY TO THE KINGDOM, a topical and provocative debut political thriller, to Roger Cooper at Vanguard Press, for publication in Spring 2011, by Ed Victor at Ed Victor Ltd. (NA).
GENERAL/OTHER:
Author of A COMPLICATED KINDNESS Miriam Toews's SMALL BIRD, BEATING HEART, the story of a nineteen-year old who, with her thirteen-year old sister, is forced to flee their punishing Mennonite community in rural Mexico, and SWING LOW: A LIFE, about manic-depression that reads like a novel, to Terry Karten at Harper, for publication in Fall 2011, by Sarah Chalfant at The Wylie Agency (US).
Author of Governor General's Award-winning THE LAW OF DREAMS Peter Behrens's CALLING ME THROUGH THUNDER, which follows a man and his family during the first half of the twentieth century, as he leaves behind abject poverty to become a North American railroad magnate; about the pressure of history on a family over time, how the generations layer and reflect back on one another with both love and incomprehension, to Deb Garrison at Pantheon, by Sarah Burnes at The Gernert Company (US).
Canadian rights to Sarah MacLachlan at House of Anasi.
Winner of the Somerset Maugham Prize for White is for Witching Helen Oyeyemi's MR FOX, reinventing the titular "Bluebeard"-like English fairy tale in nine variations on a twisted love story about a novelist and his frustrated muse, to Megan Lynch at Riverhead Books, by Jin Auh at The Wylie Agency (US).
MEMOIR:
Former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and honorary president of Oxfam and president of the International Commission of Jurists, Mary Robinson's EVERYBODY MATTERS, sharing the story of her lifelong fight for the voiceless around the world, to George Gibson at Bloomsbury, for publication in Fall 2012, by Lynn Franklin of Lynn Franklin Associates (NA).
UK/Commonwealth and Ireland rights to Rowena Webb at Hodder and Stoughton and Breda Purdue of Hachette Ireland, by Mary Clemmey in cooperation with Lynn Franklin Associates.
Tim Parks's TEACH US TO SIT STILL, about his transformative journey through a debilitating medical condition that eluded diagnosis or conventional treatment, ultimately finding relief through a self-awareness, Buddhist meditation and a process of "emptying the head," with detours into the realms of literature, art, religion and philosophy, to Colin Dickerman at Rodale, by Henry Dunow at Dunow, Carlson & Lerner on behalf of Antony Harwood (NA).
POP CULTURE:
THE TRANSFORMERS VAULT, covering more than 25 years of the Transformers Universe history, from the toys to the animated series, live-action movies, comics, and collectable merchandise, and feature never-before-seen images and inside information, to Eric Klopfer at Abrams, for publication in Spring 2011, by becker&mayer!
Chief legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC and founder of the Abrams Media Network, Dan Abrams's MAN DOWN: Proof Beyond A Reasonable Doubt That Women Are Better Cops, Drivers, Gamblers, Spies, World Leaders, Beer Tasters, Hedge Fund Managers, and Just About Everything Else, to Jennifer Levesque at Abrams Image, for publication in May 2011, by Laura Dail at Laura Dail Literary Agency
(World English).
SCIENCE:
Duke University distinguished professor Adrian Bejan and columnist J. Peder Zane's THE CONSTRUCTAL LAW OF DESIGN IN NATURE, an examination of the universality of design in nature providing a broader understanding of evolution that unites the animate and inanimate through the Constructal Law, a first principle of physics that describes the natural tendency of all systems to generate configurations that evolve to flow more easily over time, to Melissa Danaczko at Doubleday, by Tina Bennett at Janklow & Nesbit (NA).
WRAP....
FICTION
DEBUT:
Author of the memoir A Slippery Year, Melanie Gideon's debut novel WIFE 22, about a woman amidst a midlife crisis who agrees to anonymously participate in a survey about marital happiness only to experience a reawakening through the power of confession -- told through a story that unfolds via Facebook statuses, Google searches, questionnaires and first-person narrative, satirizing our obsession with the internet and the ease with which we can reveal things to strangers but not to those we love, to Jennifer Hershey for Ballantine, by Elizabeth Sheinkman at Curtis Brown UK (NA).
Film rights optioned to Working Title. Dutch rights to Bruna.
Translation: betsy@curtisbrown.co.uk
Aatish Taseer's A TREMOR IN THE EARTH, a family saga about India, Pakistan, and a young man straddling these two worlds as he attempts to make his way in an environment full of toxicity and moral danger, to Mitzi Angel at Faber, for publication in Fall 2011, by Anna Stein on behalf of Andrew Kidd at Aitken Alexander Associates (NA).
Princeton undergraduate writing award-winner and New School MFA graduate Julie Sarkissian's THIS IS HOW TO FIND ME, in which a mentally disabled girl is sent to live on a farm where she discovers the dark secrets of her caretakers, befriends a pregnant teen whose baby is taken after its birth, and ultimately, with the help of a talking chicken, embarks on a brave, captivating journey to reunite mother and child, to Sarah Knight at Simon & Schuster, by Judy Heiblum at Sterling Lord Literistic (World).
THRILLER:
Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Senator Bob Graham's THE KEY TO THE KINGDOM, a topical and provocative debut political thriller, to Roger Cooper at Vanguard Press, for publication in Spring 2011, by Ed Victor at Ed Victor Ltd. (NA).
GENERAL/OTHER:
Author of A COMPLICATED KINDNESS Miriam Toews's SMALL BIRD, BEATING HEART, the story of a nineteen-year old who, with her thirteen-year old sister, is forced to flee their punishing Mennonite community in rural Mexico, and SWING LOW: A LIFE, about manic-depression that reads like a novel, to Terry Karten at Harper, for publication in Fall 2011, by Sarah Chalfant at The Wylie Agency (US).
Author of Governor General's Award-winning THE LAW OF DREAMS Peter Behrens's CALLING ME THROUGH THUNDER, which follows a man and his family during the first half of the twentieth century, as he leaves behind abject poverty to become a North American railroad magnate; about the pressure of history on a family over time, how the generations layer and reflect back on one another with both love and incomprehension, to Deb Garrison at Pantheon, by Sarah Burnes at The Gernert Company (US).
Canadian rights to Sarah MacLachlan at House of Anasi.
Winner of the Somerset Maugham Prize for White is for Witching Helen Oyeyemi's MR FOX, reinventing the titular "Bluebeard"-like English fairy tale in nine variations on a twisted love story about a novelist and his frustrated muse, to Megan Lynch at Riverhead Books, by Jin Auh at The Wylie Agency (US).
MEMOIR:
Former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and honorary president of Oxfam and president of the International Commission of Jurists, Mary Robinson's EVERYBODY MATTERS, sharing the story of her lifelong fight for the voiceless around the world, to George Gibson at Bloomsbury, for publication in Fall 2012, by Lynn Franklin of Lynn Franklin Associates (NA).
UK/Commonwealth and Ireland rights to Rowena Webb at Hodder and Stoughton and Breda Purdue of Hachette Ireland, by Mary Clemmey in cooperation with Lynn Franklin Associates.
Tim Parks's TEACH US TO SIT STILL, about his transformative journey through a debilitating medical condition that eluded diagnosis or conventional treatment, ultimately finding relief through a self-awareness, Buddhist meditation and a process of "emptying the head," with detours into the realms of literature, art, religion and philosophy, to Colin Dickerman at Rodale, by Henry Dunow at Dunow, Carlson & Lerner on behalf of Antony Harwood (NA).
POP CULTURE:
THE TRANSFORMERS VAULT, covering more than 25 years of the Transformers Universe history, from the toys to the animated series, live-action movies, comics, and collectable merchandise, and feature never-before-seen images and inside information, to Eric Klopfer at Abrams, for publication in Spring 2011, by becker&mayer!
Chief legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC and founder of the Abrams Media Network, Dan Abrams's MAN DOWN: Proof Beyond A Reasonable Doubt That Women Are Better Cops, Drivers, Gamblers, Spies, World Leaders, Beer Tasters, Hedge Fund Managers, and Just About Everything Else, to Jennifer Levesque at Abrams Image, for publication in May 2011, by Laura Dail at Laura Dail Literary Agency
(World English).
SCIENCE:
Duke University distinguished professor Adrian Bejan and columnist J. Peder Zane's THE CONSTRUCTAL LAW OF DESIGN IN NATURE, an examination of the universality of design in nature providing a broader understanding of evolution that unites the animate and inanimate through the Constructal Law, a first principle of physics that describes the natural tendency of all systems to generate configurations that evolve to flow more easily over time, to Melissa Danaczko at Doubleday, by Tina Bennett at Janklow & Nesbit (NA).
WRAP....
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Pentagon to Press.....Work With Us...
From Secrecy News....
SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2010, Issue No. 71
September 7, 2010
Secrecy News Blog: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
** PENTAGON SEEKS "COORDINATION" OF MEDIA ACTIVITIES
** A REPORT CARD ON SECRECY
PENTAGON SEEKS "COORDINATION" OF MEDIA ACTIVITIES
The Department of Defense last week increased its efforts to require that Department contacts with the media be monitored and approved by DoD public affairs officials.
"I am asking the heads of the Military Services, the Joint Staff and the Combatant Commands to reinforce to all of their employees to work closely and effectively with their public affairs offices to ensure full situational awareness," wrote Douglas B. Wilson, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs in a September 2 memorandum (pdf).
The latest Pentagon move follows up on a July 2 memo (pdf) from Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, who stated that the DoD Office of Public Affairs "is the sole release authority for official DoD information to news media in Washington, and ... all media activities must be coordinated through appropriate public affairs channels. This policy is all too often ignored," he complained.
"We have far too many people talking to the media outside of channels, sometimes providing information which is simply incorrect, out of proper context, unauthorized, or uninformed...," Secretary Gates wrote.
Both memoranda assert prohibitions on unauthorized disclosures of classified information as well as on unclassified but sensitive or predecisional information.
As a practical matter, the degree of control over DoD contacts with the media sought by the Pentagon may be impossible to achieve. The Department is too large (with millions of employees), too decentralized (with thousands of locations) and, perhaps, too open (with hundreds of reporters holding building permits at the Pentagon alone) to allow rigorous monitoring or "coordination" of more than a fraction of all external contacts and communications.
And though it may not be convenient for Pentagon officials to say so, almost everyone understands that freedom of the press means something more, and something different, than reproducing authorized government releases. Unauthorized disclosures -- even incomplete or partially inaccurate ones -- often serve a valuable public policy function, at least when they do not trespass on legitimate secrets, because they enable reporters and others to develop an independent account of events and to generate a more complete public record. When the short-term institutional interests of the Pentagon or other U.S. government agencies lead them to overclassify or otherwise impede public access to information, unauthorized and "uncoordinated" disclosures help to fill the void.
A REPORT CARD ON SECRECY
Last year, the number of "original classification decisions" -- or new national security secrets -- actually declined by almost ten percent from the year before.
This and other empirical measures of government secrecy were compiled in a new Secrecy Report Card (pdf) that was issued today by Openthegovernment.org, a coalition of public interest advocacy organizations. The Report Card presented data on classification and declassification activity, classification costs, Freedom of Information Act requests, Presidential signing statements, assertions of the state secrets privilege, and other aspects of official secrecy.
While new classification activity slowed last year, the Report Card noted, so too did declassification, with 8% fewer pages declassified in 2009 than in 2008. A National Declassification Center that was established in December 2009 is supposed to sharply increase the number of pages declassified in the coming months and years.
_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.
The Secrecy News Blog is at:
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
Wrap...
SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2010, Issue No. 71
September 7, 2010
Secrecy News Blog: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
** PENTAGON SEEKS "COORDINATION" OF MEDIA ACTIVITIES
** A REPORT CARD ON SECRECY
PENTAGON SEEKS "COORDINATION" OF MEDIA ACTIVITIES
The Department of Defense last week increased its efforts to require that Department contacts with the media be monitored and approved by DoD public affairs officials.
"I am asking the heads of the Military Services, the Joint Staff and the Combatant Commands to reinforce to all of their employees to work closely and effectively with their public affairs offices to ensure full situational awareness," wrote Douglas B. Wilson, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs in a September 2 memorandum (pdf).
The latest Pentagon move follows up on a July 2 memo (pdf) from Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, who stated that the DoD Office of Public Affairs "is the sole release authority for official DoD information to news media in Washington, and ... all media activities must be coordinated through appropriate public affairs channels. This policy is all too often ignored," he complained.
"We have far too many people talking to the media outside of channels, sometimes providing information which is simply incorrect, out of proper context, unauthorized, or uninformed...," Secretary Gates wrote.
Both memoranda assert prohibitions on unauthorized disclosures of classified information as well as on unclassified but sensitive or predecisional information.
As a practical matter, the degree of control over DoD contacts with the media sought by the Pentagon may be impossible to achieve. The Department is too large (with millions of employees), too decentralized (with thousands of locations) and, perhaps, too open (with hundreds of reporters holding building permits at the Pentagon alone) to allow rigorous monitoring or "coordination" of more than a fraction of all external contacts and communications.
And though it may not be convenient for Pentagon officials to say so, almost everyone understands that freedom of the press means something more, and something different, than reproducing authorized government releases. Unauthorized disclosures -- even incomplete or partially inaccurate ones -- often serve a valuable public policy function, at least when they do not trespass on legitimate secrets, because they enable reporters and others to develop an independent account of events and to generate a more complete public record. When the short-term institutional interests of the Pentagon or other U.S. government agencies lead them to overclassify or otherwise impede public access to information, unauthorized and "uncoordinated" disclosures help to fill the void.
A REPORT CARD ON SECRECY
Last year, the number of "original classification decisions" -- or new national security secrets -- actually declined by almost ten percent from the year before.
This and other empirical measures of government secrecy were compiled in a new Secrecy Report Card (pdf) that was issued today by Openthegovernment.org, a coalition of public interest advocacy organizations. The Report Card presented data on classification and declassification activity, classification costs, Freedom of Information Act requests, Presidential signing statements, assertions of the state secrets privilege, and other aspects of official secrecy.
While new classification activity slowed last year, the Report Card noted, so too did declassification, with 8% fewer pages declassified in 2009 than in 2008. A National Declassification Center that was established in December 2009 is supposed to sharply increase the number of pages declassified in the coming months and years.
_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.
The Secrecy News Blog is at:
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
Wrap...
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Stepping Out With Secrets...
From Secrecy News:
ANOTHER LEAK PROSECUTION
The Obama Administration continued its pursuit of individuals who leak classified information to the press with another indictment of a suspected leaker. The Department of Justice announced last week that Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a State Department contractor, had been indicted (pdf) under the Espionage Act for the unauthorized disclosure of national defense information and for lying to the FBI. Mr. Kim pleaded not guilty to both charges.
The classified information, which was not specified in the indictment, reportedly consisted of a 2009 intelligence assessment conveyed to Fox News stating that North Korea was likely to respond to United Nations sanctions by conducting another nuclear explosive test.
"The willful disclosure of classified information to those not entitled to it is a serious crime," said Assistant Attorney General David S. Kris in an August 27 news release. "Today's indictment should serve as a warning to anyone who is entrusted with sensitive national security information and would consider compromising it."
Mr. Kim's attorneys blasted the decision to indict him.
"In its obsession to clamp down on perfectly appropriate conversations between government employees and the press, the Obama Administration has forgotten that wise foreign policy must be founded on a two-way conversation between government and the public," said Abbe D. Lowell and Ruth Wedgwood in an August 27 statement (pdf) on the case.
"It is so disappointing that the Justice Department has chosen to stretch the espionage laws to cover ordinary and normal conversations between government officials and the press and, in doing so, destroy the career of a loyal civil servant and brilliant foreign policy analyst," they said. "There is no allegation that a document was given, that any money changed hands, that any foreign government was involved, or that there was any improper motive in the type of government/media exchanges that happen hundreds of times a day in Washington."
Mr. Kim was released pending trial on a $100,000 property bond. A status conference in the case has been set for October 13, 2010.
In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this month, former Defense Secretary William J. Perry said that more criminal prosecutions were needed to deter leaks of classified information.
"When I was secretary, we had an example of an egregious leak which I thought compromised national security," Secretary Perry told Senator McCain on August 3. "We prosecuted a case and sent the leaker to prison. And I think more examples of that would be useful in injecting better discipline in the system."
However, he may have misspoken. There does not seem to have been a leak prosecution during the years that he served as Secretary (1993-1997), and Dr. Perry's office was not able to provide clarification of his remarks.
Wrap...
ANOTHER LEAK PROSECUTION
The Obama Administration continued its pursuit of individuals who leak classified information to the press with another indictment of a suspected leaker. The Department of Justice announced last week that Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a State Department contractor, had been indicted (pdf) under the Espionage Act for the unauthorized disclosure of national defense information and for lying to the FBI. Mr. Kim pleaded not guilty to both charges.
The classified information, which was not specified in the indictment, reportedly consisted of a 2009 intelligence assessment conveyed to Fox News stating that North Korea was likely to respond to United Nations sanctions by conducting another nuclear explosive test.
"The willful disclosure of classified information to those not entitled to it is a serious crime," said Assistant Attorney General David S. Kris in an August 27 news release. "Today's indictment should serve as a warning to anyone who is entrusted with sensitive national security information and would consider compromising it."
Mr. Kim's attorneys blasted the decision to indict him.
"In its obsession to clamp down on perfectly appropriate conversations between government employees and the press, the Obama Administration has forgotten that wise foreign policy must be founded on a two-way conversation between government and the public," said Abbe D. Lowell and Ruth Wedgwood in an August 27 statement (pdf) on the case.
"It is so disappointing that the Justice Department has chosen to stretch the espionage laws to cover ordinary and normal conversations between government officials and the press and, in doing so, destroy the career of a loyal civil servant and brilliant foreign policy analyst," they said. "There is no allegation that a document was given, that any money changed hands, that any foreign government was involved, or that there was any improper motive in the type of government/media exchanges that happen hundreds of times a day in Washington."
Mr. Kim was released pending trial on a $100,000 property bond. A status conference in the case has been set for October 13, 2010.
In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this month, former Defense Secretary William J. Perry said that more criminal prosecutions were needed to deter leaks of classified information.
"When I was secretary, we had an example of an egregious leak which I thought compromised national security," Secretary Perry told Senator McCain on August 3. "We prosecuted a case and sent the leaker to prison. And I think more examples of that would be useful in injecting better discipline in the system."
However, he may have misspoken. There does not seem to have been a leak prosecution during the years that he served as Secretary (1993-1997), and Dr. Perry's office was not able to provide clarification of his remarks.
Wrap...
Friday, August 27, 2010
On the Nukes...
From Secrecy News...
THE TWILIGHT OF THE BOMBS
In "The Twilight of the Bombs," the fourth and final volume of his epic history of the nuclear era, author Richard Rhodes examines "how the dangerous post-Cold War transition was managed, who its heroes were, what we learned from it, and where it carried us."
Covering the years 1990-2010, from the collapse of the Soviet Union onward, much of the latest history is familiar. But by focusing on nuclear weapons development, proliferation and testing, Rhodes fashions his own narrative arc, enriched by new interviews and insights.
In the end, he sees a hopeful trajectory of "nuclear limitation and foreclosure: from Mikhail Gorbachev's and Ronald Reagan's initiatives to end the Cold War, to the voluntary disarming of the former Soviet republics and the security of nuclear materials, to the U.S. and Russia's deepening mutual arms reduction, to the up-and-down negotiations with North Korea that have nevertheless prevented another Korean war, to international diplomatic pressure brought to bear effectively on India and Pakistan, to the persistent march forward of negotiations toward treaties to limit nuclear testing and proliferation." (However, Rhodes does not specifically address the case of Iran's nuclear program, as noted by Tim Rutten in an August 18 review in the Los Angeles Times.)
In the concluding pages of the book, Rhodes posits an analogy between previous campaigns to eradicate or limit disease and current efforts to abolish nuclear weapons, which he deems both necessary and feasible. "In 1999, for the first time in human history, infectious diseases no longer ranked first among causes of death worldwide" thanks to the discipline of public health. In a similarly efficacious way, he says, the ingredients of the analogous discipline of public safety against nuclear weapons "have already begun to assemble themselves: materials control and accounting, cooperative threat reduction, security guarantees, agreements and treaties, surveillance and inspection, sanctions, forceful disarming if all else fails."
"The Twilight of the Bombs" cannot match Rhodes' first volume on "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" for sheer mythological power, but it is fluidly and eloquently written. The author's prose ranges widely, sometimes vertiginously: In the book's Index, Scott Ritter comes right after Rainer Maria Rilke, the Ayatollah Khomeini is just above Nicole Kidman, and Sig Hecker of Los Alamos is separated from Jesse Helms by G.W.F. Hegel.
Mr. Rhodes (who I should say has been a consistent supporter of Secrecy News) ends the book with Acknowledgments, including a valentine to his wife: "She, not thermonuclear fusion, makes the sun shine."
Wrap...
THE TWILIGHT OF THE BOMBS
In "The Twilight of the Bombs," the fourth and final volume of his epic history of the nuclear era, author Richard Rhodes examines "how the dangerous post-Cold War transition was managed, who its heroes were, what we learned from it, and where it carried us."
Covering the years 1990-2010, from the collapse of the Soviet Union onward, much of the latest history is familiar. But by focusing on nuclear weapons development, proliferation and testing, Rhodes fashions his own narrative arc, enriched by new interviews and insights.
In the end, he sees a hopeful trajectory of "nuclear limitation and foreclosure: from Mikhail Gorbachev's and Ronald Reagan's initiatives to end the Cold War, to the voluntary disarming of the former Soviet republics and the security of nuclear materials, to the U.S. and Russia's deepening mutual arms reduction, to the up-and-down negotiations with North Korea that have nevertheless prevented another Korean war, to international diplomatic pressure brought to bear effectively on India and Pakistan, to the persistent march forward of negotiations toward treaties to limit nuclear testing and proliferation." (However, Rhodes does not specifically address the case of Iran's nuclear program, as noted by Tim Rutten in an August 18 review in the Los Angeles Times.)
In the concluding pages of the book, Rhodes posits an analogy between previous campaigns to eradicate or limit disease and current efforts to abolish nuclear weapons, which he deems both necessary and feasible. "In 1999, for the first time in human history, infectious diseases no longer ranked first among causes of death worldwide" thanks to the discipline of public health. In a similarly efficacious way, he says, the ingredients of the analogous discipline of public safety against nuclear weapons "have already begun to assemble themselves: materials control and accounting, cooperative threat reduction, security guarantees, agreements and treaties, surveillance and inspection, sanctions, forceful disarming if all else fails."
"The Twilight of the Bombs" cannot match Rhodes' first volume on "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" for sheer mythological power, but it is fluidly and eloquently written. The author's prose ranges widely, sometimes vertiginously: In the book's Index, Scott Ritter comes right after Rainer Maria Rilke, the Ayatollah Khomeini is just above Nicole Kidman, and Sig Hecker of Los Alamos is separated from Jesse Helms by G.W.F. Hegel.
Mr. Rhodes (who I should say has been a consistent supporter of Secrecy News) ends the book with Acknowledgments, including a valentine to his wife: "She, not thermonuclear fusion, makes the sun shine."
Wrap...
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Assholes Abound....
As a writer friend of mine says, "I fear for my country." Precisely. The Republicans have become an evil force, far as I'm concerned.
Worse is the massive number of flat out stupid people who will swallow any damned thing the Repubs say.
Right off the top, those people need to know that Obama is NOT a Muslim. I don't care what his father was. That man has nothing to do with Obama. He disappeared from sight almost as soon as he impregnanted Obama's mother. Obama was raised a Christian and still is one.
Our Bill of Rights in this Republic of the United States of America says very plainly that we have freedom of religion...which means that Muslims have the right, as US citizens, to build their social center any damned place they please so long as they own the land legally. Which they do. And that's that.
The Republicans have instilled fear in those who buy their bullshit. I cannot imagine why anybody does, but far too many of them do. Pitiful, that they cannot think for themselves.
Of course part of the reason for their stupidity is the fact that our Republican owned news media are yellow journalists of the first order.
And why anybody with brains pays the least attention to assholes like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck is beyond me. I guess they're hearing what they want to hear, not realizing they're swallowing idiocy whole...evil idiocy. It's all about the money, people!!! Rush and Beck are being paid plenty to continue to cram that crap down people's throats every chance they get.
Media, by the way, includes TV and radio. Yellow journalism. I hope those corporate owners strangle.
And then there's the Supreme Court. Majority are Repugs. So of course they made the decision that corporations are people. Like hell they are. $$$$$$$$$$ rules. And may they rot while still living.
More, they own too many politicians, lock, stock, barrel. It's a hell of a thing that it costs so much to run for office, the way it's set up. Be much cleaner if campaigns were publically financed. And if the reputations of the people running were checked out first for crimes of one kind or another committed.
I do wish that Obama would not try so hard to work deals with both Repugs and Dems to get their joint agreement. It ain't gonna happen.
Wrap...
Worse is the massive number of flat out stupid people who will swallow any damned thing the Repubs say.
Right off the top, those people need to know that Obama is NOT a Muslim. I don't care what his father was. That man has nothing to do with Obama. He disappeared from sight almost as soon as he impregnanted Obama's mother. Obama was raised a Christian and still is one.
Our Bill of Rights in this Republic of the United States of America says very plainly that we have freedom of religion...which means that Muslims have the right, as US citizens, to build their social center any damned place they please so long as they own the land legally. Which they do. And that's that.
The Republicans have instilled fear in those who buy their bullshit. I cannot imagine why anybody does, but far too many of them do. Pitiful, that they cannot think for themselves.
Of course part of the reason for their stupidity is the fact that our Republican owned news media are yellow journalists of the first order.
And why anybody with brains pays the least attention to assholes like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck is beyond me. I guess they're hearing what they want to hear, not realizing they're swallowing idiocy whole...evil idiocy. It's all about the money, people!!! Rush and Beck are being paid plenty to continue to cram that crap down people's throats every chance they get.
Media, by the way, includes TV and radio. Yellow journalism. I hope those corporate owners strangle.
And then there's the Supreme Court. Majority are Repugs. So of course they made the decision that corporations are people. Like hell they are. $$$$$$$$$$ rules. And may they rot while still living.
More, they own too many politicians, lock, stock, barrel. It's a hell of a thing that it costs so much to run for office, the way it's set up. Be much cleaner if campaigns were publically financed. And if the reputations of the people running were checked out first for crimes of one kind or another committed.
I do wish that Obama would not try so hard to work deals with both Repugs and Dems to get their joint agreement. It ain't gonna happen.
Wrap...
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Replacing Obama...
Okay then, Dems ...you don't like Obama, you're not gonna have a Repug...so who the hell do you want to replace Obama? Gotta have somebody. Maybe Kucinich? But would he want that lousy job?
Ah...I can hear some people yelling, "HILARY".
Best give some thought to that. Nov 2012 is on its way.
Wrap...
Ah...I can hear some people yelling, "HILARY".
Best give some thought to that. Nov 2012 is on its way.
Wrap...
Sunday, August 08, 2010
Good Books On The Way....
From Publishers Lunch Weekly...
FICTION:
DEBUT...
InStyle magazine deputy and books editor Nancy Bilyeau's historical thriller THE LAST NUN, about a novice who is imprisoned in the Tower for breaking the sacred rule of enclosure and, in exchange for her freedom and her father's life, is charged to find a hidden legendary relic that could save the way of life that she loves from Cromwell's advancing army of destruction, to Trish Todd at Touchstone Fireside, in a very nice deal, at auction, by Josh Getzler at Russell & Volkening (NA).
Former analyst at Goldman, Sachs and corporate attorney Cristina Alger's debut THE DARLINGS, a family drama about a New York high society finance family and the race to uncover -- or cover up -- the truth behind a tragic event that sets off a scandal with enormous financial and personal implications, with great insights into a NY world rarely glimpsed by outsiders, and pitched as having echoes of THE FIRM, BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES and Clare Messud's THE EMPEROR'S CHILDREN, to Pamela Dorman at Pamela Dorman Books, in a pre-empt, for publication in winter 2012, by Pilar Queen at McCormick & Williams Literary Agency (world).
MYSTERY/CRIME...
Two-time Edgar nominee Charlie Huston's SKINNER, the first in an epic series about a man raised in a box who becomes the world's most skilled assassin, to John Schoenfelder at Mulholland Books and Bill Massey at Orion, in a three-book deal, for publication beginning Spring 2012, by Simon Lipskar at Writers House (World English).
Four-time Edgar and Shamus Award-winner and Edgar Grand Master Award recipient Lawrence Block's A DROP OF THE HARD STUFF, a new Matthew Scudder novel, to John Schoenfelder at Mulholland Books, for Spring 2011 publication, by Danny Baror at Baror International (NA).
THRILLER...
Duane Swierczynski's FUN AND GAMES, HELL AND GONE and POINT AND SHOOT, a thriller in three parts, starring an ex-cop who lives in exile to protect his family and is driven to uphold justice no matter the personal cost, to be published over a period of six months, to John Schoenfelder at Mulholland Books, in a three-book deal, for publication in Spring through Fall 2011, by David Hale Smith at DHS Literary (World English).
Translation: DHS Literary/Baror International
GENERAL/OTHER...
Tony D'Souza's MULE, in which a young professional couple with a new baby fall into a life as drug mules after they lose their jobs in the economic downturn, to Jenna Johnson at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for publication in Spring 2012, by Liz Darhansoff at Darhansoff, Verrill, Feldman (NA).
CHILDREN'S/YOUNG ADULT...
IMMORTALS author Alyson Noel's SOUL SEEKER series, a supernatural story that will "explore themes of Shamanism and the ability to walk through the Upperworld and the Underworld and to walk amongst the dead," again to Rose Hilliard at St. Martin's, for publication beginning in 2012, by Bill Contardi at Brandt & Hochman.
NONFICTION:
BIOGRAPHY...
Washington Irving biographer Brian Jay Jones's Jim Henson biography, with the cooperation of the Henson family, beginning with Henson's days as an early TV pioneer, innovative artist and businessman who created a whole new way to present puppetry, covering Henson's creations, such as The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock and his important contribution to the development and success of Sesame Street, and describing his groundbreaking artistic and technological work that continues to this day, to Jill Schwartzman at Ballantine, by Jonathan Lyons of Lyons Literary (world).
HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS...
THE LONGEST WINTER and THE BEDFORD BOYS author Alex Kershaw's 500 DAYS: An Epic of Liberation, a closely focused but expansively painted war saga about an American infantry commander's descent into the deepest maelstrom of World War II Europe, from the landings at Sicily in July 1943 to Anzio, where he was the lone survivor of his company, to the drama of the liberation of Dachau, developing a transcendently human story of fortitude, faith and sacrifice, to Charlie Conrad at Broadway, for publication in 2012, by Jim Hornfischer at Hornfischer Literary Management (world).
Film: jerry@ipglm.com
NYT bestselling author of Renegade: The Making of a President and political analyst for MSNBC Richard Wolffe's untitled book based on exclusive and extensive interviews with President Obama and White House Staff; an in depth study of the Obama Administration at work, to Crown, for publication in November 2010.
Former UK prime minister Gordon Brown's book on the global financial crisis, with insight into the events that led to the fiscal downward spiral and the reactions of world leaders as they took steps to avoid further disaster, and suggestions for measures Brown believes the world should adopt to regain fiscal stability, to Free Press and Simon & Schuster UK, for publication in November 2010, by Philippa Brophy at Sterling Lord Literistic (world).
MEMOIR...
New York Magazine online editor Carolyn Murnick's THE HOT ONE, a memoir about women, friendship and the murder of her childhood best friend at the age of 22, which takes us from the suburbs of New Jersey to the seedy underworld of Los Angeles, to Amber Qureshi at Free Press, at auction, by Larry Weissman at Larry Weissman Literary (world English).
SCIENCE...
Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and senior associate in neurology at Children's Hospital Boston Frances Jensen, M.D., with Amy Ellis Nutt's THE TEENAGE BRAIN, the latest scientific research to unlock the secrets of adolescent behavior and explain what is happening at the interface of a teenager's brain and the world, to Claire Wachtel at Harper, in a major deal, at auction, by Wendy Strothman at The Strothman Agency (World).
Wrap...
FICTION:
DEBUT...
InStyle magazine deputy and books editor Nancy Bilyeau's historical thriller THE LAST NUN, about a novice who is imprisoned in the Tower for breaking the sacred rule of enclosure and, in exchange for her freedom and her father's life, is charged to find a hidden legendary relic that could save the way of life that she loves from Cromwell's advancing army of destruction, to Trish Todd at Touchstone Fireside, in a very nice deal, at auction, by Josh Getzler at Russell & Volkening (NA).
Former analyst at Goldman, Sachs and corporate attorney Cristina Alger's debut THE DARLINGS, a family drama about a New York high society finance family and the race to uncover -- or cover up -- the truth behind a tragic event that sets off a scandal with enormous financial and personal implications, with great insights into a NY world rarely glimpsed by outsiders, and pitched as having echoes of THE FIRM, BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES and Clare Messud's THE EMPEROR'S CHILDREN, to Pamela Dorman at Pamela Dorman Books, in a pre-empt, for publication in winter 2012, by Pilar Queen at McCormick & Williams Literary Agency (world).
MYSTERY/CRIME...
Two-time Edgar nominee Charlie Huston's SKINNER, the first in an epic series about a man raised in a box who becomes the world's most skilled assassin, to John Schoenfelder at Mulholland Books and Bill Massey at Orion, in a three-book deal, for publication beginning Spring 2012, by Simon Lipskar at Writers House (World English).
Four-time Edgar and Shamus Award-winner and Edgar Grand Master Award recipient Lawrence Block's A DROP OF THE HARD STUFF, a new Matthew Scudder novel, to John Schoenfelder at Mulholland Books, for Spring 2011 publication, by Danny Baror at Baror International (NA).
THRILLER...
Duane Swierczynski's FUN AND GAMES, HELL AND GONE and POINT AND SHOOT, a thriller in three parts, starring an ex-cop who lives in exile to protect his family and is driven to uphold justice no matter the personal cost, to be published over a period of six months, to John Schoenfelder at Mulholland Books, in a three-book deal, for publication in Spring through Fall 2011, by David Hale Smith at DHS Literary (World English).
Translation: DHS Literary/Baror International
GENERAL/OTHER...
Tony D'Souza's MULE, in which a young professional couple with a new baby fall into a life as drug mules after they lose their jobs in the economic downturn, to Jenna Johnson at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for publication in Spring 2012, by Liz Darhansoff at Darhansoff, Verrill, Feldman (NA).
CHILDREN'S/YOUNG ADULT...
IMMORTALS author Alyson Noel's SOUL SEEKER series, a supernatural story that will "explore themes of Shamanism and the ability to walk through the Upperworld and the Underworld and to walk amongst the dead," again to Rose Hilliard at St. Martin's, for publication beginning in 2012, by Bill Contardi at Brandt & Hochman.
NONFICTION:
BIOGRAPHY...
Washington Irving biographer Brian Jay Jones's Jim Henson biography, with the cooperation of the Henson family, beginning with Henson's days as an early TV pioneer, innovative artist and businessman who created a whole new way to present puppetry, covering Henson's creations, such as The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock and his important contribution to the development and success of Sesame Street, and describing his groundbreaking artistic and technological work that continues to this day, to Jill Schwartzman at Ballantine, by Jonathan Lyons of Lyons Literary (world).
HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS...
THE LONGEST WINTER and THE BEDFORD BOYS author Alex Kershaw's 500 DAYS: An Epic of Liberation, a closely focused but expansively painted war saga about an American infantry commander's descent into the deepest maelstrom of World War II Europe, from the landings at Sicily in July 1943 to Anzio, where he was the lone survivor of his company, to the drama of the liberation of Dachau, developing a transcendently human story of fortitude, faith and sacrifice, to Charlie Conrad at Broadway, for publication in 2012, by Jim Hornfischer at Hornfischer Literary Management (world).
Film: jerry@ipglm.com
NYT bestselling author of Renegade: The Making of a President and political analyst for MSNBC Richard Wolffe's untitled book based on exclusive and extensive interviews with President Obama and White House Staff; an in depth study of the Obama Administration at work, to Crown, for publication in November 2010.
Former UK prime minister Gordon Brown's book on the global financial crisis, with insight into the events that led to the fiscal downward spiral and the reactions of world leaders as they took steps to avoid further disaster, and suggestions for measures Brown believes the world should adopt to regain fiscal stability, to Free Press and Simon & Schuster UK, for publication in November 2010, by Philippa Brophy at Sterling Lord Literistic (world).
MEMOIR...
New York Magazine online editor Carolyn Murnick's THE HOT ONE, a memoir about women, friendship and the murder of her childhood best friend at the age of 22, which takes us from the suburbs of New Jersey to the seedy underworld of Los Angeles, to Amber Qureshi at Free Press, at auction, by Larry Weissman at Larry Weissman Literary (world English).
SCIENCE...
Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and senior associate in neurology at Children's Hospital Boston Frances Jensen, M.D., with Amy Ellis Nutt's THE TEENAGE BRAIN, the latest scientific research to unlock the secrets of adolescent behavior and explain what is happening at the interface of a teenager's brain and the world, to Claire Wachtel at Harper, in a major deal, at auction, by Wendy Strothman at The Strothman Agency (World).
Wrap...
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Secrets? What Secrets....
From Secrecy News:
CAN THE SECRECY SYSTEM BE FIXED?
The release of some 90,000 classified records on the Afghanistan War by Wikileaks is the largest single unauthorized disclosure of currently classified records that has ever taken place, and it naturally raises many questions about information security, the politics of disclosure, and the possible impact on the future conduct of the war in Afghanistan.
But among those questions is this: Can the national security classification system be fixed before it breaks down altogether in a frenzy of uncontrolled leaks, renewed barriers against information dissemination, and a growing loss of confidence in the integrity of the system?
That the classification system needs fixing is beyond any doubt.
"I agree with you, sir," Gen. James R. Clapper, Jr., told Sen. Ron Wyden at his DNI confirmation hearing last week, "we do overclassify."
That makes it more or less unanimous. What has always been less clear is just what to do about the problem.
In what may be the last opportunity to systematically correct classification policy and to place it on a sound footing, the Obama Administration has ordered all classifying agencies to perform a Fundamental Classification Guidance Review. The purpose of the Review is to evaluate current classification policies based on "the broadest possible range of perspectives" and to eliminate obsolete or unnecessary classification requirements. Executive Order 13526, section 1.9 directed that such reviews must be completed within the next two years.
"There is an executive order that we, the [intelligence] community, are in the process of gearing up on how to respond to this, because this is going to be a more systematized process, and a lot more discipline to it," Gen. Clapper said.
"Having been involved in this, I will tell you my general philosophy is that we can be a lot more liberal, I think, about declassifying, and we should be," Gen. Clapper said.
It is unclear at this point whether the Fundamental Review will be faithfully implemented by executive branch agencies, whether it will have the intended effect of sharply reducing the scope of the national security classification system, or whether the system itself is already beyond repair.
Wrap....
CAN THE SECRECY SYSTEM BE FIXED?
The release of some 90,000 classified records on the Afghanistan War by Wikileaks is the largest single unauthorized disclosure of currently classified records that has ever taken place, and it naturally raises many questions about information security, the politics of disclosure, and the possible impact on the future conduct of the war in Afghanistan.
But among those questions is this: Can the national security classification system be fixed before it breaks down altogether in a frenzy of uncontrolled leaks, renewed barriers against information dissemination, and a growing loss of confidence in the integrity of the system?
That the classification system needs fixing is beyond any doubt.
"I agree with you, sir," Gen. James R. Clapper, Jr., told Sen. Ron Wyden at his DNI confirmation hearing last week, "we do overclassify."
That makes it more or less unanimous. What has always been less clear is just what to do about the problem.
In what may be the last opportunity to systematically correct classification policy and to place it on a sound footing, the Obama Administration has ordered all classifying agencies to perform a Fundamental Classification Guidance Review. The purpose of the Review is to evaluate current classification policies based on "the broadest possible range of perspectives" and to eliminate obsolete or unnecessary classification requirements. Executive Order 13526, section 1.9 directed that such reviews must be completed within the next two years.
"There is an executive order that we, the [intelligence] community, are in the process of gearing up on how to respond to this, because this is going to be a more systematized process, and a lot more discipline to it," Gen. Clapper said.
"Having been involved in this, I will tell you my general philosophy is that we can be a lot more liberal, I think, about declassifying, and we should be," Gen. Clapper said.
It is unclear at this point whether the Fundamental Review will be faithfully implemented by executive branch agencies, whether it will have the intended effect of sharply reducing the scope of the national security classification system, or whether the system itself is already beyond repair.
Wrap....
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
ComicCon Is Up & Running....
Well, ComicCon is rolling. Doors opened at the Convention Center at 6:30PM this evening.
So Skip, the doorman who has been there for 20 years is suddenly asked about what to do when one of the ComicCon folks says, "There's a sea gull in the lobby!"
Not much can be done since the ceiling of the lobby is 2 stories high and thus the sea gull can and will fly around until he finds a way out.
Attendees, who drive into San Diego, can park at Qualcomm stadium in Mission Valley and ride one of the red trolleys non-stop to the Conv Ctr. The problem for the locals will be trying to get across the tracks downtown between trolleys. Apparently the Padres may be playing at Petco Park downtown...across from the Conv Ctr...sometime within the next three days. Fans are gonna have fun trying to find parking. Be good if they take the trolleys too.
Me, I'm gonna enjoy Seaport Village which is a decent distance down Harbor Drive from the Conv Ctr. Was there this afternoon. When I left, to drive down Pacific Hwy, the first cross street was Harbor Drive. Nothing but a solid mass of cars heading toward the Conv Ctr. Ah me. Having ComicCon in town is always intersting.
Wrap...
So Skip, the doorman who has been there for 20 years is suddenly asked about what to do when one of the ComicCon folks says, "There's a sea gull in the lobby!"
Not much can be done since the ceiling of the lobby is 2 stories high and thus the sea gull can and will fly around until he finds a way out.
Attendees, who drive into San Diego, can park at Qualcomm stadium in Mission Valley and ride one of the red trolleys non-stop to the Conv Ctr. The problem for the locals will be trying to get across the tracks downtown between trolleys. Apparently the Padres may be playing at Petco Park downtown...across from the Conv Ctr...sometime within the next three days. Fans are gonna have fun trying to find parking. Be good if they take the trolleys too.
Me, I'm gonna enjoy Seaport Village which is a decent distance down Harbor Drive from the Conv Ctr. Was there this afternoon. When I left, to drive down Pacific Hwy, the first cross street was Harbor Drive. Nothing but a solid mass of cars heading toward the Conv Ctr. Ah me. Having ComicCon in town is always intersting.
Wrap...
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Read This Book In Feb, 2011....
Harriet A. Washington was kind enough to email me a photo of her book jacket, but I can't figure a way to get it over here. In any case, the title is "Deadly Monopolies", and here are quotes from some of the reviews:
Harriet A. Washington has unearthed an enormous amount of shocking information and shaped it into a riveting, carefully documented book.'
—The New York Times
'Medical Apartheid is fascinating and compelling. ...The book’s analysis challenges the reader to question established paradigms in the history of medicine.'
—Marius Turda, Oxford Brookes University, Social History of Medicine
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans
from Colonial Times to the Present
Winner, National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, PEN/Oakland Award, BCALA Nonfiction Award, Gustavus Meyers Award
Also, she says, "Deadly Monopolies will be published in February 2011, and I posted an essay on HuffPo that dicusses a few of the topics it addresses. I thought you might be interested, so here's the link.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harriet-a-washington/gene-patenting-produces-p_b_645862.html
Wrap...
Harriet A. Washington has unearthed an enormous amount of shocking information and shaped it into a riveting, carefully documented book.'
—The New York Times
'Medical Apartheid is fascinating and compelling. ...The book’s analysis challenges the reader to question established paradigms in the history of medicine.'
—Marius Turda, Oxford Brookes University, Social History of Medicine
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans
from Colonial Times to the Present
Winner, National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, PEN/Oakland Award, BCALA Nonfiction Award, Gustavus Meyers Award
Also, she says, "Deadly Monopolies will be published in February 2011, and I posted an essay on HuffPo that dicusses a few of the topics it addresses. I thought you might be interested, so here's the link.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harriet-a-washington/gene-patenting-produces-p_b_645862.html
Wrap...
Monday, July 19, 2010
Military Contractors Outnumber Military....
From Secrecy News:
MILITARY CONTRACTORS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN
The Department of Defense has more contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan than it has uniformed military personnel, another newly updated report from the Congressional Research Service reminds us.
"The Department of Defense increasingly relies upon contractors to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which has resulted in a DOD workforce that has 19% more contractor personnel (207,600) than uniformed personnel (175,000)," said the CRS report -- which forms a timely counterpoint to this week's Washington Post "Top Secret America" series on the tremendous expansion of the intelligence bureaucracy, including the increased and often unchecked reliance on contractors.
The explosive growth in reliance on contractors naturally entails new difficulties in management and oversight. "Some analysts believe that poor contract management has also played a role in abuses and crimes committed by certain contractors against local nationals, which may have undermined U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan," the CRS said.
Wrap...
MILITARY CONTRACTORS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN
The Department of Defense has more contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan than it has uniformed military personnel, another newly updated report from the Congressional Research Service reminds us.
"The Department of Defense increasingly relies upon contractors to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which has resulted in a DOD workforce that has 19% more contractor personnel (207,600) than uniformed personnel (175,000)," said the CRS report -- which forms a timely counterpoint to this week's Washington Post "Top Secret America" series on the tremendous expansion of the intelligence bureaucracy, including the increased and often unchecked reliance on contractors.
The explosive growth in reliance on contractors naturally entails new difficulties in management and oversight. "Some analysts believe that poor contract management has also played a role in abuses and crimes committed by certain contractors against local nationals, which may have undermined U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan," the CRS said.
Wrap...
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Westboro Baptists vs Navy SEALs....& ComicCon..
From Tom Blair's column in the San Diego Union-Tribune paper this morning:
"Last item in Tom Blair's column this morning...
: The Westboro Baptist Church, famed for picketing the funerals of American soldiers, will picket Comic-Con here on Thursday. The controversial church, headed by Fred Phelps , accuses conventioneers of worshipping comic book idols. Says the Westboro website: “If these people would spend even some of the energy they spend on these comic books, reading the Bible, well no high hopes here.” Batman and the Green Lantern garner most of Phelps’ wrath"
So now everybody wants me to make sure the Navy SEALs...their base is just a couple of
miles away...know. And the Camp Pendleton Marines...just about 25 miles up the coast, as well. Thursday may be those assholes' waterloo.
Wrap...
"Last item in Tom Blair's column this morning...
: The Westboro Baptist Church, famed for picketing the funerals of American soldiers, will picket Comic-Con here on Thursday. The controversial church, headed by Fred Phelps , accuses conventioneers of worshipping comic book idols. Says the Westboro website: “If these people would spend even some of the energy they spend on these comic books, reading the Bible, well no high hopes here.” Batman and the Green Lantern garner most of Phelps’ wrath"
So now everybody wants me to make sure the Navy SEALs...their base is just a couple of
miles away...know. And the Camp Pendleton Marines...just about 25 miles up the coast, as well. Thursday may be those assholes' waterloo.
Wrap...
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Conv Ctr Tour Plus ComicCon Plus Secret Services.
The powers that be gathered at the San Diego Conv Ctr this morning to tour the place. The idea was to help them decide whether to expand its size, and thus keep ComicCon holding their conferences there. Right now, ComicCon has become such a large size that there is simply not enough space to hold all they'd like to do. We shall see.
My opinion is that expanding the Conv Ctr is the smart thing to do. A better choice than building the proposed new library downtown near Petco ballpark. And if the Chargers need a new stadium, let Spanos build it. We're still losing money on Qualcom.
********************
Additionally, there are two books that I consider must-reads. The first is fiction and entitled "Crashers". Normally, when a passenger jet crashes, there are pictures of the crash site in the MSM. Later, the media might have pictures of the sections of the jet all laid out nicely in a large hanger. "Crashers" deals with the activity that occurs between those two events. Lemme tell you, I had no idea of what goes on. Absolutely a hair-standing novel and when I tell you that you won't be able to put it down, I mean exactly what I say. One absolutely terrific piece of work.
The second book is a non-fiction, entitled "In The President's Secret Service" by Ron Kessler. Talk about shock value! I was astounded by the difference between our presidents' public and private behaviors. And no, I'm not gonna give examples. This is a book that seriously needs to be read. It doesn't cut any of those guys any slack. The Secret Service knows all, I kid you not...and in this book, tells all.
More, you'd best read it BEFORE the next presidential election.
Wrap...
My opinion is that expanding the Conv Ctr is the smart thing to do. A better choice than building the proposed new library downtown near Petco ballpark. And if the Chargers need a new stadium, let Spanos build it. We're still losing money on Qualcom.
********************
Additionally, there are two books that I consider must-reads. The first is fiction and entitled "Crashers". Normally, when a passenger jet crashes, there are pictures of the crash site in the MSM. Later, the media might have pictures of the sections of the jet all laid out nicely in a large hanger. "Crashers" deals with the activity that occurs between those two events. Lemme tell you, I had no idea of what goes on. Absolutely a hair-standing novel and when I tell you that you won't be able to put it down, I mean exactly what I say. One absolutely terrific piece of work.
The second book is a non-fiction, entitled "In The President's Secret Service" by Ron Kessler. Talk about shock value! I was astounded by the difference between our presidents' public and private behaviors. And no, I'm not gonna give examples. This is a book that seriously needs to be read. It doesn't cut any of those guys any slack. The Secret Service knows all, I kid you not...and in this book, tells all.
More, you'd best read it BEFORE the next presidential election.
Wrap...
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Special Forces & Green Berets New Book ....
From Publishers Lunch Weekly...
FICTION..
DEBUT...
Cornell MFA and former University of Chicago mathematics scholar Catherine Chung's FORGOTTEN COUNTRY, the story of a Korean American woman sent by her terminally ill father to find her missing sister, leading to a larger journey that forces her to confront her family's tragic history and to understand the consequences of the truth coming to light under the weight of national, cultural, and personal traditions of silence, to Megan Lynch at Riverhead, at auction, by Maria Massie at Lippincott Massie McQuilkin (NA).
Madeline Miller's IN THE ARMOR OF ACHILLES, yielding a tender love story and a chronicle of the Trojan War; narrated by Patroclus, best friend and lover of the Greek hero, Achilles, these childhood friends suddenly face the rising tide of war when Helen is captured by Troy; following him to the distant battlefields, Patroclus is willing to sacrifice anything to prolong the mortal life of his immortal love, to Lee Boudreaux at Ecco, at auction, for publication Summer 2012, by Julie Barer at Barer Literary, and to Alexandra Pringle at Bloomsbury UK, by Caspian Dennis for Barer Literary.
MYSTERY/CRIME...
Two-time Agatha Award winner and NYT bestselling author Jacqueline Winspear's 9th and 10th novels in the series featuring psychologist and investigator MAISIE DOBBS, again to Jennifer Barth at Harper, in a major deal, by Amy Rennert at the Amy Rennert Agency.
THRILLER...
Three new FBI thrillers by No. 1 NYT bestselling author Catherine Coulter, featuring her lead characters Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich, to Ivan Held at Putnam, for publication once a year, by Robert Gottlieb at Trident Media Group (NA).
David Jack Bell's CEMETERY GIRL, in which a couple who seemingly has it all, loses almost everything when their twelve-year-old daughter disappears without a trace, and then, four years later, is found and returned to them, but refuses to talk about where she was, what happened to her -- and why, to Danielle Perez at NAL, in a two-book deal, by Laney Katz Becker at Markson Thoma (World English).
CHILDREN'S/YOUNG ADULT...
Jodi Meadows's trilogy, beginning with ERIN INCARNATE, about the only girl who is new in a world where everyone is perpetually reincarnated, and her quest to discover why she was born, and what happened to the person she replaced, to Sarah Shumway at Katherine Tegen Books, at auction, by Lauren MacLeod at The Strothman Agency (World English).
NONFICTION:
BUSINESS/INVESTING/FINANCE...
Houston Chronicle business columnist Loren Steffy's untitled book on BP, tracing how the current disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is only a part of a larger pattern of corporate cost-cutting and image-making that has compromised safety across BP's operations for years, to Mary Glenn at McGraw-Hill, by Matthew Carnicelli at Trident Media Group (World).
Huffington Post blogger and Magnify.net CEO Steve Rosenbaum's CURATION NATION: How to Profit in the New World of User-Generated Content, illuminating one of today's hottest business trends -- curation: the art of discovering, sorting, and giving context to the explosion of content on the web in order to make it relevant to one's consumer, to Leila Porteous at McGraw-Hill Professional, by John Wright at John Wright Literary Associates.
HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS...
Tony Schwalm's THE GUERRILLA FACTORY, a narrative of the author's experiences in the U.S. Army's legendary training crucible, the Q Course at Fort Bragg, which produces elite Special Forces operators, also known as Green Berets, and his tour of duty as its commander, to Dominick Anfuso at Free Press, for publication in 2012, by Jim Hornfischer at Hornfischer Literary Management (World).
MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser's DONT BE EVIL: Filter Bubbles, Click Signals, And Why It Matters That the Net Knows Your Name, on the unprecedented rise of personalization on the web, revealing what it's doing to us, where it's going, how it will increasingly restrict the news we consume and curb innovation, and why we can - and must - change course, to Ann Godoff and Laura Stickney at Penguin Press, at auction, for publication in May 2011, by Elyse Cheney at Elyse Cheney Agency (NA).
Author of the newsmaking Rolling Stone article The Runaway General, journalist Michael Hastings' untitled book, promising "an unprecedented behind-the-scenes account of America's longest war," with an unfiltered look at the war, and the soldiers, diplomats and politicians who are waging it, to Geoff Shandler at Little, Brown, by Scott Moyers at The Wylie Agency.
Oceanographer and MacArthur fellow Carl Safina's BLOWOUT, on the environmental consequences of the BP disaster, to John Glusman of Crown, by Jean Naggar of the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency (World English).
MEMOIR...
Co-host of the Emmy-winning TV show "The Doctors" Dr. Lisa Masterson, PAPER DOLLHOUSE, tracing her path from an unconventional childhood with a larger-than-life, "flim-flam the rich, fund your dreams" mother to the firing lines of medical school, her charity in Africa, and co-hosting a hit TV series while remaining first and foremost a doctor, to Janice Goldklang at Globe Pequot, for publication in May 2011, by BJ Robbins at BJ Robbins Literary Agency (World English).
Wrap...
FICTION..
DEBUT...
Cornell MFA and former University of Chicago mathematics scholar Catherine Chung's FORGOTTEN COUNTRY, the story of a Korean American woman sent by her terminally ill father to find her missing sister, leading to a larger journey that forces her to confront her family's tragic history and to understand the consequences of the truth coming to light under the weight of national, cultural, and personal traditions of silence, to Megan Lynch at Riverhead, at auction, by Maria Massie at Lippincott Massie McQuilkin (NA).
Madeline Miller's IN THE ARMOR OF ACHILLES, yielding a tender love story and a chronicle of the Trojan War; narrated by Patroclus, best friend and lover of the Greek hero, Achilles, these childhood friends suddenly face the rising tide of war when Helen is captured by Troy; following him to the distant battlefields, Patroclus is willing to sacrifice anything to prolong the mortal life of his immortal love, to Lee Boudreaux at Ecco, at auction, for publication Summer 2012, by Julie Barer at Barer Literary, and to Alexandra Pringle at Bloomsbury UK, by Caspian Dennis for Barer Literary.
MYSTERY/CRIME...
Two-time Agatha Award winner and NYT bestselling author Jacqueline Winspear's 9th and 10th novels in the series featuring psychologist and investigator MAISIE DOBBS, again to Jennifer Barth at Harper, in a major deal, by Amy Rennert at the Amy Rennert Agency.
THRILLER...
Three new FBI thrillers by No. 1 NYT bestselling author Catherine Coulter, featuring her lead characters Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich, to Ivan Held at Putnam, for publication once a year, by Robert Gottlieb at Trident Media Group (NA).
David Jack Bell's CEMETERY GIRL, in which a couple who seemingly has it all, loses almost everything when their twelve-year-old daughter disappears without a trace, and then, four years later, is found and returned to them, but refuses to talk about where she was, what happened to her -- and why, to Danielle Perez at NAL, in a two-book deal, by Laney Katz Becker at Markson Thoma (World English).
CHILDREN'S/YOUNG ADULT...
Jodi Meadows's trilogy, beginning with ERIN INCARNATE, about the only girl who is new in a world where everyone is perpetually reincarnated, and her quest to discover why she was born, and what happened to the person she replaced, to Sarah Shumway at Katherine Tegen Books, at auction, by Lauren MacLeod at The Strothman Agency (World English).
NONFICTION:
BUSINESS/INVESTING/FINANCE...
Houston Chronicle business columnist Loren Steffy's untitled book on BP, tracing how the current disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is only a part of a larger pattern of corporate cost-cutting and image-making that has compromised safety across BP's operations for years, to Mary Glenn at McGraw-Hill, by Matthew Carnicelli at Trident Media Group (World).
Huffington Post blogger and Magnify.net CEO Steve Rosenbaum's CURATION NATION: How to Profit in the New World of User-Generated Content, illuminating one of today's hottest business trends -- curation: the art of discovering, sorting, and giving context to the explosion of content on the web in order to make it relevant to one's consumer, to Leila Porteous at McGraw-Hill Professional, by John Wright at John Wright Literary Associates.
HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS...
Tony Schwalm's THE GUERRILLA FACTORY, a narrative of the author's experiences in the U.S. Army's legendary training crucible, the Q Course at Fort Bragg, which produces elite Special Forces operators, also known as Green Berets, and his tour of duty as its commander, to Dominick Anfuso at Free Press, for publication in 2012, by Jim Hornfischer at Hornfischer Literary Management (World).
MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser's DONT BE EVIL: Filter Bubbles, Click Signals, And Why It Matters That the Net Knows Your Name, on the unprecedented rise of personalization on the web, revealing what it's doing to us, where it's going, how it will increasingly restrict the news we consume and curb innovation, and why we can - and must - change course, to Ann Godoff and Laura Stickney at Penguin Press, at auction, for publication in May 2011, by Elyse Cheney at Elyse Cheney Agency (NA).
Author of the newsmaking Rolling Stone article The Runaway General, journalist Michael Hastings' untitled book, promising "an unprecedented behind-the-scenes account of America's longest war," with an unfiltered look at the war, and the soldiers, diplomats and politicians who are waging it, to Geoff Shandler at Little, Brown, by Scott Moyers at The Wylie Agency.
Oceanographer and MacArthur fellow Carl Safina's BLOWOUT, on the environmental consequences of the BP disaster, to John Glusman of Crown, by Jean Naggar of the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency (World English).
MEMOIR...
Co-host of the Emmy-winning TV show "The Doctors" Dr. Lisa Masterson, PAPER DOLLHOUSE, tracing her path from an unconventional childhood with a larger-than-life, "flim-flam the rich, fund your dreams" mother to the firing lines of medical school, her charity in Africa, and co-hosting a hit TV series while remaining first and foremost a doctor, to Janice Goldklang at Globe Pequot, for publication in May 2011, by BJ Robbins at BJ Robbins Literary Agency (World English).
Wrap...
Friday, July 09, 2010
SecDef Lays Down the Law For Media....
From Secrecy News:
SECDEF DEFENDS NEW POLICY ON LIMITING MEDIA ACCESS
"I have grown increasingly concerned that we have become too lax, disorganized, and, in some cases, flat-out sloppy in the way we engage with the press," said Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, explaining why he had issued new guidance to regulate Pentagon interactions with the news media.
The new guidance (pdf), issued on July 2, requires advance notification and coordination with DoD Public Affairs before a Department official can speak to the media on a story that may have any "national or international implications."
In the absence of such controls, Gates said at a July 8 press briefing, "personal views have been published as official government positions, and information has gone out that was inaccurate, incomplete or lacking in proper context. Reports and other documents, including on sensitive subjects, are routinely provided to the press and other elements in this town before I or the White House know anything about them. Even more worrisome, highly classified and sensitive information has been divulged without authorization or accountability."
"My hope and expectation is that this new guidance will improve the quality of press engagement by ensuring that the people the media talk to can speak with accuracy and authority. This should not infringe or impede the flow of accurate and timely information to you or to the public. That is not my intent, nor will I tolerate it."
Despite the Secretary's assurance, however, it seems practically certain that the new guidance will significantly impede the flow of information to the press and will complicate the already difficult task of probing beneath the official surface of events.
The Gates memorandum seems to reflect a view of the press as a conduit for "official government positions" that are "authorized" and placed "in proper context." But everyone knows that the most interesting and important news stories often begin with unofficial and unauthorized statements that are lacking in context and may even be inaccurate. It is the reporter's job to validate them, assess their significance, place them in context and communicate them, and if the results appear "before I or the White House know anything about them," so much the better.
That is what the Washington Post did in its series on neglect of veterans' health at Walter Reed Hospital, and that is what USA Today did in its reporting on the casualties resulting from delayed acquisition of MRAP armored vehicles.
Secretary Gates knows this, and he acknowledged the importance of those particular stories. "The reality is, stories in the press, and you've heard me say this before -- whether it was the stories on the treatment of outpatient wounded warriors at Walter Reed in the Washington Post or stories about MRAPs in USA Today -- have been a spur to action for me in various areas," he said.
But the key point is that those stories did not emerge from authorized interviews or official accounts. They had to be pieced together from partial, incomplete and unauthorized sources. That's one of the things that made them great.
"If everybody's following the spirit and the letter of the memo," an astute but unidentified reporter asked Secretary Gates, "are you confident that stories like stories about the MRAP and the Walter Reed problems would emerge the way they did?"
"Actually, I am," Secretary Gates said at yesterday's press briefing, "and it's largely because of my confidence in the persistence and the skills of the people sitting in front of me." But now that persistence and those skills will also be needed to penetrate the new barriers that the Gates memo has created.
If the Pentagon genuinely valued groundbreaking news stories that could serve as a corrective "spur to action," then it would inquire into the specific conditions of access and disclosure that makes such stories possible, and it would then seek to foster those conditions more broadly throughout the Department. The new DoD guidance on interaction with the media is a step in the opposite direction.
The July 2 Gates memo (which was first reported by the New York Times) also declared categorically that "Leaking of classified information is against the law, cannot be tolerated, and will, when proven, lead to the prosecution of those found to be engaged in such activity."
On July 5, Pfc. Bradley E. Manning was charged (pdf) with the unauthorized transfer and disclosure of classified records, including the classified video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad that was posted online in April of this year by the WikiLeaks web site.
Secretary Gates said that he was not familiar with the underlying investigation of the Manning case or whether it constituted a serious breach, and that he had not determined whether remedial security measures were needed.
Wrap...
SECDEF DEFENDS NEW POLICY ON LIMITING MEDIA ACCESS
"I have grown increasingly concerned that we have become too lax, disorganized, and, in some cases, flat-out sloppy in the way we engage with the press," said Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, explaining why he had issued new guidance to regulate Pentagon interactions with the news media.
The new guidance (pdf), issued on July 2, requires advance notification and coordination with DoD Public Affairs before a Department official can speak to the media on a story that may have any "national or international implications."
In the absence of such controls, Gates said at a July 8 press briefing, "personal views have been published as official government positions, and information has gone out that was inaccurate, incomplete or lacking in proper context. Reports and other documents, including on sensitive subjects, are routinely provided to the press and other elements in this town before I or the White House know anything about them. Even more worrisome, highly classified and sensitive information has been divulged without authorization or accountability."
"My hope and expectation is that this new guidance will improve the quality of press engagement by ensuring that the people the media talk to can speak with accuracy and authority. This should not infringe or impede the flow of accurate and timely information to you or to the public. That is not my intent, nor will I tolerate it."
Despite the Secretary's assurance, however, it seems practically certain that the new guidance will significantly impede the flow of information to the press and will complicate the already difficult task of probing beneath the official surface of events.
The Gates memorandum seems to reflect a view of the press as a conduit for "official government positions" that are "authorized" and placed "in proper context." But everyone knows that the most interesting and important news stories often begin with unofficial and unauthorized statements that are lacking in context and may even be inaccurate. It is the reporter's job to validate them, assess their significance, place them in context and communicate them, and if the results appear "before I or the White House know anything about them," so much the better.
That is what the Washington Post did in its series on neglect of veterans' health at Walter Reed Hospital, and that is what USA Today did in its reporting on the casualties resulting from delayed acquisition of MRAP armored vehicles.
Secretary Gates knows this, and he acknowledged the importance of those particular stories. "The reality is, stories in the press, and you've heard me say this before -- whether it was the stories on the treatment of outpatient wounded warriors at Walter Reed in the Washington Post or stories about MRAPs in USA Today -- have been a spur to action for me in various areas," he said.
But the key point is that those stories did not emerge from authorized interviews or official accounts. They had to be pieced together from partial, incomplete and unauthorized sources. That's one of the things that made them great.
"If everybody's following the spirit and the letter of the memo," an astute but unidentified reporter asked Secretary Gates, "are you confident that stories like stories about the MRAP and the Walter Reed problems would emerge the way they did?"
"Actually, I am," Secretary Gates said at yesterday's press briefing, "and it's largely because of my confidence in the persistence and the skills of the people sitting in front of me." But now that persistence and those skills will also be needed to penetrate the new barriers that the Gates memo has created.
If the Pentagon genuinely valued groundbreaking news stories that could serve as a corrective "spur to action," then it would inquire into the specific conditions of access and disclosure that makes such stories possible, and it would then seek to foster those conditions more broadly throughout the Department. The new DoD guidance on interaction with the media is a step in the opposite direction.
The July 2 Gates memo (which was first reported by the New York Times) also declared categorically that "Leaking of classified information is against the law, cannot be tolerated, and will, when proven, lead to the prosecution of those found to be engaged in such activity."
On July 5, Pfc. Bradley E. Manning was charged (pdf) with the unauthorized transfer and disclosure of classified records, including the classified video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad that was posted online in April of this year by the WikiLeaks web site.
Secretary Gates said that he was not familiar with the underlying investigation of the Manning case or whether it constituted a serious breach, and that he had not determined whether remedial security measures were needed.
Wrap...
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Inscribe DADT On That Rock....
AN IDEA WHO’S TIME HAS COME (again and again and again)
by
Keith Taylor
The volatile "Don’t ask/Don’t Tell" rule, shortened to DADT, was tailor-made for a guy who loves to foist his opinions off on an unsuspecting public. DADT was enacted in 1993. By 2003 I had written a dozen articles about it for Navy Times. One sardonic piece suggested the term be inscribed on a rock at the entrance to our military academies.
Make a rule that problems should be solved by ignoring them? What a fine example of leadership for our future admirals and generals!
And as you’d expect I got all sorts of letters, pro and con. One former master chief boatswain’s mate opined that gays were much smarter than “the rest of us.” He even suggested that I might be gay because I was so smart. I answered that he was at least partly right.
My favorite response came from Professor Eric Lane of Hofstra University on Long Island. It was an invitation to join a panel of distinguished guests in a seminar looking back at the ten years of DADT. Twas a heady experience, hobnobbing with the chancellor of MIT, several distinguished professors of law, and military people from four countries.
I was asked to share my experiences in the Navy during my 23 years of service as both an enlisted man and an officer. C-SPAN taped it and aired it six times.
I started by saying “When I joined back in 1947, there were no gays in the Navy. The chief petty officers told us they were they were queers. The officers used the word "homosexuals."
But even after DADT was decreed, things went on as before. Military policy was simply hidden behind a bunch of silly words. Nearly two decades after its implementation DADT is still the law, and ten percent of our young men an women must still hide who they are if they want to serve their country.
But with the exception of the 541 members of Congress many minds have been changed since 1993. According to polls, about half the enlisted members have no objection to serving with gays. Integration is supported by the Commander in Chief, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
Even congress is being swayed. The House voted to do away with it. The Senate Armed Services Committee approved sending an amendment on to the entire Senate. Now it finally looks as if Congress will take my advice and do away with what I once called the dumbest law in our nation’s history.
Still, dumb or not, DADT is opposed when it suits a congress person to oppose it. John McCain, in a fight to keep his Senate seat in Arizona, once approved the idea of allowing gays to serve openly. He now promises a filibuster to keep the Senate from voting on the provision. He said, “I think it’s going to be really very harmful to the morale and effectiveness of our military.”
That ranks right up there with a sardonic joke I first heard in boot camp: There will be no liberty until morale improves.
In any case, it won’t take effect until it passes one more bugaboo -- A compromise holding off implementation until it is studied some more. This after 17 years of scrutiny, a period when some 13,000 Americans, including at least 1000 in critical occupations skills were booted out of our Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. Ironically some who were booted were hired back as civilians to do the same job. Some linguists of esoteric languages said piss on it and left it to the straights to figure out what the millions of Farsi, Arabic, Urdu, and other unread esoteric messages collected by NSA meant.
I have a suggestion. Let’s look at the results in best laboratory of all: Experience. While we have been dallying with, and often abusing DADT, other outfits here and around the world have either continued hiring gays or opened the door for them to serve openly. That would include the NSA, FBI, CIA, Congress, virtually all state and city police forces, and all the original 25 NATO members except two: USA and Turkey. Little of the disaster predicted took place.
As always when a politician digs in to face up to the overwhelming evidence, he resorts to jingoism. Refusing to follow the crowd and do what works for them evokes the bloviation "We are the greatest country on the face of the earth."
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to keep it that way by treating all our citizens fairly?
//Keith Taylor is long retired from the Navy after serving 23 years as an enlisted man and an officer. He can be reached at krtaylorxyz@aol.com
by
Keith Taylor
The volatile "Don’t ask/Don’t Tell" rule, shortened to DADT, was tailor-made for a guy who loves to foist his opinions off on an unsuspecting public. DADT was enacted in 1993. By 2003 I had written a dozen articles about it for Navy Times. One sardonic piece suggested the term be inscribed on a rock at the entrance to our military academies.
Make a rule that problems should be solved by ignoring them? What a fine example of leadership for our future admirals and generals!
And as you’d expect I got all sorts of letters, pro and con. One former master chief boatswain’s mate opined that gays were much smarter than “the rest of us.” He even suggested that I might be gay because I was so smart. I answered that he was at least partly right.
My favorite response came from Professor Eric Lane of Hofstra University on Long Island. It was an invitation to join a panel of distinguished guests in a seminar looking back at the ten years of DADT. Twas a heady experience, hobnobbing with the chancellor of MIT, several distinguished professors of law, and military people from four countries.
I was asked to share my experiences in the Navy during my 23 years of service as both an enlisted man and an officer. C-SPAN taped it and aired it six times.
I started by saying “When I joined back in 1947, there were no gays in the Navy. The chief petty officers told us they were they were queers. The officers used the word "homosexuals."
But even after DADT was decreed, things went on as before. Military policy was simply hidden behind a bunch of silly words. Nearly two decades after its implementation DADT is still the law, and ten percent of our young men an women must still hide who they are if they want to serve their country.
But with the exception of the 541 members of Congress many minds have been changed since 1993. According to polls, about half the enlisted members have no objection to serving with gays. Integration is supported by the Commander in Chief, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
Even congress is being swayed. The House voted to do away with it. The Senate Armed Services Committee approved sending an amendment on to the entire Senate. Now it finally looks as if Congress will take my advice and do away with what I once called the dumbest law in our nation’s history.
Still, dumb or not, DADT is opposed when it suits a congress person to oppose it. John McCain, in a fight to keep his Senate seat in Arizona, once approved the idea of allowing gays to serve openly. He now promises a filibuster to keep the Senate from voting on the provision. He said, “I think it’s going to be really very harmful to the morale and effectiveness of our military.”
That ranks right up there with a sardonic joke I first heard in boot camp: There will be no liberty until morale improves.
In any case, it won’t take effect until it passes one more bugaboo -- A compromise holding off implementation until it is studied some more. This after 17 years of scrutiny, a period when some 13,000 Americans, including at least 1000 in critical occupations skills were booted out of our Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. Ironically some who were booted were hired back as civilians to do the same job. Some linguists of esoteric languages said piss on it and left it to the straights to figure out what the millions of Farsi, Arabic, Urdu, and other unread esoteric messages collected by NSA meant.
I have a suggestion. Let’s look at the results in best laboratory of all: Experience. While we have been dallying with, and often abusing DADT, other outfits here and around the world have either continued hiring gays or opened the door for them to serve openly. That would include the NSA, FBI, CIA, Congress, virtually all state and city police forces, and all the original 25 NATO members except two: USA and Turkey. Little of the disaster predicted took place.
As always when a politician digs in to face up to the overwhelming evidence, he resorts to jingoism. Refusing to follow the crowd and do what works for them evokes the bloviation "We are the greatest country on the face of the earth."
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to keep it that way by treating all our citizens fairly?
//Keith Taylor is long retired from the Navy after serving 23 years as an enlisted man and an officer. He can be reached at krtaylorxyz@aol.com
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Fiction To Memoirs...New Books On The Way...
From Publishers Lunch Weekly:
FICTION
DEBUT...
Chrisopher Buehlman's THOSE ACROSS THE RIVER, set in 1935 about a World War I veteran facing the battle of his life when he moves south with his lover to a dying cotton town and is targeted in a gruesome murder spree by a band of depraved werewolves squatting on a dilapidated plantation that belonged to his notorious Civil War General great grandfather, to Tom Colgan at Berkley, in a very nice deal, in a pre-empt, for publication in Summer 2011, by Stephanie Lehmann at the Elaine Koster Agency (World English).
Rosie Dastgir's A SMALL FORTUNE, which explores the loves, struggles, and tensions in the lives of a Pakistani family, from rural Pakistan to urban England, with a fond but wry eye, pitched as reminiscent of Monica Ali or -- in the book's humor and lightness of touch -- Marina Lewycka, to Sarah McGrath at Riverhead, in a pre-empt, by Zoe Pagnamenta at the Zoe Pagnamenta Agency (NA).
THRILLER...
Julia Heaberlin's PLAYING DEAD, about a woman who receives a letter indicating that she may have been kidnapped as a baby and her whole life is a lie, and LIE STILL, about a rape victim whose past catches up to her as she becomes involved in a mystery in an exclusive Texas town, to Kate Miciak at Random House, in a very nice deal, by Pam Ahearn at Ahearn Agency (world).
GENERAL/OTHER...
Liz Moore's HEFT, a dual narrative about a deeply lonely 500-plus recluse and a seventeen year-old orphaned baseball phenom and the phone call that brought their two worlds together, pitched as in the vein of Elizabeth McCracken's The Giant's House and Peter Hedges's What's Eating Gilbert Grape, to Jill Bialosky at Norton, in a very nice deal, by Seth Fishman at Sterling Lord Literistic.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Matt Richtel's next two neuro-thrillers about the collision of cutting-edge brain research and high-technology, to Carl Lennertz at Harper, by Laurie Liss at Sterling Lord Literistic (World).
CHILDREN'S/MIDDLE GRADE...
Adam Rex's heavily illustrated trilogy, COLD CEREAL, in which the unlikeliest heroes - a boy who may be part changeling, twins involved in a bizarre secret experiment, and a clurichaun (NOT leprechaun) in a red tracksuit - try to save the world from an evil cereal company, whose ultimate goal is world domination, to Donna Bray at Balzer and Bray, by Steven Malk at Writers House.
NONFICTION:
HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:
Boston Globe deputy managing features editor Doug Most's THE RACE UNDERGROUND, about the competition between Boston and New York City to build the first subway in America, to Michael Flamini at St. Martin's, at auction, by Lane Zachary for Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency (NA).
Author of NYT bestseller The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, Jeffrey Toobin's THE OATH: THE SECRET STRUGGLE FOR THE SUPREME COURT, looking at the Court's "new personalities and new tensions" and the "battle between a conservative Court and a liberal President," to Phyllis Grann at Doubleday, for publication in 2012, by Esther Newberg at ICM.
MEMOIR...
Victor Villasenor's BEYOND RAIN OF GOLD, the follow-up to the NYT bestseller RAIN OF GOLD, a true-life One Hundred Years of Solitude for the 21st Century, focusing on the author's family history over many generations, including the author's experiences in writing the original bestseller, as a microcosm for the struggles of indigenous people throughout the world and how their plight and collective wisdom are reflected in the events predicted for 2012 and the world thereafter, to Reid Tracy at Hay House, for English and Spanish in the US, by William Gladstone at Waterside Productions.
New York Post reporter Susannah Cahalan's BRAIN ON FIRE, a terrifying, though ultimately triumphant first-person narrative of her inexplicable physical and mental breakdown and a medical mystery unraveled by a brilliant neurologist and specialist in the exploding field of autoimmune disease, to Hilary Redmon at Free Press, in a pre-empt, for publication in Fall 2012, by Larry Weissman at Larry Weissman Literary (world).
Film and TV actor Barbara Eden's JEANNIE OUT OF THE BOTTLE, a memoir of her colorful life and a remarkable Hollywood career spanning more than 50 years, including her own personal tragedies: the birth of a still-born son; her relationship with her verbally abusive, cocaine-addicted second husband; and the accidental heroin-induced death of her 35-year-old son just months before his wedding, written with Wendy Leigh, to Tina Constable at Crown Archetype, with Sydny Miner editing, for publication in spring 2011, by Dan Strone at Trident Media Group (NA).
Soleil Moon Frye (aka Punky Brewster)'s first book HAPPY CHAOS, a combination memoir/manual, with stories from from own unconventional childhood growing up in the limelight as a child star, and thematically linked anecdotes from her experiences as a parent of two young daughters, to Carrie Thornton at Dutton, for publication in summer 2011, by Andy McNicol at William Morris Endeavor.
NARRATIVE...
Rowan Jacobsen's A SHADOW ON THE GULF: The Endangered Soul of Our Last Great Estuary, with the Deepwater Horizon disaster as its focal point, a narrative of the rich natural history of the Gulf of Mexico and the unique human culture of its coasts, as both collide with the unmanageable mega-engineering of today's oil economy, to Kathy Belden at Bloomsbury, for publication in April 2011, by Russell Galen at Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency (world).
Wrap...
FICTION
DEBUT...
Chrisopher Buehlman's THOSE ACROSS THE RIVER, set in 1935 about a World War I veteran facing the battle of his life when he moves south with his lover to a dying cotton town and is targeted in a gruesome murder spree by a band of depraved werewolves squatting on a dilapidated plantation that belonged to his notorious Civil War General great grandfather, to Tom Colgan at Berkley, in a very nice deal, in a pre-empt, for publication in Summer 2011, by Stephanie Lehmann at the Elaine Koster Agency (World English).
Rosie Dastgir's A SMALL FORTUNE, which explores the loves, struggles, and tensions in the lives of a Pakistani family, from rural Pakistan to urban England, with a fond but wry eye, pitched as reminiscent of Monica Ali or -- in the book's humor and lightness of touch -- Marina Lewycka, to Sarah McGrath at Riverhead, in a pre-empt, by Zoe Pagnamenta at the Zoe Pagnamenta Agency (NA).
THRILLER...
Julia Heaberlin's PLAYING DEAD, about a woman who receives a letter indicating that she may have been kidnapped as a baby and her whole life is a lie, and LIE STILL, about a rape victim whose past catches up to her as she becomes involved in a mystery in an exclusive Texas town, to Kate Miciak at Random House, in a very nice deal, by Pam Ahearn at Ahearn Agency (world).
GENERAL/OTHER...
Liz Moore's HEFT, a dual narrative about a deeply lonely 500-plus recluse and a seventeen year-old orphaned baseball phenom and the phone call that brought their two worlds together, pitched as in the vein of Elizabeth McCracken's The Giant's House and Peter Hedges's What's Eating Gilbert Grape, to Jill Bialosky at Norton, in a very nice deal, by Seth Fishman at Sterling Lord Literistic.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Matt Richtel's next two neuro-thrillers about the collision of cutting-edge brain research and high-technology, to Carl Lennertz at Harper, by Laurie Liss at Sterling Lord Literistic (World).
CHILDREN'S/MIDDLE GRADE...
Adam Rex's heavily illustrated trilogy, COLD CEREAL, in which the unlikeliest heroes - a boy who may be part changeling, twins involved in a bizarre secret experiment, and a clurichaun (NOT leprechaun) in a red tracksuit - try to save the world from an evil cereal company, whose ultimate goal is world domination, to Donna Bray at Balzer and Bray, by Steven Malk at Writers House.
NONFICTION:
HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:
Boston Globe deputy managing features editor Doug Most's THE RACE UNDERGROUND, about the competition between Boston and New York City to build the first subway in America, to Michael Flamini at St. Martin's, at auction, by Lane Zachary for Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency (NA).
Author of NYT bestseller The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, Jeffrey Toobin's THE OATH: THE SECRET STRUGGLE FOR THE SUPREME COURT, looking at the Court's "new personalities and new tensions" and the "battle between a conservative Court and a liberal President," to Phyllis Grann at Doubleday, for publication in 2012, by Esther Newberg at ICM.
MEMOIR...
Victor Villasenor's BEYOND RAIN OF GOLD, the follow-up to the NYT bestseller RAIN OF GOLD, a true-life One Hundred Years of Solitude for the 21st Century, focusing on the author's family history over many generations, including the author's experiences in writing the original bestseller, as a microcosm for the struggles of indigenous people throughout the world and how their plight and collective wisdom are reflected in the events predicted for 2012 and the world thereafter, to Reid Tracy at Hay House, for English and Spanish in the US, by William Gladstone at Waterside Productions.
New York Post reporter Susannah Cahalan's BRAIN ON FIRE, a terrifying, though ultimately triumphant first-person narrative of her inexplicable physical and mental breakdown and a medical mystery unraveled by a brilliant neurologist and specialist in the exploding field of autoimmune disease, to Hilary Redmon at Free Press, in a pre-empt, for publication in Fall 2012, by Larry Weissman at Larry Weissman Literary (world).
Film and TV actor Barbara Eden's JEANNIE OUT OF THE BOTTLE, a memoir of her colorful life and a remarkable Hollywood career spanning more than 50 years, including her own personal tragedies: the birth of a still-born son; her relationship with her verbally abusive, cocaine-addicted second husband; and the accidental heroin-induced death of her 35-year-old son just months before his wedding, written with Wendy Leigh, to Tina Constable at Crown Archetype, with Sydny Miner editing, for publication in spring 2011, by Dan Strone at Trident Media Group (NA).
Soleil Moon Frye (aka Punky Brewster)'s first book HAPPY CHAOS, a combination memoir/manual, with stories from from own unconventional childhood growing up in the limelight as a child star, and thematically linked anecdotes from her experiences as a parent of two young daughters, to Carrie Thornton at Dutton, for publication in summer 2011, by Andy McNicol at William Morris Endeavor.
NARRATIVE...
Rowan Jacobsen's A SHADOW ON THE GULF: The Endangered Soul of Our Last Great Estuary, with the Deepwater Horizon disaster as its focal point, a narrative of the rich natural history of the Gulf of Mexico and the unique human culture of its coasts, as both collide with the unmanageable mega-engineering of today's oil economy, to Kathy Belden at Bloomsbury, for publication in April 2011, by Russell Galen at Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency (world).
Wrap...
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)