[CTRL] Fwd: Secret Government Classifies Itself
-Caveat Lector- www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsâis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/ A HREF=""ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om ---BeginMessage--- -Caveat Lector- Cheney exempts his own office from reporting on classified material BY MARK SILVA Chicago Tribune, April 29, 2006 http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/14462039.htm WASHINGTON - As the Bush administration has dramatically accelerated the classification of information as "top secret" or "confidential," one office is refusing to report on its annual activity in classifying documents: the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. A standing executive order, strengthened by President Bush in 2003, requires all agencies and "any other entity within the executive branch" to provide an annual accounting of their classification of documents. More than 80 agencies have collectively reported to the National Archives that they made 15.6 million decisions in 2004 to classify information, nearly double the number in 2001, but Cheney continues to insist he is exempt. Explaining why the vice president has withheld even a tally of his office's secrecy when such offices as the National Security Council routinely report theirs, a spokeswoman said Cheney is "not under any duty" to provide it. That is only one way the Bush administration, from its opening weeks in 2001, has asserted control over information. By keeping secret so many directives and actions, the administration has precluded the public - and often members of Congress - from knowing about some of the most significant decisions and acts of the White House. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the administration has based much of its need for confidentiality on the imperative of protecting national security at a time of war. Yet experts say Bush and his closest advisers demonstrated their proclivity for privacy well before Sept. 11: Starting in the early weeks of his administration with a move to protect the papers of former presidents, Bush has clamped down on the release of government documents. That includes tougher standards for what the public can obtain under the Freedom of Information Act and the creation of a broad new category of "sensitive but unclassified information." Not only has the administration reported a dramatic increase in the number of documents deemed "top secret," "secret" or "confidential," the president has authorized the reclassification of information that was public for years. An audit by a National Archives office recently found that the CIA acted in a "clearly inappropriate" way regarding about one-third of the documents it reclassified last year. The White House has resisted efforts by Congress to gain information, starting with a White House energy task force headed by Cheney and continuing with the president's secret authorization of warrantless surveillance of people inside the United States suspected of communicating with terrorists abroad. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., recently threatened to withhold funding for the surveillance program unless the White House starts providing information. The administration has withheld the identities of, and accusations against, detainees held in its war on terror, and it censored the findings of a joint House-Senate committee that investigated the events leading to Sept. 11, including a 27-page blackout of Saudi Arabia's alleged connections to the terrorists. While maintaining a disciplined and virtually leakproof White House, senior members of the administration have been accused of leaking information to punish a critic of the war in Iraq. The grand jury testimony of a former White House aide reportedly asserts that Bush himself selectively authorized release of once-classified information to counter criticism. A tension has always existed between the presidency and the public, with concerns about security and confidentiality competing with the public's right to know about its government. But
[CTRL] Our Secret Government
-Caveat Lector- Our Secret Government Whose Security? By: Ted Lang Of course the term our in the title of this meager effort is a misnomer; its not our government, its George Bushs government. Both Republicans and Democrats have so bastardized our God-given as well as legal rights that we no longer qualify as a second-rate banana republic. The list of prohibitions in the Bill of Rights against government growing itself at our expense is being summarily ignored. What needs to be secret in a society where the people are self-governing? Arent we the people the government? But if we are no longer self-governing, then just who or what is the government, depending upon your definition of the word is? We have been asked to suspend the rule of law for the convenience of President George W. Bush and Republicans, and grant war powers just as we had previously done based upon the lies from Democrat President, Lyndon Baines Johnson. LBJ committed deliberate fraud when he initiated the Gulf of Tonken resolution, lying about attacks upon our Navy that never happened. Obviously, LBJ kept that secret because it was a matter of national security. And then there was lying Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who couldnt just simply come clean with the American people and explain that we needed to engage in war against the Axis [of ?]. Instead, he goaded the Japanese with the threat of an embargo and then blacked out advance warnings that the Japanese were on their way to attack Pearl Harbor. Nothing like blacking out intelligence when we need it, and then citing it when we dont! The British were hanging on with our Lend Lease help, and Hitler bit off more than he could chew attacking Red Communist Joe Stalins Russia. But you see, losing 2,400 Navy personnel is all right, so long as were losing American lives for the Democrats beloved communists. Losing 3,000 Americans is no biggie - communists dont stand to gain anything from that insignificant sacrifice. Theres nothing like secret government to control the population and force them how and what to think. They must be trained that there are awful weapons of mash distraction out there, and regime changes waiting, and the ability of Saddam bin Laden to launch his battle star and his evil death ray. The simple command decision that should have been made required holding someone in the administration accountable, but learning from the biggest fraud ever in American government, namely Bill Clinton, Bush was offered up those responsible for 9-11, namely Tenet and Freeh, whose incompetence was covered up by Mueller, and fired no one. Of course, some stepped up and accepted blame, but Bush conveyed that he forgave them and doesnt care about the American people. And to add insult to injury, death, fraud and terror, President George Bush and his cabal have been summarily stonewalling the 9-11 commission, delaying funding, refusing to cooperate, and generally obstructing both the inquiry and justice. Wheres the white paper Secretary of State Colin Powell promised proving bin Ladens involvement? Weve already forgotten that our secret government was going to make a case for us as regards that accusation? And wheres the case proving Saddam was involved in 9-11? Is that why 28 pages have been censored out of the 9-11 commission report, because it proves Saddam had nothing to do with 9-11? What other reason would there be? Just look at history for the answers, and youll find that tyranny always thrives on both secrets and lies! And it always needs oppressed classes and villainous enemies! Isnt it astonishing that the Bush regime needs the Patriot Act to break into our homes while we are at work donating 50 percent of our earnings for their financial support? His entourage of secret government advisors and experts is extremely uncomfortable with the fact that we might have some secrets. How dangerous! But then, that depends upon your definition of the word we. - Ted Lang is a columnist for the The Patriotist and the Sierra Times He is a regular columnist for Ether Zone. Ted Lang can be reached at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Published in the July 31, 2003 issue of Ether Zone. Copyright © 1997 - 2003 Ether Zone. --- -iNFoWaRZ Conspiracy: Two or more people plotting in secret to commit criminal acts. Burglars conspire. Bank Robbers conspire. It is extremely naive to think that wealthy and powerful people in government do not conspire to gain more power and wealth in a criminal manner. But most Americans, like Pavlov's Dogs, have been well trained by the controlled media to knee-jerk, twitch like an epileptic, and shut down their brain when they hear the word conspiracy. Break your conditioning. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are
[CTRL] THE SECRET GOVERNMENT
THE SECRET GOVERNMENT ELLEN NAKASHIMA, WASHINGTON POST: The Bush administration has ordered that more than 40,000 federal workers compete for their jobs with the private sector, a first step toward President Bush's goal of making about 425,000 government jobs eligible for private contracting. The move will swell the contract corps, a shadow-government workforce whose numbers are estimated to be more than three times as large as the 1.8 million-strong civilian federal workforce. Competing out work is not new, but Bush wants to vastly expand the practice . . . There are an estimated 5.6 million contract employees doing everything from mowing lawns on federal property to analyzing nutrition programs, writing computer programs and building space shuttles . . . We're really talking about a basic change in the constitution of our government, said Dan Guttman, a fellow at the Center for the Study of American Government at Johns Hopkins University. It's not just a couple $600 hammers. The basic change is that we can no longer assume that the actual work of government is being done by officials subject to the rules that we have placed on officials to protect the public. No government official knows the actual size of the contract workforce. The best estimate comes from Brookings Institution government specialist Paul Light, whose figure of 5.6 million dates to the end of 1999. The total has likely risen since then, he said. Neither Congress nor past presidents have ever really wanted to know the true size of government, Light said. The driver for contracting out has often been to make the federal government look smaller than it otherwise would, to hide the jobs. MORE http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38933-2001Jun7.html DRUG BUSTS PHILIP J. HILTS, NY TIMES: A Wyoming jury has awarded $6.4 million to the family of a man who killed three relatives and himself after taking the antidepressant Paxil. Though many lawsuits have claimed that antidepressants in the same class of drugs, which includes Prozac and Zoloft, have caused suicidal or violent behavior, this is the first case a plaintiff has won, lawyers in the case said . . . The drugs have been shown to successfully treat depression and reduce the risk of suicide that comes with severe depression. The issue in lawsuits has been whether the drugs themselves or the illnesses they are meant to treat are to blame for patients' violent or suicidal behavior. The drug makers say that when a patient has become violent or suicidal, it has been because the illness has overcome the effect of the drug and the patient's natural inhibitions. But researchers who have testified in the cases have said that, even though the drugs are effective in most cases, in some patients the drugs cause agitation and violence . . . The family's lawyers, James E. Fitzgerald of Cheyenne and Andy Vickery of Houston, told the jury that the fault was not so much in the drug itself but in the company's failure to sufficiently warn doctors and patients that the effects of the drug could include agitation and violence. Mr. Vickery said in a telephone interview that in Germany, warnings are included on the packages of at least two drugs in this class, Prozac and Paxil. The Prozac package warns that the drugs could lead to suicide attempts. The Paxil package says a sedative should be taken with the drug. Those warnings are not on packages in the United States, but the insert for doctors says, under the heading suicide, that close supervision of high-risk patients should accompany initial drug therapy. MORE http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/08/health/08VERD.html NOTE: The catch with these drugs, some observers argue, is that while they are generally effective, in a small number of cases they can produce dangerous and destructive results. This story has particular importance since a number of widely publicized mass school killings involved youth who were on anti-depressant drugs. This aspect of the story, however, has been largely unnoted by major media. NORML: Nevada legislators overwhelmingly approved legislation to dramatically reduce Nevada's toughest-in-the-nation marijuana law and authorize pot's medical use. Nevada's legislature is the first in 24 years to eliminate jail time and criminal records for minor marijuana offenders, and the ninth state since 1996 to legalize the use of medical marijuana under a doctor's supervision. CHANDRA LEVY NY POST: Missing Washington intern Chandra Levy called Rep. Gary Condit several times the day before she mysteriously vanished, according to her cell-phone records. Investigators say Levy repeatedly called the California Democrat at a special answering service that bypassed his congressional office . . . The disclosure of the calls follows a Washington Post report that Condit admitted to cops that the attractive intern slept at his apartment in Washington's trendy Adams Morgan neighborhood. The newspaper also quoted a close relative as
