Los Alamos loses classified info - again

Perhaps it should be renamed "Loose" Alamos. The nuclear weapons laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, is unable to locate classified information, and this is not the first time. (Los Alamos Lab: Classified data missing, AP/Seattle Post-Intelligence, May 20.)

A lab spokesman claimed the loss was "not a breach of security," and theorized that "the proper paperwork wasn't done to track its destruction or reuse." But, Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), isn't buying that. "The lab can spin it however they want; Classified data is missing once again from Los Alamos," she told the Seattle P-I.

Los Alamos is one of several National Laboratories administered by contractors for the U.S. Department of Energy. POGO and other public interest organizations have criticized Los Alamos for a host of management problems and for firing two whistleblowers who expresed concerns about lab management. Statements by the lab and POGO are available at www.pogo.org.

When truth becomes terrorist threat

The dangers now facing whistleblowers and, indeed, all citizens, are brilliantly described in an article recently published in the Portland Phoenix. "Covering a Multitude of Sins," by attorney Harvey Silverglate and paralegal Carl Takei, cites individual attacks on the First Amendment and reveals them, collectively, as an orchestrated war on critics of Administration officials and policies. It is a war, the authors conclude, that severely threatens not only the right of free speech, but other rights dependent upon it, as well.

Following are excerpts from the May 3 article (copyright Boston Phoenix), available in its entirety at www.portlandphoenix.com and the weblog, lewrockwell.com.

Government officials too often avoid accountability by sweeping incompetence and dishonesty under the rug of "national security." Yet our country – unlike Khrushchev’s Soviet Union – has a tradition of counter-balancing such secrecy by protecting a free press, allowing citizens to converse without risk, and honoring the efforts of brave whistle blowers – those who defy the culture of secrecy and leak information to the press to inform the public of governmental wrongdoing, mistakes, and deceptions. The Bush administration, however, is aggressively working to prevent such public scrutiny in four distinct ways: it has widened the range of classified and otherwise confidential (but non-classified) materials. It has expanded its ability to criminally prosecute government employees who leak such materials. It has signaled a willingness to move against reporters who publish those leaks. And, most significantly, it is using new "material support" statutes to do an end run around the First Amendment and criminalize many forms of political advocacy.

The information blackout cast by this preference for secrecy makes it nearly impossible for citizens to judge for themselves whether their government is using effective and appropriate means to, among other things, combat terrorism. Yet just how essential it is for citizens to be able to assess our leaders’ performance has been made clearer than ever by the proceedings of the 9/11 commission. A policy of excessive secrecy, it appears, served largely to conceal enormous incompetence at the top, bureaucratic bungling throughout the national-security apparatus, and inconvenient facts about the way the Bush White House does business.

Forgotten lessons from another war

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. - George Santayana

Current reports of abuses by U.S. soldiers in Iraq suggest to some that lessons of the Viet Nam war have been forgotten. Former Army helicopter pilot Hugh C. Thompson, Jr., knows those lessons well: He teaches them to servicemen and West Point cadets. AP writer Doug Simpson interviewed Thompson for the May 18 article, Vietnam vet and My Lai whistleblower says the lesson of 1968 was forgotten (summarized here).

In his lectures, Thompson describes how he and his helicopter crew responded to a moral challenge in 1968 at the Viet Nam village of My Lai. There, U.S. ground troops under the command of Lt. William Calley, Jr., were gunning down helpless women, children and old men. Thompson and his crew set down their helicopter in harm's way to block fire from the U.S. troops and, if necessary, return fire. The helicopter crew successfully airlifted many villagers to safety. Nevertheless, approximately 500 civilians were massacred.

His actions are now regarded as heroic, but for years Thompson received hostile treatment - ranging from snubs to death threats - from many people, including fellow veterans. It was thirty years before his government recognized Thompson's courage with the Soldier's Medal.

Hugh Thompson's advice to soldiers is equally appropriate for civilians. When given an illegal order, he says to report it. But, he cautions, ``Don't do the right thing looking for a reward, because it might not come.''

Sept 11 whistleblower silenced in U.S.

As an FBI translator, whistleblower Sibel Edmonds saw intelligence reports, prior to September 11, describing Al Qaida plans to fly hijacked aircraft into U.S. skyscrapers. Now, in a pending lawsuit, Attorney General John Ashcroft has invoked state secrets privilege to block Edmonds from expanding on earlier revelations. This information comes from Steven Aftergood, in the current edition of Secrecy News. Aftergood quotes Washington Post writer Jefferson Morely, who says Edmond's story has been "almost uniformly ignored in the U.S. daily press," yet has been widely reported in foreign news media. ("Sept. 11 Allegations Lost in Translation")

In his April 8 article, Morely concludes, "Clearly what we have here are two different standards of journalism: one American, one nearly global." He theorizes that U.S. news organizations have a higher standard of evidence, and may have avoided the story because Edmonds "was fired from her post for unspecified reasons." However, a journalist has to be incredibly naive not to know that termination is a common form of retaliation against whistleblowers. And, Morely points out, Edmonds "won good reviews for her work at the FBI," one of "several qualities that make Edmonds seem a credible witness, according to foreign news organizations."

What Morely does not point out, and may not know, is that Edmonds is not alone. Other national security whistleblowers, and the disclosures for which they risked personal ruin, have been ignored by U.S. news media, making explanation even more difficult.

Government agencies have a long history of maligning whistleblowing employees. In so doing, they hope to cast doubt on the credibility of the whistleblower and thereby discourage newspapers from reporting the disclosure. It is an old trick, which foreign news organizations apparently see for what it is, and it is a tragedy for all Americans that U.S. news purveyors do not.

Analyzing Joseph Darby

It is typical for news media and the public to analyze the life and motives of whistleblowers and that, as much as fear of reprisal, may keep many individuals from coming forward to report misconduct. Those who publicly blow the whistle find that their lives are never the same, again.

Joseph Darby, the young Army specialist who reported prison abuses in Iraq, has become the latest whistleblower to dominate the news, and already newspapers have published numerous articles examining his life from childhood to the present. Anyone who ever knew Darby is potentially a media source and opinions of Darby, fair and otherwise, find their way into print.

Across America, people are forming opinions of Darby, based on what they read and also on their personal sense of right and wrong. But, can any of us really know if we would blow the whistle in similar circumstances? That question is posed in a May 11 Washington Post article, "What Would You Do?", wherein the author concludes that we really cannot know, until we are in the same circumstances.

Other Washington Post coverage of Joseph Darby includes: When Joseph Comes Marching Home, and One Soldier's Unlikely Act.

Secret sources say Rumsfeld approved interrogations

In a May 15 article entitled, "The Gray Zone," (New Yorker Magazine), Seymour Hersh claims Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld personally approved expansion of a secret operation for hunting Al Qaeda to include interrogation of Iraq prisoners. Known as "Copper Green," the operation encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners. According to one witness, the rules were "Grab whom you must. Do what you want."

Bush administration officials have disputed the allegations, according to today's New York Times. In any case, there appears to be an increasing number of high-ranking officers protesting the Administration's Iraq policy. Significantly, most have blown the whistle anonymously, apparently fearing reprisal.

From Iraq failures, lessons

The Iraq war has progressed from shock and awe to shock and disgust as documentation of abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison continues to emerge. Little of this should be surprising, however. The groundwork for abuses had been perfectly laid, through secrecy, ad hoc management, demonization of the opposition, and lack of accountability. At home, in the civil service, similar conditions have lead to other kinds of abuses, say whistleblowers.

From the Iraq scandal and others, important lessons have emerged. One is that moral shortcuts lead ultimately to failure. Any gain of information through prisoner abuse became meaningless in the context of worldwide loss of support for U.S. goals in Iraq. Another lesson is that transparency and accountability are necesssities, in times of war AND in times of peace because they are fundamental to good management: as important to wars as to public health programs.

The Chinese say that a time of crisis is a time of opportunity. The Iraq crisis is an opportunity for Americans to avoid future losses by demanding greater accountability and transparency from our government. In a world bristling with weapons of mass destruction, the lives we save may be our own.