MISCHIEF-MAKERS AT THE PENTAGON: Seek overbroad restrictions on info about WMDs
In case you're bopping over from a recent item in Steve Aftergood's redoubtable Secrecy News -- here -- your friendly neighborhood GlobalSecurity.Org Senior Fellow will now produce appropriate review materials.
In a document posted by Aftergood on the Federation of American Scientists' website, it is revealed the Pentagon wishes to, in its words, require for safeguarding information on weapons of mass destruction.
The problem arises in its definition of information on WMDs.
Asserts the Pentagon:
As a definition, it's far too broad. In fact, it's slipshod.
It's entirely reasonable, even logical, to assume that it's not possible to come up with such a definition in the neat and pat way Pentagon authors would like. So in a better world, the people who recommended it would be run out of town, instead of being permitted to send it to Congress year after year -- where it has, so far, been rejected -- as indicated by Aftergood.
It is also too broad because in the current climate, the one spawned specifically for the alleged war on terror, terrorists have been attributed with capabilities in the making of WMDs which they have not been found to possess in the real world.
This is tied to the regular meme, uttered by many terror experts, repeated ad nauseum by military and administration men, and duly repeated by the mainstream newsmedia, that it is easy for terrorists to produce WMDs.
For GlobalSecurity.Org and other venues, I have repeatedly dissected this fancy.
Indeed, I've published material -- which if one was to take seriously the utterances of many experts -- constitutes information which would possibly fall under the definition as written by the Pentagon.
Examples, a few of many, are here and here.
If the Pentagon were to be permitted to restrict such materials, the only purpose served would be to hinder the public's understanding of the nature of the war on terror and oversight of it. It would be remiss not to mention the possibility that this is one possible reason for the continuing efforts to restrict such information.
The "it's easy for terrorists" meme is discussed at length here and in its original version at GlobalSecurity.Org, here.
In case you're bopping over from a recent item in Steve Aftergood's redoubtable Secrecy News -- here -- your friendly neighborhood GlobalSecurity.Org Senior Fellow will now produce appropriate review materials.
In a document posted by Aftergood on the Federation of American Scientists' website, it is revealed the Pentagon wishes to, in its words, require for safeguarding information on weapons of mass destruction.
The problem arises in its definition of information on WMDs.
Asserts the Pentagon:
The term `information concerning weapons of mass destruction' means information that--
(A) would assist in developing, producing, or using weapons of mass destruction or in evading the detection or the monitoring of the development, production, use, or presence of weapons of mass destruction; or
(B) would disclose a vulnerability to the effects of a weapon of mass destruction; and
(C) has been determined to be currently sensitive by an official designated as an Initial Denial Authority for the Department of Defense component concerned pursuant to Department of Defense Directive 5400.7-R, `DoD Freedom of Information Act Program', September 1998, or successor directive.
Examples of such information could include information that remains current and sensitive, such as but not limited to, formulas and design descriptions of lethal and incapacitating materials...
As a definition, it's far too broad. In fact, it's slipshod.
It's entirely reasonable, even logical, to assume that it's not possible to come up with such a definition in the neat and pat way Pentagon authors would like. So in a better world, the people who recommended it would be run out of town, instead of being permitted to send it to Congress year after year -- where it has, so far, been rejected -- as indicated by Aftergood.
It is also too broad because in the current climate, the one spawned specifically for the alleged war on terror, terrorists have been attributed with capabilities in the making of WMDs which they have not been found to possess in the real world.
This is tied to the regular meme, uttered by many terror experts, repeated ad nauseum by military and administration men, and duly repeated by the mainstream newsmedia, that it is easy for terrorists to produce WMDs.
For GlobalSecurity.Org and other venues, I have repeatedly dissected this fancy.
Indeed, I've published material -- which if one was to take seriously the utterances of many experts -- constitutes information which would possibly fall under the definition as written by the Pentagon.
Examples, a few of many, are here and here.
If the Pentagon were to be permitted to restrict such materials, the only purpose served would be to hinder the public's understanding of the nature of the war on terror and oversight of it. It would be remiss not to mention the possibility that this is one possible reason for the continuing efforts to restrict such information.
The "it's easy for terrorists" meme is discussed at length here and in its original version at GlobalSecurity.Org, here.
posted by George Smith at 10:57 AM
1 Comments:
Thanks very much for posting this. I had no idea. This proposed bill basically shuts me down as a blogger. Such stupidity...
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