Pentagon FOIA gutting contract: aimed at protecting private military contractors from the media.
July 31, 2006 -- On July 17, WMR reported that the Pentagon was paying its former special counsel for Special Forces a handsome $1 million to find out ways to curtail the Freedom of Information Act. The report stated, "the Pentagon is paying Dr. Jeffrey Addicott's St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas, the million dollars to find out new ways for the federal government to classify previously open government information in the name of protecting it from access by 'terrorists.'" Addicott previously worked at the Pentagon as chief legal adviser to the US Special Operations Command.
A recent decision by U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper in Los Angeles suggests that Addicott's actual mission may not be to protect open government information from "terrorists" but to protect U.S. private military contractors, which have engaged in their own terrorist activities in Iraq, from the media. The Los Angeles Times sued the Army, pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, for access to the identities of U.S. private contractors that have been involved in the indiscriminate shooting of Iraqi civilians. The Times sued because the names of contractors had been redacted on "serious incident reports" involving the contractors shooting civilians. The Army contended that "disclosing the names and locations of private security firms could tip off insurgents about the success of their attacks and provide them with new targets." In her decision, Judge Cooper aped the government's line, stating that while the public had the right to know about the role of private contractors in Iraq, that right "must be balanced against the life and safety interest of the military personnel, the private security contract employees and other individuals on the ground in Iraq today."
Pentagon FOIA gutting contract: aimed at protecting private military contractors from the media.
Although Cooper is a Clinton appointee, the GOP, including Sen. Arlen Specter, consistently argues that "balancing act" line in supporting the Bush administration in its continuing trashing of the Bill of Rights.
WayneMadsenReport
A recent decision by U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper in Los Angeles suggests that Addicott's actual mission may not be to protect open government information from "terrorists" but to protect U.S. private military contractors, which have engaged in their own terrorist activities in Iraq, from the media. The Los Angeles Times sued the Army, pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, for access to the identities of U.S. private contractors that have been involved in the indiscriminate shooting of Iraqi civilians. The Times sued because the names of contractors had been redacted on "serious incident reports" involving the contractors shooting civilians. The Army contended that "disclosing the names and locations of private security firms could tip off insurgents about the success of their attacks and provide them with new targets." In her decision, Judge Cooper aped the government's line, stating that while the public had the right to know about the role of private contractors in Iraq, that right "must be balanced against the life and safety interest of the military personnel, the private security contract employees and other individuals on the ground in Iraq today."
Pentagon FOIA gutting contract: aimed at protecting private military contractors from the media.Although Cooper is a Clinton appointee, the GOP, including Sen. Arlen Specter, consistently argues that "balancing act" line in supporting the Bush administration in its continuing trashing of the Bill of Rights.
WayneMadsenReport
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 3:14 AM
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