Unsalted Screenshot: White House

WND EXCLUSIVE

Not kidding: Obama has new ‘atrocities czar’

Look what’s on Samantha Power’s to-do list

Published: 5 hours ago

President Obama’s National Security Adviser Samantha Power will head the new White House Atrocities Prevention Board, which is tasked with formulating a response to war crimes, crimes against humanity and mass atrocities.

Power helped to found a global military doctrine called Responsibility to Protect that was also devised by several controversial characters, including Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi, a staunch denier of the Holocaust who long served as the deputy of late Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat.

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Power once suggested investing “literally billions of dollars” in a “mammoth protection force” to intercede in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Notorious left-wing radical Tom Hayden recently wrote Power sees war as an “instrument for achieving her liberal, even radical, values.”

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In his speech at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Monday, Obama announced the new Atrocities Prevention Board to be chaired by Power.

The inter-agency group is to meet monthly to determine methods to use in international conflict, including sanctions and civilian as well as military response-team training.

The board’s creation was the culmination of Power’s efforts that last year defined preventing atrocities as a “core national-security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States.” The official White House statement marked the first time the U.S. government had made such a proclamation.

‘Mammoth protection force’ for Palestinians?

In a 2002 question and answer session with the University of California-Berkeley Institute of International Studies, Power was asked how the U.S. should respond if “one party or another” were “moving toward genocide” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

She replied: “What we need is a willingness to actually put something on the line in sort of helping the situation. And putting something on the line might mean alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import.”

Power was referring to pro-Israel groups using language some would consider anti-Semitic by implying such groups maintain inordinate power in U.S. politics.

She continued, “It may more crucially mean sacrificing – or investing, I think, more than sacrificing – literally billions of dollars not in servicing Israelis’, you know, military but actually in investing in the new state of Palestine, in investing billions of dollars it would probably take also to support, I think, what will have to be a mammoth protection force, not of the old, you know, Srebrenica kind or the Rwanda kind, but a meaningful military presence.”

‘Uses war to achieve radical values’

Power was reportedly heavily influential in convincing Obama to launch NATO airstrikes in Libya last year, a key test of Power’s Responsibility to Protect doctrine.

In a posting on the bombings at the Rag Blog, a far-left website that is home to radical 1960s anti-war leaders, some with previous close ties to Obama, Hayden remarked on Power’s use of war.

Hayden was the principal organizer for the 1960s anti-war movement group Students for a Democratic Society, from which the Weather Underground domestic terrorist group splintered.

In an article about Power’s role in the international coalition that bombed Libya, Hayden writes that he had “a long conversation with Power in December 2003.”

“I was struck by the generational factor in her thinking,” relates Hayden. “If she had experienced Vietnam in her early 20s, I felt, she would have joined the radical left, suspicious always of American power.”

Continued Hayden: “But as an Irish internationalist witnessing death and destruction in the former Yugoslavia, she wondered how the United States could be neutral. She strongly favored the American intervention and air war that followed.”

Hayden contended that Power’s Balkans experience led her to become an advocate of American and NATO military intervention in humanitarian crises.

“She began to see war as an instrument for achieving her liberal, even radical, values,” he stated.

Many Rag Blog personalities were the founders of a coalition, Progressives for Obama, that campaigned for the president during the 2008 campaign.

One Rag Blog contributor is Mark Rudd, a founder of the Weather Underground terror group alongside Obama associate William Ayers. The Weathermen, co-founded by Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, sought the overthrow of the U.S. government.

Also writing at Rag Blog is Marxist activist Carl Davidson, a founder of the socialist New Party. WND previously reported evidence Obama was a New Party member.

Davidson, along with Obama associate Marilyn Katz, a Chicago extremist activist, organized a 2002 anti-war rally at Chicago’s Federal Plaza that was widely credited with propelling Obama to the national stage.

Founded globalist military doctrine

Responsibility to Protect, or Responsibility to Act, as cited by Obama, is a set of principles, now backed by the United Nations, based on the idea that sovereignty is not a privilege but a responsibility that can be revoked if a country is accused of “war crimes,” “genocide,” “crimes against humanity” or “ethnic cleansing.”

The term “war crimes” has at times been indiscriminately used by various U.N.-backed international bodies, including the International Criminal Court, or ICC, which applied it to Israeli anti-terror operations in the Gaza Strip. There has been fear the ICC could be used to prosecute U.S. troops.

The Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, founded by Power, had a seat on the advisory board of the 2001 commission that original founded Responsibility to Protect.

The commission is called the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. It invented the term “responsibility to protect” while defining its guidelines.

The Carr Center is a research center concerned with human rights located at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Power was Carr’s founding executive director and headed the institute at the time it advised in the founding of Responsibility to Protect.

With Power’s center on the advisory board, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty first defined the Responsibility to Protect doctrine.

Soros funded

The Global Centre for Responsibility to Protect is the world’s leading champion of the military doctrine.

Soros’ Open Society Institute is a primary funder and key proponent of the Global Centre for Responsibility to Protect.

Several of the doctrine’s main founders sit on boards with Soros.

The committee that devised the Responsibility to Protect doctrine included Arab League Secretary General Amre Moussa as well as Palestinian legislator Ashrawi.

Two of the global group’s advisory board members, Ramesh Thakur and Gareth Evans, are the original founders of the doctrine, with the duo even coining the term “responsibility to protect.”

Thakur and Evans sit on multiple boards with Soros.

The Open Society is one of only three nongovernmental funders of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. Government sponsors include Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Rwanda and the U.K.

Board members of the group include former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former Ireland President Mary Robinson and South African activist Desmond Tutu. Robinson and Tutu have recently made solidarity visits to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip as members of a group called The Elders, which includes former President Jimmy Carter.

Annan once famously stated, “State sovereignty, in its most basic sense, is being redefined – not least by the forces of globalization and international co-operation. States are … instruments at the service of their peoples and not vice versa.”

Soros: Right to ‘penetrate nation-states’ borders’

Soros himself outlined the fundamentals of Responsibility to Protect in a 2004 Foreign Policy magazine article entitled “The People’s Sovereignty: How a New Twist on an Old Idea Can Protect the World’s Most Vulnerable Populations.”

In the article, Soros said “true sovereignty belongs to the people, who in turn delegate it to their governments.”

“If governments abuse the authority entrusted to them and citizens have no opportunity to correct such abuses, outside interference is justified,” Soros wrote. “By specifying that sovereignty is based on the people, the international community can penetrate nation-states’ borders to protect the rights of citizens.

“In particular, the principle of the people’s sovereignty can help solve two modern challenges: the obstacles to delivering aid effectively to sovereign states, and the obstacles to global collective action dealing with states experiencing internal conflict.”

More Soros ties

“Responsibility” founders Evans and Thakur served as co-chair, with Gregorian on the advisory board of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which invented the term “responsibility to protect.”

In his capacity as co-chairman, Evans also played a pivotal role in initiating the fundamental shift from sovereignty as a right to “sovereignty as responsibility.”

Evans presented Responsibility to Protect at the July 23, 2009, United Nations General Assembly, which was convened to consider the principle.

Thakur is a fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, which is in partnership with an economic institute founded by Soros.

Soros is on the executive board of the International Crisis Group, a “crisis management organization” for which Evans serves as president-emeritus.

The group has been petitioning for the U.S. to normalize ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, a process apparently underway with a visit last month by Brotherhood officials to the White House.

Aside from Evans and Soros, the group includes on its board Egyptian opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, as well as other personalities who champion dialogue with Hamas, a violent offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The crisis group has petitioned for the Algerian government to cease “excessive” military activities against al-Qaida-linked groups and to allow organizations seeking to create an Islamic state to participate in the Algerian government.

Soros’ own Open Society Institute has funded opposition groups across the Middle East and North Africa, including organizations involved in the current chaos.

‘One World Order’

Doctrine founder Thakur recently advocated for a “global rebalancing” and “international redistribution” to create a “New World Order.”

In a piece in March 2011 in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, “Toward a new world order,” Thakur wrote, “Westerners must change lifestyles and support international redistribution.”

He was referring to a United Nations-brokered international climate treaty in which he argued, “Developing countries must reorient growth in cleaner and greener directions.”

In the opinion piece, Thakur then discussed recent military engagements and how the financial crisis has impacted the U.S.

“The West’s bullying approach to developing nations won’t work anymore – global power is shifting to Asia,” he wrote.

“A much-needed global moral rebalancing is in train,” he added.

Thakur continued: “Westerners have lost their previous capacity to set standards and rules of behaviour for the world. Unless they recognize this reality, there is little prospect of making significant progress in deadlocked international negotiations.”

Thakur contended “the demonstration of the limits to U.S. and NATO power in Iraq and Afghanistan has left many less fearful of ‘superior’ western power.”

With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott

Investigation finds ties between CIA, Pentagon and accused war criminal Charles Taylor

Published 18 January, 2012 12:48:00 The Takeaway

A recent investigation by the Boston Globe provides the first proof that former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who stands accused of war crimes that led to the death of more than a million people, worked for the CIA and the Pentagon during his rise to power.

http://www.pri.org/swf/mp3player.swf

 

Former Liberian president Charles Taylor is infamous for his atrocities and crimes against his own people.

One of the first African leaders to be tried for war crimes, Taylor was a notorious dictator who oversaw the murder of more than 1 million people. He was an active participant in the diamonds-for-guns trade and once gifted Naomi Campbell a pouch of blood diamonds.

On Monday, the Boston Globe revealed that Taylor worked with U.S. agencies including the CIA and Pentagon during his rise to power in the 1980s. Taylor stepped down as president of Liberia in 2003 and lived openly in Nigeria until 2006, when he was handed over for trial as a war criminal. A verdict in the years-long case over his conduct during a civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone is expected sometime early this year.

David Crane, the former chief prosecutor of the special court for Sierra Leone, which indicted Charles Taylor in 2003, said he’d heard many rumors that Taylor had been working for some sort of intelligence agency.

“It’s somewhat of a throwback to the Cold War, where the U.S. probably did this more frequently than just Charles Taylor,” Crane said.

According to the Globe, Taylor was deemed valuable because of his close ties with deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

“This revelation wasn’t relevant to my work in West Africa,” Crane said. “It shouldn’t affect the case at all. It’s more of an embarrassment to the U.S., but this is not outside the U.S.’s policies to deal with, work with and pay off heads of state to get information.”

———————————————–

“The Takeaway” is a national morning news program, delivering the news and analysis you need to catch up, start your day, and prepare for what’s ahead. The show is a co-production of WNYC and PRI, in editorial collaboration with the BBC, The New York Times Radio, and WGBH Radio Boston.

Liberia: Charles Taylor a CIA Informant – the Need to Retool Nation’s Relationship With the U.S.

Robtel Neajai Pailey

20 January 2012

Aside: Worth paying attention to because Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spent mush time touting the needs of Liberia’s current president. If I remember correctly much money was promises and handed over in other forms of aid. – foggy bottem memory N.C.C.

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Two very significant and interconnected events happened this week in Liberia – President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was inaugurated for a second term with a subdued opposition attending the ceremonies, and former Liberian President Charles Taylor was implicated in a Boston Globe article for serving as a CIA informant beginning in the early 1980s and spanning many decades.

Taylor, Taylor, How Did Your Garden Grow?

Taylor, who currently languishes in a jail cell in the Hague after undergoing trial for 11 counts of crimes against humanity in the Sierra Leonean civil war, has ironically never faced trial for the atrocities that he orchestrated, oversaw, and implemented in Liberia. The bombshell news that he was indeed a CIA informant in the early years of his rise to notoriety calls into question America’s complicity in Taylor’s destruction of Liberia.

America’s facilitation of Taylor’s escape from a maximum security prison in Boston in 1985 – while he was facing extradition to Liberia for allegedly stealing US$1 million from the General Services Agency, which he headed during President Samuel Kanyon Doe’s regime – was always rumored but never corroborated. I remember covering the first day of Taylor’s trial in the Hague for Pambazuka News, and interviewing Stephen Rapp, the then chief prosecutor, about whether or not his investigations into Taylor’s exploits in Libya and Sierra Leone ever unearthed the real causes of his ‘escape’ from the maximum security prison in Massachusetts.

Rapp was tight-lipped, yet appeared confounded by this mystery as well. When Taylor eventually confessed during the Hague trial that he strolled out of prison after a guard conveniently opened his cell one night, we all knew that something was awry: “I am calling it my release because I didn’t break out,” Taylor testified. “I did not pay any money. I did not know the guys who picked me up. I was not hiding [afterwards].”

The Taylor-CIA connection has re-inscribed for Liberians an age-old dilemma, what to do with our so-called historical relationship with the United States, which has been fraught with betrayal after betrayal. Liberians who have been commenting on various notice boards are justifiably angry, upset and disappointed, but not surprised. This is the validation we’ve been wanting for years, and it comes on the heels of the inauguration for a second term of our head of state, who was ironically pictured dedicating the new U.S. Embassy in Liberia this week, with a smiling Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the foreground.

Some Liberians, under anonymity, are arguing that U.S. authorities who courted Taylor for intelligence be brought to justice for crimes against humanity in the Liberian civil war, that the International Criminal Court – now headed by a female Gambian national – should exhibit blind justice, that instead of hauling African and non-Western leaders to the international body for prosecution, they too should face the full weight of the law. I tend to agree with these arguments, however radical and farfetched they may seem.

Inquiring Liberian Minds Deserve to Know

The Globe article recounts that the CIA has said releasing further information could be a national security threat. A threat to whom, might I ask? Liberians deserve to know the nature, duration, scale, and scope of the CIA-Taylor relationship, it is a part of our national history, and must be recounted in the history books for our children, and our children’s children to remember that a relationship with the U.S. must be monitored at all times.

Liberians are not gullible, nor are we unsophisticated in realizing that one plus one equals two. We’ve always known that the dubiousness surrounding Taylor’s escape from the Massachusetts maximum-security prison was the beginning of the end for us. And if the implications of the Globe article are true, then the CIA could provide more answers.

It’s no wonder that the U.S. didn’t intervene in the Liberian civil war, though Liberians begged and pleaded for its “father/mother” to stop us from killing each other. One U.S. diplomat at the time even said that “Liberia is of no strategic interest to the United States.” It begs the question, if Liberia was of “no strategic interest” during the war, when we were killing ourselves and each other in the name of liberation, what is Liberia’s strategic interest to the U.S. now, when U.S. NGOs and development workers abound, and the Peace Corps has reinserted itself?

This should send a strong signal to Liberians and Liberia once and for all that America cannot be trusted. From Noriega, to Osama, to Saddam, to Samuel Doe, authoritarian leaders who end up in the U.S.’s good graces are never there for long.

Limits of Reciprocity

What Liberians and the Liberian government should be doing is strategizing, devising our own “Liberia Policy for the U.S.” which factors in seriously our checkered history with unsentimental bias.

We should also rely on a corpus of intellectual and creative work that has already investigated our ‘limits of reciprocity’ with the United States. Liberian filmmaker Nancee Oku Bright’s film, Liberia: America’s Stepchild, explores the torturous relationship between Liberia and the United States, with her thesis being that the U.S. sees Liberia as an ‘outside’ child, one who is illegitimate upon conception and can be used and abused at will without consequence. And Liberian academic Dr. D. Elwood Dunn also interrogates this relationship in his book, Liberia and the United States During the Cold War: Limits of Reciprocity, showing that the Cold War placed Liberia in a very strategic position to exploit its relationship with the United States, yet with unintended consequences.

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In this new political dispensation, it should be clear that Liberia should hold the U.S. at arm’s length, that hosting AFRICOM or any U.S. satellite post is out of the question, that we have to use them just as strategically as they have used us. With the geopolitics of China and other emerging nations, Liberia needs to develop a “Look South Policy,” not because we have become alienated, as in the case of Zimbabwe, but because we have made a conscious decision to explore other options, remembering that the U.S. will act only in its interest and leave those caught in the crossfire to fend for themselves.

We deserve to know the details of Taylor’s relationship with the CIA. It is crucial to our development planning, historical remembrance, healing and nation-building.

Born in Monrovia, Liberia, Robtel Neajai Pailey is currently pursuing a doctorate in Development Studies at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), as a Mo Ibrahim Foundation Ph.D. Scholar.

 

 

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Author: geepodee@gmail.com

Sat Jan 21 16:14:56 2012

 

Thank you so much for such an informative ,well worded and displayed a through act of belongingness.Yes ,you are truly a Liberian.Please keep us and generation now and yet to come inform.

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Author: geepodee@gmail.com

Sat Jan 21 16:17:07 2012

 

Thank you so much for such an informative ,well worded and displayed a through act of belongingness.Yes ,you are truly a Liberian.Please keep us and generation now and yet to come inform.

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Marxism Conference

Kincaid Marxism Conference Calls for Real Action; Part I

Monday, 25 October 2010 00:00 James Simpson

Cliff Kincaid of America’s Survival and Accuracy in Media hosted a conference Thursday, October 21^st at the National Press Club on an all too familiar subject: the ugly spread of Marxism in America, its roots, branches and current manifestations, particularly within the administration of President Barack Hussein Obama.  

But unlike most conferences, which merely provide distressing detail to perennial complaints about the decline of America, Kincaid and Co. have issued a real call-to-action for the upcoming Republican-led Congress: bring back the House Internal Security Committee.

The amount of incredible information packed into this conference was stunning, even for veteran reporter Kincaid, who has exposed so much of the Left’s agenda over the years he could be called a one-man wrecking crew—the Left’s worst nightmare. He provided a booklet detailing conference subject matter and posted it online in two PDFs that should be in every patriot’s library, here and here.

Weather Underground FBI informant Larry Grathwohl, the only successful FBI undercover agent to ever penetrate the group, lead off the seminar. Larry’s 1982 interview describing Underground leader and Obama friend Bill Ayers’ plan to murder 25 million Americans astonished viewers in the run up to the 2008 elections. In this conference, Larry brought out more gripping testimony about Ayers and his unholy crew, all now working behind the scenes on behalf of President Obama.

Cliff has posted a series of video interviews with Grathwohl and retired FBI agent Max Noel, who oversaw Weather Underground investigations. They discuss the wave of bombings initiated by Ayers and the Underground in the 1970s, particularly the San Francisco PD Park Station bombing, which took the life of Sgt. Brian V. McDonnell. According to Grathwohl, Ayers and wife Bernardine Dohrn were directly involved in this bombing, despite their claims of never harming anyone during the Weathermen’s bombing campaign.

His assertions are backed up by facts. Cliff has posted exclusive, never-seen-before photos of the Weathermen’s San Francisco bomb factory, which Grathwohl describes:

One of the devices found in the Pine Street [bomb factory] location was a voice-activated detonator, meaning that it was designed to be set off when someone said something. One of the photographs of the bomb factory shows shrapnel in the form of nails. Heavy metal staples were also popular. The Weathermen were also making stabbing devices disguised as ball point pens.

Clearly, the Weathermen intended to kill and maim people, not simply destroy property, and with the Park Station bombing, they were successful. Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn have never renounced violence. Indeed, in a New York Times interview, appropriately published on September 11, 2001, Ayers claimed “we didn’t do enough.”

Just “a guy who lives in [Obama’s] neighborhood”… Sure.

Paul Kengor, author of the recently released Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century, was the lunchtime keynote speaker. His book is an essential contribution to our understanding of the Left. His testimony was chock full of damning details about public figures active in America’s progressive movement and how communists, from Soviet agents to American Party members, cunningly manipulated liberals and progressives to advance the communist agenda.

As Kengor observes however, there is a question about how many were really duped. Some people we thought were liberals being duped, were actually communists doing the duping. Iconic leftwing journalist I.F. Stone for example, has been posthumously outed as a Soviet agent. Kengor also speculates about author Arthur Miller and others. He fingered Ted Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and John Dewey as three of the biggest dupes of the twentieth century.

No argument on Carter, America’s greatest mistake until Obama assumed that mantle. I would have to take issue with Kengor’s characterization of Kennedy however.

Teddy worked with the Soviets in a deliberate effort to undermine U.S. policy toward the USSR during the 1970s, 1980s, and perhaps later.

Veteran Congressional investigator Herb Romerstein, who authored The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America’s Traitors, was among the conference attendees Thursday. He wrote a report in 2003 alleging that Kennedy had even altered pending Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act legislation so that his discussions with the Soviets would not be subject to FISA wiretaps. In Romerstein’s words:

Kennedy introduced the concept in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Bill that required evidence that someone was providing classified information to a foreign intelligence service. Someone who “only” had a clandestine relationship with a foreign intelligence officer and carried out covert influence operations for a foreign power could not be wiretapped.

Romerstein makes the explosive assertion that Kennedy’s FISA meddling may have been responsible for blinding US intelligence to the impending 9-11 attacks. Whatever the case, this is not the activity of a dupe, but rather a blatant case of deliberate, premeditated treason.

 Finally, Kengor identified progressive John Dewey, known as the father of American public education, as one of the worst dupes. Dewey’s most important works on public education were enthusiastically received by Lenin’s Bolsheviks and translated into Russian as a model for Soviet emulation. Dewey felt complimented and traveled to the Soviet Union to witness first hand the “Worker’s Paradise.” Although Kengor states that Dewey later rejected Stalin’s brutality, for many years he ignorantly championed the Soviet model.

Other presenters were Trevor Loudon, of NewZeal blog, and KeyWiki, probably the foremost researcher of the Left, Professor Mary Grabar, a teacher and historian who has studied secret communist Howard Zinn’s impact on public education and Robert Knight, author of Radical Rulers.

Read Grabar’s report on Zinn here, an alarming case study of how the Soviets have used radical American educators to brainwash our children. Zinn’s works, like A People’s History of the United States, have found their way into schools across the country.

Knight brought forth details about Harry Hay, communist inspiration for Obama “Safe Schools” Czar, Kevin Jennings. Jennings has been accused of peddling porn to high schoolers. Hay was a staunch defender of the National Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) as well as the founder of the modern radical homosexual movement. Kincaid has published Hay’s FBI file in PDF form, here and here.

See Part II tomorrow…

Businessman and Examiner.com columnist Jim Simpson is a former White House staff economist and budget analyst. His writings have been published on Right Side News, Big Government, Big Peace, Emerging Corruption, American Thinker, Washington Times, WorldNetDaily, FrontPage Magazine, Soldier of Fortune and others. His blog is Truth & Consequences.

For Cindy Sheehan

War Criminals: Arrest Warrants Requested

Front page / World / Americas

25.01.2010 Source: Pravda.Ru

International arrest warrants have been requested for George W. Bush, Richard (Dick) Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleeza Rice and Alberto Gonzales at the International Criminal Court, The Hague, Netherlands. BREAKING NEWS Russia Tests Fifth Generation Fighter Jet Sleeping in an Airplane: A Pleasant Experience More… Professor of Law Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law in Champain, United States of America, has issued a Complaint with the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court against the above-mentioned for their practice of “extraordinary rendition” (forced disappearance of persons and subsequent torture) in Iraq and for criminal policy which constitutes Crimes against Humanity in violation of the Rome Statute which set up the ICC. As such, the Accused (mentioned above) are deemed responsible for the commission of crimes within the territories of many States signatories of the Rome Statute, in violation of Rome Statute Articles 5 (1)(b), 7 (1)(a), 7 (1)(e), 7 (1)(g), 7(1)(h), 7(1)8i) and 7(1)(k). Despite the fact that the USA is not a signatory State, the ICC has the jurisdiction to prosecute under Article 12 (2)(a) of the Rome Statute. This Article stipulates that the Court may exercise its jurisdiction if one or more States in which the conduct in question occurred has accepted the jurisdiction of the Court. Furthermore, the forced disappearance of persons and torture in deemed by the Rome Statute as a Crime against Humanity, one which is still ongoing. The Exercise of Jurisdiction may be activated under Article 13, with respect to a crime committed under Article 5 if the Prosecutor has initiated an investigation. Professor Boyle, in his issue of complaint, respectfully requested that such an investigation be initiated. The issue of complaint states “about 100 human beings have been subjected to enforced disappearances and subsequent torture by the Accused”, adds that some of them could still be alive today, and that an investigation could save these lives. Regarding those whose enforced disappearances led to their deaths, the Complaint requests a process of explanation and clarification for what would be a murder investigation. Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY

The Daily Bath

Tespid couldn’t resist watching the State of the Union Address and a few topics came up through the President’s one-sided dialogue. With all the commentary about his skill as a rhetorician in the vein of Diogenes and Lincoln, you’ve got to be careful and think through the carefully chosen words and the delivery. You’ve also got to be mindful of what was not mentioned. Still to do that you have to read and watch more than the mainstays of political commentary and popular news channels. Even the minutiae of your own life can lend a different perspective to what the President is proffering. Tespid called the first 15 minutes of Obama’s speech “the glaze on the donut”. Sugary, thick and the set of the tone for the pastry bite. Without which you might taste the ingredients of what made the core of the speech bitter, acrid and dry.

Three things Tespid wondered about were:

1) Infrastructure. Trade Routes both commercial and business, roads, airlines, bridges, ports and harbors. From the take of it, 2010 is going to be the beginning of the worst of it. In order to prevent deep damage to an eventual fall, commit to repairs and building better way stations. The business of government is business. Maintaining such is to protect the means by which everything is transported. Trade routes are the foundation of civilization. Building new one risks life and limb, protecting old guarantees the support of old money commerce. Maps and Routes, ask any old cartographer, that is the only thing any successful conquerer ever wanted. Progress lightly through clean energy after that. If the infrastructure is set, repaired and old way stations reclaimed, two to 10 years afterwards will be explosive productivity. It’s like organizing you clothes closet or the papers in your office. Once streamlined, you work faster, smarter and are more creative.

2) The President continued to harp on international terrorism and Afghanistan. What happens the day that a President mentions domestic terrorism? Does that mean the roof just caved in on the House of Representatives? His, President Obama’s approaches seemed fractured, spreading himself thin. Is there a unified approach to thread current issues?

3) Continuing with terrorism issues and the American public: What of the Patriot Act? Is that still enabled and active? That was a buzz phrase in many a quiet and loud corner during the Bush administration, especially when its renewal came up in Congress. Issues of privacy don’t seem to come up much anymore considering that everything is loud these days. It’s hard not to hear the conversation around the corner of the next block. Maybe foreclosure lending to the absence of people allows buildings to echo more than usual. 😉

Looking forward to sound bites and FOX news,

Constantine

The theatre is open and the war is in scene four

Obama’s Drunken, Drug Running and Paedophile Helpers

Front page / Opinion / Columnists

05.01.2010 Source: Pravda.Ru

Pages: 123

By Hans Vogel This winter, instead of the traditional story about a little orphaned ice bear cub or cute little elephant baby, the world was fed a different kind of story. For variation’s sake, the cute animal tales are sometimes replaced by some horror story. Just before last Christmas, a carefully scripted charade was enacted by the combined security services of the US and one of its European client states. There is no need to retell the details of the Detroit incident starring the “crotch bomber,” or “underpants bomber,” as the poor Nigerian patsy is usually referred to. Anyone with a minimum of intelligence should have immediately seen the story for what it is: a scam. BREAKING NEWS Obama does not deserve his Nobel Peace Prize World’s Best Airport in 2009 More… In its efforts to institute the ultimate totalitarian state, the US has taken yet another step. For some time now, the US government has been looking for a justification to subject airline passengers to even more humiliating security checks, forcing everyone to undergo full body scanning. The Detroit charade was designed specifically for this purpose. No sooner had the charade’s main character been carried off to some unknown destination, then the first round of lunatic new on board security measures was announced. During the last hour of flight before landing, passengers are no longer allowed to have anything in their laps and are prohibited from visiting the lavatory. As if these new rules had been designed beforehand and were put into effect at the first opportunity. One crucial detail is mostly left out of the Detroit charade story as it is being handled by the mainstream media worldwide: at Amsterdam airport, the “crotch bomber” boarded the US-bound flight without a passport and without going through any security check. Instead, he was escorted by a “well-dressed” gentleman who apparently had access to the boss of the Israeli firm that handles security at Amsterdam. If the same “well-dressed” gentleman would render this service to all passengers, flying would certainly be a more pleasant experience than it is for most of us at this moment. Curiously, the only answer the US government could think of, seconded by the usual orchestrated choir of its vassal states, was to increase security checks for all passengers, subjecting them to full body scans. Just pause here for a moment. Does this sound logical to you? Of course it does not! If there actually has been an attempt to blow up an airplane and the would-be “crotch bomber” was escorted by another person, the logical thing to do would be to check out security at Amsterdam airport. Not to increase security measures for all passengers. However, the stupidity of the US government may actually be so serious that they actually believe they could tackle the issue by the measures they have taken so far. In the light of the endless series of stupid mistakes the US government has over the past decade been making in Afghanistan and Iraq, it may even be conceivable they figure to be on track with their response to the Detroit incident. BREAKING NEWS Obama does not deserve his Nobel Peace Prize World’s Best Airport in 2009 More… Yet I think this is not the case. I believe the Detroit charade was part of a concerted scheme to increase passenger “security” which I suspect has very little to do with any genuine concern for the passengers. It certainly seems part of a grand design to make airline travel unattractive and to get the public used to police state controls. Unfortunately, most of the public numbly believes the official government story. Does nobody wonder why on the one hand his government would go to great lengths to protect the safety of citizens when they board an airplane, while on the other the same government could not care less about his economic security? What about the irresponsible bank bailouts of the past year, the home foreclosures affecting millions of people, the mounting unemployment, the collapse of social security? It just does not square. In its sinister efforts, the US government is supported by the governments of its vassal states. This time, a major role was assigned to the Dutch government. The first Dutch actor to make a public statement was the Minister of Justice, Ernst Hirsch Ballin. It is a mystery how this man ever made it back to a cabinet position, after being forced to resign in 1994 as justice minister for his involvement in a billion dollar drug trafficking operation. The man is also suspected of paedophilia. Moreover, the highest ranking public servant in the justice ministry is a notorious paedophile. Hirsch Ballin called for the immediate introduction of full body scanners at Dutch airports. A few days later, Dutch interior minister, Mrs. Guusje ter Horst was cued to chip in. This woman, an alcoholic who is routinely let off the hook by the police whenever she is caught driving while drunk, actually had the nerve to say that the world had escaped disaster when the “crotch bomber” plan was foiled. To call the bombing of a plane carrying 250 passengers a world disaster is to scoff at the daily massacre of dozens of Iraqis and Afghans that has been going on since 2001. Indeed, one either has to be drunk, stupid or plain evil to ignore the genocide against Iraqis and Afghans, a crime against humanity which the Dutch government fully supports and even participates in. Apparently, for the Dutch government, the life of an Iraqi or Afghan is worth less than the life of a European or a US citizen. The fact that no one so far has chided Mrs. Ter Horst, the “minister of alcoholic affairs” for her racist and discriminatory remarks is yet more proof of the moral decrepitude of the main stream media. BREAKING NEWS Obama does not deserve his Nobel Peace Prize World’s Best Airport in 2009 More… After the Dutch cabinet ministers had played their bit parts, the leaders of other European vassal states came on stage. One after the other, Germans, Italians and Englishmen gave their performance, with the main stream media predictably spreading the message without any accompanying critical editorial commentary. Thus within two weeks, the European public has ostensibly been won over to support the introduction of security measures that will make air travel an even more miserable experience, and that will certainly not improve security. However, the fact that the Obama regime now has to rely on vassal state officials with demonstrable criminal records an assorted deviant behavior, is another indication that the US empire is in a deep crisis. Nor does the support from the vassal states come spontaneously. For instance, the chief explanation for the obsequiousness of the Dutch seems to be blackmail. That is right, blackmail. Mr. Joris Demmink, the justice ministry’s director general, is being blackmailed by the Turkish intelligence service at least since 2002. The blackmail concerns Mr. Demmink’s orgies with under age boys in Turkish seaside resorts. Given the close ties the Turkish intelligence services have with their US counterparts, it can be easily understood the US is blackmailing the Dutch as well. In other words, what we are witnessing are scenes from a Hollywood mafia movie, only this time its title reads “international diplomacy, US style.” The US government does not seem to realize that its hold on the vassal states is becoming a tenuous one, since the popular acceptance of their puppets and stooges is dwindling at an ever faster rate. Hans Vogel

Blankeity Blank Blank…..Eureka!

After Thanksgiving I convinced myself I’d be willing to change my diet back to reveling in fruits and vegetables (Blah. blah. blah.) The month before I shed eight to ten pounds with that strategy. Thanksgiving, with its twelve pies and candies, made up for the regimens weight loss results. In the least I lost so I would not be at a severe gain  come December first.

Yet, clarity of  my mind and the morning air called for waffles, sausage and a steaming cup of CNN. Periodically I become a news junkie, but now serendipity targets time when the white house puts on a show worth prime time market hours.

The job summit was no summit. I, ignorant, was thinking it would be a panel of experts and targeted discussion or hot problem spots, stop-gap solutions, forecasts, emergency patches and heated dialogue full of wisdom. It was a press relations fill stunt run like a rally. President Obama’s attempts to gauge and drive a carefully selected cross section of a influencable population was more apparent to me than usual. Then again maybe my eyes have blinders and all I can see is the spaces between the words and read their faces like completely deaf people. Let me illustrate a comparison for you. If you have ever watched a socialist democratic presentation or a clip of communist meetings from the 1960’s you might see similar tactics and behaviors. For fiction references try watching Farenheit 451 and Gattica. Watch the way people behave during group gatherings. What happens is that the audience is carefully screened and selected to all be supporters. All of these supporters have a certain level of knowledge of the party and its representatives. Most of that knowledge is sound bites, bland factoids and party jargon that gets parrotted back to the viewers. It gives the illusion that the speaking candidate has 100% support for his/her ideas.

(Appearances are deceiving and reality is downright maddening when you get down to the details if you don’t classify as much as quantify. All the more to know that the medium is the message. This medium is live theater. If the army talks about war in terms of the location of the front and the theater. Maybe,  just maybe I pose that the war is on television regularly. Prime Time broadcasts are not the opportunity for wiggle room. That is when you know “it”, whatever it is has happened and the methods to carry it out have already been in progress for some time. Prime time announcements are the final word. I say this because Obama has yet to have an eight p.m. sit down with the American public. He dodges and wanes in the early day when no one is watching anyway. Yes, I did get my soaps in today on CNN. Though it is a little more delicate and dance than Luke and Laura and Stefano in the hospital again.)

Consider how many times news anchors say that the Obama Administration spends a great deal of time controlling his public image.  Even down to the point of who is chosen to ask questions (e.g. plants in the audience). For all the interruptions during town halls this past fall ans summer, why have presidential forums been so void of the hard-core questions? Devoid of the anger? Devoid of the rapid heated pulse of public affairs in common open air public forums? The concept of everyman is dead when it comes to President Obama’s listening ear. Any orator can sound divine when he has a controlled room and the choir to preach to. Strength and tenacity is in responding in an impromptu way. Informed people who listen to the questions and reply to exaclty what is spoken would know. It’s a great thing when someone hears you, while it is a skillful burden to hear. (“Let him who has ears, hear”)?

>Illustrators Footnote:Catch a glimpse of North Korean television or recorded Politburo meeting in China circa 1950…..

Yes, Mr. President, there is a Santa Claus

I have been working on this article for about two years now. It is a response to the article “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” that was published in New york’s Sun as an unsigned editorial September 21, 1897. It is one hundred and twelve years later and the same economic disparities exist. My planned approach was to be as if the head workshop elf in Santa’s workshop was finally able to reply. Me, figuring that Virgina O’Hanlon sent a copy of the letter off to the North Pole as well as the the newspaper as her father had suggested set up the read to be more fanciful and a fascination game than the seriousness to which Francis Pharcellus replied. Yet, still being able to counter Pharcellus’ entitled bourgeouise approached to the question Virginia posed.

Last night while at the mall, in the midst of comsumer consumption, it became apparent to me that I had to return to writing the article. The couterpose request from a reader was to wrok it out all on line in front of everyone. A sort of live writing  approaches where you can see the process and the direction. Right now, all I have is a mess of notes and ideas that might inspire you to something other or greater. If you want to read the source document before following along go to: http://www.newseum.org/yesvirginia and http://www.barrickinsurance.com/virgina.html. The second URL actually has Virginia’s comments when she was in her 40’s. The letter was reprinted annually for a time at a length of almost 100 years.

Writer in Progress:

• Virginia: when you say little friends, how little? Most little folk have some kinship to elves. And the elves in Santa’s workshop might be related to them. I’ll see that this gossip ends and elves learn more about promoting Santa Claus. Hmmm.  Eight year olds tend to be shorter than most people. So how short  are we talking? Shorted than 24 inches. I have a few friend they might like to meet. And maybe your friends are more elven than you know.
• I didn’t realize eight year olds read the newspaper? I am extremely elated that your father reads the newspaper and is encouraging you as well.
• eight year olds or older need not measure their worth by grasping the whole truth and knowledge. Insects count in innumerable ways. Think about the honey bee and all that it does. (Writer’s note: explain the chain of influence. Bees to a flower to a fruit/vegetable to a food source for meat. Pollination/ (embedded reference: honey, lemon and water for sore throats…buscuits and honey… natural sugars – fructose.) Ant are tireless workers – they sleep one day a year.
• Skeptical Age/ skepticism – “Call the amazing James Randy”.. Peeshaw, what isn’t there to believe in these days? Of course believe in somthing and yourself. Skeptical is a big word for an eight year old to understand. To help you understand mr. Church’s letter better. It means doubt. Askeptical age may mean many people doubt a little bit of everything. Even themselves. Blind faith is what Francis Church was alluding to. But have faith in your eyes and what you see. Miss O’Hanlon there is truth in a picture/what everyone sees, whether or not they understand it immediately or ever. The best things have the byline that all will be revealed by the second or third time you read or look at it.
• Even political leaders get elven help. If they didn’t know before, now they do. ( Elven and fae relationships. Allusion not precluded to homosexuality.) I’d perchance to even say King Arthur had elven blood(re: Morgan Le Fae)
• No one to help Santa Claus either? (the history of elven generosity and insistence to help with good ideas and noble causes (Insert: commitment of an elf document).
• There is more than one way to get present, large gifts and encouragement to you.. And remember I told you that your eyes are important. Thi includes seeing with your eyes closed or seeing when blind.
• Sometimes we can’t see the reasons for people , places or things and sometimes that is the best protection of each of us. None of us may ever understand why we come to doubt of deny Santa Claus ever existed. Maybe it is because we have never seen him ever or maybe since childhood. Have hope. Santa Claus exists even if it is the six year old next door that saw him in a department store or on a motorcycle driving South on Interstate 35E. You may not have seen him, but that kid and his parents did while motoring to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving last year.
• No Santa Claus? Poppycock! untrue.
• A boldface lie from the bully who bother’s us all. BTW: That bully gets presents too on December 25th.
• Virginia: Your assignment if you choose to accept it:
• Take as much paper as you need and draw:
• 1) The Santa Claus you imagine
• 2) The Santa Clauses you’ve seen
• 3) Write Santa Claus a letter, tell him how you feel and mail it.
• 4)Watch A Miracle on 34th street this week.

More notes to come, but later.

Ta,

~The UL…

Sounding off on the Eve

Honestly, I’ve never watched a professional be so unprepared. He doles out and feeds on scraps of what image machines build. If a crumb falls from his mouth he saves it and hides that to from view till it can be marketed successfully. His appearance, like his policy, is paper thin. For an administration that touts itself on being transparent, it would be nice not to have to wade through vacuous paper trails.

The government printing office still has a debt from the Clinton administration and Monica Lewinsky testimony not nostalgic reading memorabilia. ( That tome of literature would be a better read that Lady Chatterly’s Lover couched in a brown paper bag in your 6th grade English composition class.)

It’s not a matter of flip flopping and indecisiveness. Silobreaker, I thought, reported Obama was gearing up to downsize troops in Afghanistan while today’s press conference confirms the opposite. Apparently he is scheduling to send more.

I notice that even from the beginning his plans for foreign and domestic policy where “glossies”. Meaning that he grazed the points of the issues and couched it in complex grammar and rhythmic tones to make it seem pleasing and introspective. Dare I say to many years of taking diplomatic action from front page newspaper headlines will delude anyone into thinking that running government is easy. And that the entertainment glamour machine is the current that runs under all the cities. Sooner or later you have to realize at that level that it is never who you know that gets the job done. Passing the buck an assuming that smiles and congeniality will persuade them your way. That’s the defense of a confidence man. When will he realize it is what you know and the timing can be relative with the right strategy. Intelligence is obligated to work; if not just to keep yourself from going mad. The questions are always posed and sooner or later the networking, nee partying and state dinners all run into a blur with the alcohol and the photographs. When are you going to get down in the dirt Mr. President? Knee deep. Your photo spreads are too clean for my tastes and you always seem to skirt the issues and run in to a defensive posture when constructive and critical criticism arises. Dare I say you were unprepared from the very beginning?

President Obama can not make a decision because he takes no time to research the depth of complexity involved in the subjects themselves. his knowledge base seems void except to be an orator whois more in the vein of a rallyist. A so-called champion for laborer rights who has graduated from the bull horn to reenacting the mannerisms of Malcolm X and the intonations of black preacher to “move the crowd”.

Strange how this is the age of the charismatic motivational leader. (Please excuse my allusion to Jim Collins book.) Always selling their soul to be the representative of a cause. Is it attention or the need to be the poster child or face of a corporation. I say it is conceit. Honestly, Obama got elected for being black at the right time and right place. Seriously, any black of a certain appearance that can oakie doke white population into being comfortable with him and that he has some modicum of a clue about government they too would be elected. Though I didn’t delve deep it was enough to read and listen to heavy weight journalists clue in during the election months that Obama was not knowledgeable enough to get to the core nature of the job. The reason I did not have to corroborate with other services and people is that they were blunt about there observations. When you have 30 minutes for political topics and you hammer it in one sentence. Your audience should know that the premature decision puts us all at risk.

I can honestly agree with being black at the right time and right place thank to a former professor who told me to use my double minority status to my advantage. I learned to know when I was thrown a bone because I was a different color. You don’t throw bones at talent, you just watch ’em spin till they produce something they don’t want to part with. Then you move in for the kill.

I wish Obama would be more informed like what I understand former president James Carter to have been in the 1970’s. I still wonder if it was knowledge or sheer interest in culture that led to his success in the Middle East.

Dearest me, looking into a job like the Presidency, it seems politicians concentrate on the election and leve the rest to learn as you go. They try to keep approval rating up in the mean while to get elected for a second term. Then try to do something anything as a signature mark on their last days.

I’m often struck at the glamour machine or entertainment news like approach to the white house this starving season. As if watching President Obama as a song and dance man, grin and pass a new painting of himself on the cover of Rolling Stone will stop the bile building in our stomachs for lack of substance to sustain us. I know the stereotype of the grinning nigger or the dancing minstrel to the point of knowing the light fare of the President’s life that has covered all media services has insulated a vote of no confidence in him, by me permanently. Flipside. if it is not the news media that chooses to present this side of him. Is this all the white house chooses to put out? Which tells me that truly that is all there is.

Photogenic. gregarious. Practiced physical stance. Threats of violence by black community leaders if he is not elected. Rallyist. Fame hunter.                      … I still think this is an FX presidency with all the Hollywood money that poured into his campaign. The figure I saw on the screen election winning night looked too caked of makeup and had different facial proportions. He was too strict in his tone and words compared to other news clips along the campaign trail. The stage set itself  it seems. Especially considering it had theatrical support to pull off this play. Only when the first death ensue will I call it a true tragic opera. The curtain is open, I’m still in the theatre watching but turned off because the character list is lengthening in the side stages that I can not see.

I am not a voyeur, but I am still a kid and watching entertainment. Suits, stains, makeup, sound, still shots, costumes  and the atmosphere in the theatre can all be intoxicating in and of themselves. Orchestration like that takes time, talent and support. Uncomfortably funny and too open is the thought of who and why. Maybe I’m just old enough and finally see differently now.

Aside: Dad once told me to think big when it came to living on this planet. This is between his discourse on Masonry and the Moors.”Be a people manager” I think that is what he called it. Learn how to control and direct groups of people. For instance, move them from place to place. All I could whisper in my mind was “Mustapha Mond” in Alduous Huxley’s Brave New World.

Comment: I have to point out this dead white men theory of how history developed needs redevelopment in the news. Marking the step of time by individual enterprise is a validation of our culture’s religious practice of selfishness and conceit. Change the news up for a day and find me a movement and discuss it in depth. Not just the birthers either.

Aside: Has Mr. President slept in Abraham Lincoln’s Bedroom? And I wonder, what did the ghost say?

…..A little oddity that some African American revisionist historians tell is that Lincoln was a mulatto as well.

DoD’s Oops

Rumsfeld let Bin Laden escape in 2001, says Senate report

Inquiry says US failure to attack al-Qaida’s leader at Tora Bora had far-reaching consequences

 

• Buzz up! Digg it

Ed Pilkington in New York

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 29 November 2009 19.07 GMT

Article history

Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri in an al-Qaida propaganda video. Photograph: AP

 

 

Donald Rumsfeld had the chance when he was US defence secretary in December 2001 to make sure Osama bin Laden was killed or captured, but let him slip through his hands, a Senate report has found.

 

The report by the Senate foreign relations committee is damning of the way George Bush‘s administration conducted the aftermath of its bombing campaign in Afghanistan, saying it amounted to a “lost opportunity”. It states that as a direct result of allowing the al-Qaida leader to flee from his Tora Bora stronghold into Pakistan, the American people were left more vulnerable to terrorism, and the foundations were laid for today’s protracted Afghan insurgency.

 

It also lays blame for the July 2005 Underground bombings in London on a failure to kill the al-Qaida leaders at Tora Bora.

 

Republican critics are likely to dismiss the report as a partisan work designed to deflect the current military troubles in Afghanistan from President Barack Obama and on to his predecessor. The foreign relations committee is Democratic-controlled and chaired by Senator John Kerry, Bush’s opponent in the 2004 presidential election.

 

But the report contains a mass of evidence that points towards the near certainty that bin Laden was bedded down in the Tora Bora district of the White Mountains in eastern Afghanistan, and that the US had a chance to catch him which they then missed.

 

Bin Laden and up to 1,500 of his most loyal al-Qaida fighters and bodyguards moved up to the 14,000 feet section of valleys and snow-covered peaks in late November 2001, shortly before the fall of Kabul.

 

Bin Laden chose Tora Bora as the location of his last stand, expecting to die there. The committee refers to a US special operations officer at Tora Bora, known as Dalton Fury, who told the committee that they regularly intercepted bin Laden speaking on al-Qaida radios in his mountain headquarters.

 

Further evidence came from al-Qaida suspects being detained at Guantanamo and, most authoritatively, from the official history of the US special operations command which which confirms bin Laden’s presence at Tora Bora between 9 and 14 December 2001.

 

The Senate committee says that sufficient special forces troops were in the area to go after bin Laden and cut off his exit route into Pakistan. CIA paramilitary leaders called for permission to launch an operation but were turned down by the Pentagon on grounds that it could upset US allies in Afghanistan.

 

The report blames Rumsfeld and his top commander, General Tommy Franks, for the decision, saying they were wedded to a new, light and risk-averse form of combat. Rumsfeld had also already begun to turn his attention to the invasion of Iraq, taking his eye of a more urgent target.

 

“Osama bin Laden’s demise would not have erased the worldwide threat from extremists,” it concludes. “But the failure to kill or capture him has allowed bi Laden to exert a malign influence over events in the region and nearly 60 countries where his followers have established extremist groups.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tribal Summit 2009

Vice President Shelly asks Obama for tribal consultation mandate Submitted by Michael Wero Special to the Observer Tuesday, November 10, 2009 WASHINGTON, D.C. – At the first tribal summit for the 564 federally recognized Native American tribes in 15 years, Navajo Nation Vice President Ben Shelly asked President Obama to take steps to ensure that consultation and collaboration with tribes through government-to-government relationships becomes a mandate that would continue through future administrations. Addressing President Obama, Vice President Shelly said, “I watched the message you gave us a while ago. It’s very good, [but] it would be nice if you could work with us and [Congress] to make it a mandate that the United States government should work with the Indian Nation(s). The thing I’m worried about is that at the end of your term, what happens with all the plans that we’re going to be putting together with your administration – our administration. I supported you, and Navajo Nation did. What happens to all of that?” Vice President Shelly continued, “Through the histories of all Indian Tribe(s), the treaties that were made between the United States and Indian Tribe(s) have been broken a lot. How can we make it so solid that (consultation and collaboration) stays, no matter what administration comes in? I think we need to work on that, sir.” President Obama remarked that working with Congress, he would ensure these gatherings continue through the future. “[W]e can partner with Congress to lock some of those good habits in and end some of the bad habits that we’ve seen in the past; that’s something that we’ll be very interested in doing. So I think what should be part of the agenda of consultation over the next several years, is how do we continue to institutionalize some of the best practices of consultation and collaboration and partnership that’s so important,” President Obama stated. The question and answer session came at the end of President Obama’s opening remarks for the conference. Obama welcomed Native leaders and said he will sign a memorandum instructing his cabinet members to strengthen the government-to-government dialog with Native nations within the next 90 days. A year after being elected, President Obama has appointed several Native Americans into prominent roles in his administration. Among those include Larry Echo Hawk as head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs; Yvette Roubideaux as Director of the Indian Health Service; Hilary Tomkins as Solicitor of the Department of Interior; Mary Smith as Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice; Kim Teehee as Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs; and Jodi Gillette as a Deputy Associate Director White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. President Obama added, “We faced an economic crisis in which we took bold and swift action … We allocated more than $3 billion of the Recovery Act to help with some of your most pressing needs, like rebuilding and renovating schools on reservations across the country. We provided more than $100 million in loans to spur job creation in tribal economies. And we made sure my budget included significant increases in funding for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Indian Health Service, and other agencies that have critical roles to play in your communities.” The White House Tribal Nations Conference was held at the Department of the Interior, with opening and closing remarks from President Obama and discussions ranging from jobs to energy to housing to health care. This conference provided tribal leaders an opportunity to interact directly with the President and representatives from the highest levels of his Administration. Each federally recognized tribe was invited to send one representative. Related Links
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Critical Infrastructure

PROTECTING CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE: A Shared Responsibility

Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM

One of the key issues confronting the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Defense (DoD), state, local and tribal governments and America’s private sector is how to collectively protect the nation’s critical infrastructure. DoD guidance and programs have been in place for some time, and there are processes and procedures to define roles and responsibilities for protection and response — although the anticipated threats have diverged somewhat as we confront the asymmetrical terrorist threats of today rather than threats from nation-states alone.

One only needs to review the media coverage of recent weeks to find articles highlighting a terrorist plot against Ft. Huachuca, Ariz. There does not appear to be clear evidence of nation-state involvement — leaving us in the gray zone between direct military action against an aggressor and a law enforcement action directed toward collecting evidence and prosecuting foreign nationals through our court system. Cyber-attacks are another example of emerging threats that have demonstrated malicious intent to disrupt and damage our country — as in recent reports of attacks on the DoD mail system leading back to Chinese Web sites. These threats serve notice that our perimeter is being probed constantly by an elusive, well-informed and educated enemy. The private sector is also under attack by external agents of foreign governments and terrorist networks. In those cases where there is clear alignment with the DoD industrial base and sites related to Chemical, Biological, Radiological/Nuclear and Explosives, the effectiveness of a strong public-private partnership is being demonstrated every day. For example, Northrop Grumman’s own manufacturing facilities for aircraft assemblies, ships and military electronics fall well within the DoD Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) guidelines.

The challenge for DHS is in motivating and encouraging partnerships across public, private and DoD domains, each with different organizational and cultural objectives governed under our current governance systems. With 85 percent of the country’s critical infrastructure in the hands of the private sector, this challenge dwarfs the not inconsiderable DoD CIP program. DHS is now 5-years-old and still lacks a complete, detailed inventory of the CIP resources in the country. It doesn’t have an efficient method for updating the information it has received through programs such as Protected Critical Infrastructure Information (PCII) either. Rather, DHS is depending on the 17 Sector Coordinating Councils to promulgate critical information to their sectors, thinking that private industry is more likely to accept a relationship of this magnitude from their private sector peers. The opportunity for inaction or incomplete risk analysis is high in sectors with little or no interdependence. Others, such as electrical power generation and distribution and financial institutions with high reliance on others in their sector, are far more cooperative. In the end, the measure of effectiveness for federal government relationships (in all of its regulatory, enforcement and inspection guises) will be measured by the willingness of the private sector to accept a relationship built on new levels of trust.

From a private sector perspective, operation of manufacturing facilities and other core infrastructure must be competitive in the market. Security is an added cost that hurts profitability and competitiveness. Research on the regulated energy and water industries indicates effective federal standards can be established across the public-private domains. These industries are far more regulated and have established their operations in areas where there is little to no competition and the barriers to entry are extremely high (adding a second municipal water distribution system, for example). Establishing federal tax and insurance incentives, limiting corporate liability and developing industry standards may motivate increased security and circumvent excessive federal mandates.

In addition, the fact that these infrastructure components are privately held creates an additional layer of complexity, since there is no community plan that is easily owned by geographically collocated infrastructure owners within or across sectors. Each owner/operator has his or her own plan and likely a trust relationship with DHS along with state and local government. This creates a mosaic of overlapping plans with no coherent understanding of the interdependencies and impacts in the face of a natural or terrorism event.

The question of partnering approaches is a gray area since each private sector participant has different risk tolerances and trust sensitivities when dealing with the public sector. Even threats that represent clear and present danger to the infrastructure and surrounding populations are at issue when it comes to public awareness. The public sector is bound to inform the citizens it protects; the private sector has a responsibility to its shareholders to maintain its brand and profitability. Building security partnerships with federal guidance that are considerate of these two points of view may not be sufficient to secure critical infrastructure. The implementation of a dual-purpose strategy and change management principles is needed to further enhance the efficiency of security partnerships. Making security a fundamental element of the business models for CIP owners — without harming their ability to effectively compete — stands as a significant challenge in today’s rapidly expanding and globalized economies.

Developing strong, bi-directional trust agreements in today’s threat environment will take time and patience in order to mature into effective arrangements for both sides of this issue. Supporting and enhancing sector-specific plans for highly interdependent businesses looks to be the path of least resistance today. While the loss of infrastructure in these sectors would have tremendous impact, other less cross-reliant sectors have the potential for much more lethal incidents, particularly when viewed in the context of local impacts on other sector collated resources such as freight terminals, train switch yards and petrochemical manufacturing and storage facilities. Getting a community plan in place that looks at the risk scenarios across sectors is necessary and within reach.
— Bruce Walker

About the Author

Bruce Walker is the director of Homeland security for Northrop Grumman.

A CASE IN POINT:

America’s 131 million electricity customers are at risk if the grid goes down

Forty percent of energy consumption in America is in the form of electricity. At the center of the supply that fuels our food, shelter, water, law and order is the electric grid. But a decrease in transmission facilities and an increase in demand have left the grid so congested that the ongoing question of its vulnerability is one that security experts haven’t quite answered.Recently, the Office of Electric Reliability (OER) for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) raised the issue to House committees, suggesting that because the grid’s operating systems are connected to the Internet, the risk of cyberattack is escalating.

The OER has the responsibility to oversee mandatory, enforceable reliability standards for the electric grid based on the Energy Policy Act of 2005, enacted by Congress in August 2005. Joseph McClelland, director of the OER, recently presented stronger regulations that he sees are necessary to secure the grid. Among the committeewas the House Homeland Security Cybersecurity Subcommittee.

Chairmen hit back at the regulations, recommending that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) develop a better system for guiding private industry efforts to secure control systems.

“[If] this administration doesn’t recognize and prioritize these problems soon, the future isn’t going to be pretty,” says Jim Langevin, D-R.I. “For a society whose very function depends on reliable power, the disruption of electricity to chemical plants, banks, refineries, hospitals, water systems and military installations presents a terrifying scenario.”

 

Responding to the chairmens’ requests to get DHS involved was Gregory Garcia, DHS assistant secretary of cybersecurity and telecommunication. Because the nation’s power generation facilities are not the property of the government, Garcia says that it is hard for DHS to develop standards. “Because the private sector owns and operates 90 percent or so of the critical infrastructure that we need to protect, responsibility for protecting our nation’s control systems lies heavily with the private sector,” Garcia says.

 

Jim Woolsey, vice president of Booz Allen & Hamilton for Global Strategic Security and former director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), agrees with Garcia about the lack of responsibility across the board.

 

“Authority for security of the grid is not clear in federal legislation. Right now, most security responsibility is under the state level, and at that level, a lot of the people thinking about security are not thinking about things like an attack to the grid. They are thinking about guards and gates at headquarters,” Woolsey says. “We need a federal role. We need to give authority to FERC energy experts.”

 

Woolsey has his own concerns about the grid’s vulnerabilities, which center in two areas. The first is the aforementioned cyber threat to the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, which are the electronic controls for the grid. Terrorists could study these systems that distribute electricity and plan attacks to create system collapses. Although he says that there are some good fixes for this vulnerability out there, he hasn’t seen any investments in them. “It costs money and there is no incentive under the current system for the grid to be maintained in a secure and redundant way,” Woolsey says. “Because SCADA is being increasingly hooked up over the Internet using standardized software products, we’ve reduced the resilience of the grid, and we really need to take steps to make it more resistant against these hacks.”

 

The second major vulnerability is the physical threat to transformers, which Woolsey says are not even protected by a covering. “Transformers just need a simple bulletproof protection. They sit out in electric substations and can take a substantial amount of time to replace. Also, there are hardly any spares, and for some reason, which I don’t understand, the spares are stored right next to the ones being used.”

 

Destroying a transformer (and its closely located spare) is an especially potent thought since the release of a video produced by the DHS. The video shows the results of a simulated attack on a power network, including a turbine that dramatically overheats and shuts down. It is known as the Aurora Generator Test.

 

“It’s so graphic,” says Amit Yoran, former U.S. cybersecurity chief for the Bush administration. “Talking about bits and bytes doesn’t have the same impact as seeing something catch fire.”

 

Even McClelland addressed the threat to equipment in his testimony, claiming that the prevalence in the industry of “legacy equipment” may not be readily adaptable for purposes of cybersecurity protection. His testimony states that if this equipment is left vulnerable, it could be the focal point of efforts to disrupt the grid, and that replacing this equipment or retrofitting it to incorporate cybersecurity protection could be costly. But a successful cyber attack could damage the bulk-power system and economy in ways that cost far more.

 

And according to an NERC survey of 236 industry executives, 65 percent of respondents believe it is highly likely that that aging infrastructure will impact reliability, and 53 percent believe that could be at a “high severity” level.

 

Bringing together his concerns for the grid, Woolsey says, “Those two things together, or a simultaneous attack on both, could be extremely serious.”

 

He says that another vulnerability is the fact that so many people rely on one central source of electricity, and that it is a good idea for hospitals, government buildings, police stations and even homes to have as much ability as they can to carry on critical functions, even if all electrical needs cannot be met.

 

“Generating electricity locally can help isolate failures, and can take a load off the grid,” Woolsey says. “If you can slim down on electricity needs, it can have a major effect and satisfy critical parts with locally generated energy and electricity.”

 

Woolsey points to a 2003 blackout that left 3 million without electricity because a tree branch fell on some power lines. In just 9 seconds an entire section of the Northeast and Canada was without power.

 

Woolsey says that vulnerability to attack will decrease — or increase — in time, depending on what the country does. “Right now we aren’t doing much to reduce it, but one bright spot is the increasing efficiency, reduced costs and improved performance of batteries, such as storage batteries and flow batteries. This all makes it feasible and affordable for buildings and homes to do their own electricity generation,” he says.

 

So would it just be a safer bet to have a grid that is more likely to recover after an attack rather than one that is more sustainable to what is most likely an inevitable attack? Woolsey says no. “If we make it more resilient against attack, we can make it easier to recover quickly. To do this we can stockpile spare transformers and move toward locally distributed generation.”
— Stephanie Silk

FROM ANOTHER INDUSTRY:

 

Four-tiered program leads the chemical and fertilizer industry’s efforts to secure its products

 

Responsibility for security of the chemical and fertilizer industries is shared among federal, state and local governments as well as the private sector. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) for any facility that manufactures, uses, stores or distributes certain chemicals above a specified quantity.

 

Appendix A of the standards, or the Chemicals of Interest (COI) list, enables DHS to identify any chemical facility that is a potentially high-risk facility. These facilities participate in the Chemical Security Program spelled out in the CFATS Interim Final Rule, which requires covered facilities to fulfill certain risk-based performance standards on security. The first step to determine a facility’s risk is to complete and submit a Chemical Security Assessment Tool (CSAT) Top Screen to DHS.

 

“The security issues that we are most concerned with are the [intentional] release of certain chemicals, and theft and diversion of materials that could be used as direct weapons or used indirectly to create weapons. [We are also interested in] chemicals that raise the issue of sabotage, and these would be chemicals that react with water,” says Marybeth Kelliher, deputy chief of the Policy and Programs Branch for the DHS Chemical Security Compliance Division.

 

The requirements encompassed 4,000 public comments from the industry, of which 75 percent came from propane producers, distributors and users. Comments from the propane industry led to a revision in which DHS focuses on high-risk facilities

Filling out a Top Screen will either place a facility in the preliminary tier or exclude them from the regulation altogether. If placed in the preliminary tier, DHS will notify the facility that they need to complete a Security Vulnerability Analysis (SVA).

 

An SVA will assess the security measures in place to mitigate or reduce the likelihood of success of an attack on an asset. The results of the analysis will then determine if that facility is labeled as high-risk.

 

The high-risk final tier facilities will need to complete a Site Security Plan (SSP), which captures specific security measures the facility must implement to meet the risk-based performance standards.

 

“We have the impression that it is an easy tool to use, and we hear from the industry that their objective by logging on early and taking the Top Screen is to get answers as early as possible,” Kelliher says.

 

Jim Schellhorn, director of environmental health, safety and security for Terra Industries Inc., Sioux City, Iowa, a nitrogen products manufacturer, says Terra has an active facility security program that includes protection of ammonium nitrate (which could be used to make a bomb).

 

He says that Terra is active in efforts to influence security policy and requirements within the fertilizer industry, and that they support reasonable, risk-based security requirements.

 

This program has prepared them for the Top Screen that DHS is requiring, and they have completed it at several of their facilities. Schellhorn says it was easy to use for the most part, but that they are concerned that smaller distribution and retail operations may have a more difficult time with compliance, attributing to the comments Kelliher says DHS already received.

 

Terra also wants consistent regulation across the United States, because as it is now, only Oklahoma, New York, Texas, South Carolina, California, Iowa, Kansas, Nevada and Maryland regulate ammonium nitrate.

 

H.R. 1680, the Secure Handling of Ammonium Nitrate Act of 2007 bill would authorize the regulation of the sale of ammonium nitrate, applying to any ammonium nitrate with a minimum of 33 percent nitrogen. As of press time, the bill had passed in the House, but not in the Senate.

 

“It’s our opinion that this legislation is not going to have a significant downside for future use of ammonium nitrate in agriculture,” Schellhorn says.

 

Richard Gupton, vice president of Legislative Policy and Counsel for the Agricultural Retailers Association (ARA), says that as an active member of the Chemical Sector Coordinating Council, the ARA is supportive of the tier system DHS is providing.

 

Similar to the requests of the propane industry and Terra, Gupton says that the ARA recommended that DHS remove the chemical urea off of Appendix A. He says that it poses no security risk on its own, and that it needs to be combined with other products such as nitric acid.

 

The ARA, along with Terra, subscribe to a required SVA that addresses the unique characteristics of Ag Retailers. Their vulnerability index, based on the SVA results, finds that 83 percent of facilities have low security vulnerabilities, 17 percent have medium vulnerabilities and zero percent have high vulnerabilities.

 

“We’re confident that those retailers that would have to go through DHS security regulations would be screened out and not be considered a high-risk facility,” he says.

 

Both Kelliher and Schellhorn are looking forward to the possible results of this new endeavor.

 

“A lot of the facilities that we are expecting to work with are what I consider good corporate citizens when it comes to security. And we’d like to give credit where credit is due for a security facility’s performance,” Kelliher says.

 

The comments of Marybeth Kelliher, Jim Schellhorn and Richard Gupton are quoted with permission from a Webinar sponsored by Pike & Fischer, a provider of business, legal and regulatory information covering multiple areas including the agricultural chemical and fertilizer industry. The Webinar is available at www.pf.com.
— Stephanie Silk

 

W.H.’s CIA Investigation

Obama’s CIA Investigation Pure Arrogance

Tuesday, September 1, 2009 10:47 AMBy: David Limbaugh

President Barack Obama is either extraordinarily politically tone-deaf or arrogant beyond bounds, as indicated by his relentless pursuit of policies strongly rejected by the American people. His decision or acquiescence in the Department of Justice’s decision to reinvestigate CIA terrorist interrogators is the latest outrage.Obama’s approval ratings have cratered even further since my most recent column, and he’s either Mr. Magoo, driving along in blissful oblivion, or Fearless Leader, who will do what he wants, American people be damned. Based on Obama’s oft-articulated mindset — “I won, so the other side should just quit talking” — I think it’s safe to say he’s closer to dictator than to Magoo. Besides, Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to begin a new investigation of the CIA interrogators has Obama’s national security-emasculating fingerprints all over it. Obama has been railing against alleged “torture” of terrorist detainees since early in the presidential campaign. He has endlessly apologized for American “imperialism,” even going so far as to castigate our policy toward Iran of more than three decades ago, but giving that mullah-run state a pass for its egregiously hostile policies and behavior toward us. On top of this, Obama is closing Gitmo with no plan to relocate the dangerous prisoners; he has directed that many of these terrorists be tried in civilian courts; he’s abandoned the term “war on terror” in favor of “overseas contingency operations”; his administration has ordered that captured terrorists be Mirandized on the battlefield; and he’s now going to further weaken the CIA by reassigning terrorist interrogation duties to an interagency entity operated out of the White House. What more evidence do we need that this decision is Obama’s handiwork? “Heavens, no,” say his defenders. “Obama is to be commended for distancing himself from the Department of Justice, which has finally achieved some independence, unlike during the Bush years.” Eric Holder, they say, is being guided by the law, not politics, and Obama is choosing not to intervene, despite his earlier promise that he would “look forward and not backward” with regard to the CIA torture issues. Nice try, but Obama chose Holder precisely because he shares Obama’s worldview. Obama might feign detachment from this decision, but the American people aren’t nearly as gullible as he thinks, as witnessed by their informed vocal opposition to his Obamacare scheme. To suggest that Holder is not a political animal is laughable. Just consider, among the litany, his instrumental role in the pardoning of Marc Rich, his decision to dismiss an already-won case against New Black Panther Party members for voter intimidation activities, and his decision to get a second opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel on his own Justice Department’s apolitical decision that granting voters in the District of Columbia a voting representative in the House would be unconstitutional. Even more telling than Holder’s MO of selectively putting politics above the law is his decision in this case, which reeks of politics and not blind justice. The Justice Department already conducted a thorough review of these dozen or so cases and, with one exception, affirmatively concluded that they should not be prosecuted. In its “declination memos,” the department stated that there was “insufficient evidence of criminal conduct; insufficient evidence of the subject’s involvement; insufficient evidence of criminal intent; [and] low probability of conviction.” Jennifer Rubin, for The Weekly Standard, reports that many former Justice attorneys stated that the federal prosecutors who reviewed these cases “were seasoned professionals” who would have blown the whistle had political appointees pressured them. Another former Justice lawyer said that a new prosecution would probably encounter “an insurmountable problem” unless “new facts” emerged. Yet as Rubin notes, there’s no hint that Holder has reviewed the former task force’s findings or conducted interviews himself. Adding insult to injury, Holder has delegated the task of second-opinion making to the Office of Professional Responsibility, which is an odd choice to conduct an investigation of non-lawyer CIA agents because its job, as Rubin observes, is to oversee lawyers’ professional and ethical conduct. The question of whether to prosecute the interrogators has been asked and answered by career professionals, who insist Obama couldn’t get a conviction if he were to decide to prosecute. If Obama proceeds with this outrage on top of all the rest, he might just secure approval ratings so low that even ACORN and the New Black Panthers won’t be able to gerrymander and intimidate his party to victory in 2010. David Limbaugh is a writer, author, and attorney. His book “Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today’s Democratic Party” was released recently in paperback. To find out more about David Limbaugh, please visit his Web site at http://www.DavidLimbaugh.com.   © 2009 Creator’s Syndicate Inc.

Why government access wants to track users

The Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative

By Jill R. Aitoro 06/01/2009

What Is It?

That’s a question many people have been asking ever since President George W. Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 54 (a.k.a. Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23) on Jan. 8, 2008. The directive called for the formation of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative, information that the Bush administration kept confidential, as has, so far, the Obama administration.

Here’s what we know.

The Bush administration developed CNCI to improve how the federal government protects sensitive information from hackers and nation states trying to break into agency networks. The Bush White House assembled the initiative after a string of cyberattacks on multiple agency computer systems.

CNCI attempts to unify agencies’ fragmented approach to federal cybersecurity by reworking and expanding existing programs and developing new security programs that are better at reducing the risk that networks can be hacked.

The initiative’s budget officially has been kept secret, but some cyber analysts estimated it to be $40 billion, spread over several years. According to the Washington Post, Bush’s single-largest request for funds in the fiscal 2009 intelligence budget was for CNCI, although specific figures were not released.

A Glimpse Inside

In October 2008, the Bush administration revealed some details about the program — the biggest glimpse into the initiative to date. The Homeland Security Department revealed CNCI included 12 components that either formalized existing cybersecurity processes or introduced new policies and business practices to better protect computer networks and systems. DHS released details on only a few components, some of which had been previously made public:

Trusted Internet Connections. The Office of Management and Budget announced this program in November 2007 with the goal of decreasing the number of connections that agencies had to external computer networks to 100 or less. Officials believe that the fewer connections agencies have to the Internet, the easier it will be for them to monitor and detect security incidents.

TIC requires agencies to use Einstein, an automated system DHS developed that collects security information and then sends it to the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team. Agencies reduced the number of Internet connections by 39 percent in the first four months of 2008, from more than 4,300 to 2,758, OMB reported.

The Bush White House ordered agencies to provide plans of action and milestones to OMB by Oct. 15, and reminded them that TIC services can be bought through the Networx contract. The Obama administration has not yet provided an update on how many more connections agencies have closed down.

Intrusion detection. Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security secretary during the Bush administration, outlined in letter dated July 18, 2008, to Congress his plans to deploy sensors in agencies’ networks that would detect malicious software and alert the Einstein system to security breaches in real time. The sensors, Chertoff wrote, would provide visibility throughout the federal cyberspace to identify vulnerabilities, risks and how to fight the attacks.

Intrusion prevention. Most cybersecurity specialists say computer networks must be monitored in order to identify cyberattacks before they successfully break into the system. Critics said the initial version of Einstein did not allow for network monitoring or include other intrusion prevention tools, a major flaw of the system. DHS added those capabilities in a later edition of Einstein. Obama requested funds in his fiscal 2010 budget to pay for monitoring and detection tools for the system.

Global supply chain security. There are no standards to secure the flow of goods and services worldwide. This poses huge risks to the global economy from malicious software and hardware, which hackers can implant in equipment and sell to agencies, allowing cyber spies a back door into networks to steal information. The equipment also can find its way into contractors’ networks, providing hackers a window into federal systems. How vulnerable the supply chain is to cyberattacks became evident this year when computer networks operated by a Defense Department contractor that supports a major weapons program were breached.

Other CNCI components include research and development, cyber counterintelligence, classified network security, cyber education and training, implementation of information security technologies, deterrence strategies, public-private collaboration and situational awareness.

The Bush administration established the National Cyber Security Center to coordinate information from agencies to secure networks and foster collaboration.

Why So Secret?

The Bush administration said it kept details of CNCI secret for national security reasons. The decision drew criticism.

In May 2008, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee sent a letter to DHS requesting specific information about the secrecy of the project. In February 2009, Gregory Garcia, then assistant secretary of cybersecurity and telecommunications at DHS, said, “there was too much classified” under the initiative, “which was not helpful politically and not helpful in getting the word out. We had to walk that line between raised awareness of what was being accomplished and not letting out too much information that could cause us to be targeted. Still, too much was kept secret.”

Who Runs the Cyber Show?

Who’s in charge of cybersecurity — and the billions of dollars that come with it — has been part of the Washington power struggle. DHS and the intelligence community view cybersecurity as part of their mission. The Bush directive authorized the National Security Agency to monitor agencies’ computer networks, including systems they had not previously monitored, the DHS deputy secretary announced that Homeland Security would coordinate “the protection of federal networks” that fall within the .gov, .mil and .ic domains.

Ultimately, both were right. The undersecretary for national protection and programs at DHS was charged with directing CNCI, relying on the US-CERT and its Einstein system to monitor agency networks. Defense and intelligence agencies were assigned an operational role, particularly for computer systems and networks deemed more sensitive to national security. Those agencies were expected to focus on counterterrorism efforts.

But the delicate balance of duties was quickly upset when Rod Beckstrom, director of the National Cybersecurity Center, resigned. In a letter dated March 5 announcing his resignation, he expressed frustration over the increasing influence of NSA on cybersecurity, pointing to the agency’s high levels of staffing and technology that support cyber initiatives. He also cited the proposed move of two DHS organizations, the National Protection and Programs Directorate and the National Cybersecurity Center, to an NSA facility at Fort Meade, Md. The agency effectively controls DHS cyber initiatives and dominates most national efforts, which Beckstrom called “a bad strategy.”

Others believe neither DHS nor the intelligence community should be placed in charge of cybersecurity initiatives. The Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency, which was created in October 2007 to provide recommendations in cybersecurity policy for the next administration, said the White House should take the lead in managing the government’s cybersecurity program. “We need to let people know that this is part of what a responsible government does,” said Jim Lewis, program manager for the commission. “For that to happen, the White House has to push this. People won’t listen to another agency telling them what to do.”

What’s Next?

Obama has not commented publicly about the status of CNCI, but he made clear two months into his presidency that cybersecurity would be a top priority. In February, the White House announced that Melissa Hathaway, who serves as the cyber coordination executive at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and was senior adviser to the former DNI Mike McConnell, would lead a 60-day review of overall cyber organization and strategy in the federal government.

As senior director for cyberspace for the National Security and Homeland Security councils, Hathaway described the review as an opportunity to start from a clean slate. The review identified more than 250 requirements that a comprehensive cybersecurity program should address. The requirements fall into four areas of interests that officials identified:

— Governance. How policy coordination and operational activities will be organized across the executive branch.

— Architecture. How to enable performance, cost and security in cyberspace through standards, research and development, procurement, and monitoring the supply chain.

— Normative behaviors. How best to introduce laws, regulations and international treaties that encourage a more secure cyberspace.

— Capacity building. How to bolster resources, activities, research and training to support cybersecurity efforts in the public and private sectors.

Specifics won’t be available until results of the review are released, but components of CNCI likely will continue under the Obama administration in some form — though with greater oversight from the White House. Administration officials confirmed that the White House will not play an operational role in implementing Obama’s cybersecurity agenda, but will provide guidance to synchronize agencies’ missions and responsibilities, and many suspect a cybersecurity coordination office will be established to directly advise the president.