posted
No, he admitted he took them and lost at least one of them already, apparantly a sensitive one.
What's not clear is whether the commission received the missing document; I'm assuming they did since we know what's in them.
I doubt this guy turned them over to anyone hostile to the U.S. If anything, it makes you wonder if all the hand-written notes got returned. Maybe there's some embarassing notation there from someone in the Clinton White House.
posted
I will wait for more info, but contrary to the 1st post, I did hear about this in my morning newspaper, and on that bastion of liberal propaganda, NPR.
Which did a long bit about it, not just a 20 second headline.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Washington Post carried it as well. And did an e-mail alert about it.
They're pretty liberal.
I'll hope all the people whining about the "liberal media" will remember this coverage next time they don't like how the latest conservative idiocy is exposed in the press.
By the way, if this story pans out, I expect this person to spend time in jail. You don't mess with Classified material and get away with it. I don't care who you are.
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posted
Well see how many months they dwell on this, Bob. If it's still on the front page daily in 6 months we can talk about the liberal media not being liberal.
Come to think of this, has anyone see this on the front page anywhere? It's a really big deal. Sandy Berger was a big name in the Clinton White House and is advising the Johns on national security too. (did the Wash Post story mention that?)
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
The Pixiest...you REALLY want to believe the media has a strong liberal bias and will only believe it if a story like this is on the front page for 6 months??? Desperate much? I don't suppose the extensive press coverage of the Clinton impeachment hearings and constant press coverage of Ken Starr's witch hunt for much longer than 6 months would convince you the media is conservative, now would it? Sheesh.
That said, interesting article. It will be interesting to see where it heads (he isn't under arrest according to the article, hasn't been interviewed and so far says he complied with providing needed documents...hmmm....).
quote:A story you won't find on the front page of your local newspaper.
Bet it's in even more newspapers tomorrow. And it was one of the top stories on "The Today Show" this morning.
It's interesting that after months of investigation, this leaks to the press shortly before the Democratic convention. Part of the coverage of the convention will no doubt involve discussions of Berger and his role as a Kerry advisor.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
sndrake, interesting point. This is starting to look like a pattern for the Bush campaign...counter any news of the Democrats (like Kerry adding Edwards on ticket, impending convention) with something to distract. First it was the terrorist threat that was significant enough to get the big man on the air and make vague threats but not enough to use the vaunted color coded "how afraid we should be" index. Now this. Hmmm...
I think this also is a good distraction from all the news from the 9/11 Commission about how, regardless of this Clinton scandal, it points to the fact we are in a war built upon false information provided by shoddy intelligence. Any distraction from that would be a welcome one.
Look for in the news more things to start to take apart the 9/11 report when it officially comes out and break it down...not by addressing facts contained in it, but to look at the people who put it together, how they did, what was missing, etc. Smoke and mirrors.
That said, it will be interesting to see what comes out of this.
posted
I checked, it was on the news section of my hometown newspaper, but I'm 1,500 miles away and can't check the front page right now.
I'll give you a point for effort, though.
One thing, though - this liberal media that will ignore the story, is this the same liberal media that drug Clinton through the mud over the whole Lewinsky scandal? Just wondering, cause you'd think that a liberal media would have let something like that die instead of talking about it for months (and even years) after the fact.
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posted
Fil: There's something happening every week it seems so there's always questionable timing. As for liberal bias, the Abu Graib non-story was on the front page for months. I put it to you that a former national security advisor pilfering evidence is a much larger story than a few corrupt prison guards.
Bob: I'm glad you think he should go to prison if he's convicted. I wonder though, if you think Clinton should also go to jail in the event it he requested this. Mr Berger DID say that he was doing it at the behest of the Clinton Administration.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Mr Berger DID say that he was doing it at the behest of the Clinton Administration.
*cough*
Let's try to be a little more specific, shall we? Berger was reviewing and selecting documents for the commission at the request of Clinton. He's NOT saying Clinton told him to take documents and notes.
Belongs with whoever it was in the Bush White House who outed a CIA operative to the press to apparently put pressure on Bush critic Joseph Wilson. We can assume the administration official is still there and has added lying to the FBI to their resume, since no one there has taken responsibility. Unfortunately, our "liberal" press got tired of covering that story.
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How was the fact that American Soldiers were torchering prisoners, and doing so either under the command of their suppierers, or with such a messed up chain of command that there was no oversight--a non-story?
This caused protests and dirtied the image of the US around the world, not because it was reported in a biased way, but because it was WRONG!
Did President Bush know? Did Rumsfield? They say no. The accused say yes.
How is this a non-story?
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
My experience is that when an individual makes a procedural error in the handling of classified information, but it can be proven that no compromise occurred, the individual is often not censured at all. When there is a compromise, the individual's access to classified information may be denied. However, even though there are penalties for the inadvertent or intentional release of classified information, there is rarely a prosecution for the offense.
One case from relatively recent history is that of ex CIA Director John Deutch.
quote:229. (U/ /FOUO) On April 14, 1999, Attorney General Janet Reno sent a letter to DCI Tenet [declining prosecution.] [The letter stated in part:]
The results of that [OIG] investigation have been reviewed for prosecutive merit and that prosecution has been declined. As I understand that Mr. Deutch currently holds a Top Secret security clearance, I suggest that the appropriate security officials at the Central Intelligence Agency review the results of this investigation to determine Mr. Deutch's continued suitability for access to national security information.
Ironically, the document is riddled with FOUO (For Official Use Only) as a classification marking. That means it should not be released to the general public. Go Figure.
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posted
Hmm, I've been listening to streaming NPR and I caught their coverage of the news. I'm listening to NPR's clasical music station and every once in a while they break into it and give some news ( ). The story was short since it is a classical station, not news. It started out with the basic facts (He has admitted to stealing classified documents) and then it moved onto an either moderate or Republican (I wasn't paying enough attention) who said "I think Kerry's first action on this matter should be to cut ties, or show cut ties with Berger". (Paraphrased). Then they had a Democratic response "It seems that this was released with the intention of harming berger's reputation, which is in our opinion's, unfortunate". Then they concluded it with "some feel that this is being used to cover the reports of the 911 commision for a few weeks" And that was it. A small statment of what happened, a call for Kerry to abondan this guy, a Democrat who feels the leaking was a bad thing (no comment on the stealing) and finally, the closing note was that some felt this was a Republican move to cover themselves.
As to Abu Ghraib. What happened there were the actions of a few people. It was under investigation long before the leak. It was not covered up, though it was requested that the news story be delayed as we had a number of, now headless, citizens being held hostage at the time. And in fact, the story WAS released months before but without pictures. It was only after pictures were released (a little at a time so the hoopla could be strung out) that outrage happened and the story caught on.
Further, the "torture" that was done there pales on comparison with ANYTHING that was done by Sadaam Hussein in that very same prison. No Iraqi terrorists woke up to find their hands cut off and a video camera in their face to record their expression... as happened under Sadaam. In fact, worse things happen on "24" and everyone praises Jack Bauer and wonders "is there nothing Jack won't do for his country?" (btw, I am not flaming 24. I like that show.)
Yes, this is reality not fiction. Yes, we're Americans, not Ba'athist dictators. Yes, we should be above all that. But the outrage was way over blown and did NOT deserve months and months of coverage. And the coverage was a disservice to our troops as it DID fire up our enemies.
quote:Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket, pants and socks, and also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio.
He "inadvertently" took the classified documents out in his portfolio. He intentionally took his handwritten notes out in his pants, socks, and underwear.
The PDF of his testimony is actually what you're not supposed to be reading while you're worrying about Berger's socks and underwear.
posted
Removing the handwritten notes is against the law as well. You seem to be saying that he deliberately broke one law and inadvertantly broke the other.
Well hey, that's much better.
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posted
Pixiest, except for the speculation about whether this was timed for the convention, no one here has belittled the significance of the offense nor said his actions were acceptable. They've just insited on an accurate characterization of the facts and pointed out the story is not being buried.
As much fun as it would be for this to be a smoking gun of a coverup for the Clinton administrations missteps in their fight against terrorism, it doesn't look like it's going to shape up that way.
And if it does, I guarantee we'll hear about it. On about November 1, say.
quote:There's something happening every week it seems so there's always questionable timing. As for liberal bias, the Abu Graib non-story was on the front page for months. I put it to you that a former national security advisor pilfering evidence is a much larger story than a few corrupt prison guards.
It actually isn't. It isn't because America holds itself up to be something that it's not - or, more precisely, because the war wasn't about WMD, wasn't about terror and finally, apparently, was about making people's lives better. The reason the tortures matter is because people are afraid that it is indicative of the approach of Coalition forces in Iraq towards the situation.
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posted
Let me clarify this situation, as I understand it:
Mr. Berger took home several copies of the same document, leaving other copies in the room; he claims that he was under the impression that the copies had been made after the fact, and were not part of the original press run; this also, he claims, explains his lack of care with those copies, as he is still not able to account for one of them. He also, after taking notes on the material, folded those notes and hid them in his clothing, deliberately sneaking them out of the building. (Note: this is the far more serious of the two offenses.)
Both of these actions technically violate the ground rules under which people with the appropriate clearances may review material, but are not in themselves likely to be considered seriously criminal unless the whole thing gets politicized. Nor are they particularly insidious, when you psuse for even a moment to think about it. In all cases, the material Mr. Berger is said to have "stolen" is neither irreplaceable nor particularly classified -- and, for the most part, seems to involve his own notes on the material he was reviewing, making it highly unlikely that he was seeking to either hide information or dig it up.
Frankly, I think he was just too arrogant to remember that the rules still applied to him. I'd still slap the guy hard, but it's so much less important than everything else that's going on nowadays that I wouldn't waste too much emotion on it.
quote: As for liberal bias, the Abu Graib non-story was on the front page for months.
Well, most of the Arab world disagrees with you there.
I was in the Army, and let me tell you that this isn't a random act. I wasn't in Iraq, but there are officers all over the place in prisons and there is no way that all theses events were hidden from them. They were done with official sanction, I would stake my life on it.
If the Army can see things that are happening half way across the globe when they want to, how could they have been unaware of the abuses in the Iraq prison system? Unless they didn't "want" to.....
I was ordered to do illegal things by my commanding officers when I was in the Army, and when I refused they made life hell for me. I don't even want to think what they would have done if we were in war at the time I served. I would have drawn every patrol into dangerous situations, and my support would have always been a little too slow, I'm sure.
We already have plenty of enemies in the region...the last thing we needed was to create another generation of bombers, which is what the abuse did.
posted
Oh, and I am not really liberal, compared to most.........I am a moderate, which seems to be a crime in some peoples minds these days.
He deserves to be punished, and I find it very particular that he would remove those documents. Obviously he is hiding something, either something that reflects poorly on himself or on the previous admin.
I know that when some TS documents went missing in my office I was in a whole lot of hot watr, and that was way before the Patriot Act was even heard of (outside of 1984)....And I wasn't even the one who misplaced them.
posted
"Obviously he is hiding something, either something that reflects poorly on himself or on the previous admin."
I'm pretty curious, myself. I just regret that, due to the nature of the documents in question, the public will never have the opportunity to actually know enough facts to move this out of the realm of speculation.
Which is, of course, why I don't believe in secrecy at any levels of government, but that's an issue for another thread. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Thanks for posting the link to that pdf file. That was probably the most interesting read I have seen all week.
I have often said that intelligence agencies get flack for what they miss, but that we never know about things they catch and prevent. However, in that testimony, he mentions several things that WERE caught by intelligence, and prevented, prior to 9/11. Things we may not have heard about before. In fact, several of the items were news to me.
quote: The intelligence and law enforcement communities succeeded in preventing a number of very bad things from happening before September 11. They thwarted the plot against New York landmarks in 1993. Together with Filipino authorities, they broke up a Manila-based plot to assassinate the Pope and blow up 12 American airliners over the Pacific in 1994-95. In 1998, they disrupted a plot to attack the U.S. Embassy in Albania -- we sent 100 Marines to Tirana in connection with that threat.
It is good to know that. (the positive side of things). And although I'm no fan of Clinton, it does sounds like he was better at foreign policy than I have ever given him credit for.
posted
I don't know if it counts as bias or not but yesterday i noticed that every story mentioned the suspicious timing of the leak, just 3 days before the 9-11 report. Yet when i hear about the 9-11 report no one says that it is coming out 3 or 4 days before the start of the democratic convention. Just thought that was wierd.
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posted
"Yet when i hear about the 9-11 report no one says that it is coming out 3 or 4 days before the start of the democratic convention."
That's probably because the Democrats, who would be the ones to ostensibly benefit from this timing, lobbied strenously to release the report EARLIER. So unless you think they were engaging in a bit of reverse psychology, the timing's not their doing.
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posted
I agree, zip. The timing is not news. Of course, someone complaining about the timing is news, so the information is going to be in the article either way.
If they'd come out earlier, someone would have complained about announcing it before there was proof. If it came out later, it would be too close to the election. If it came out after the election, someone would complain it was supressed by the liberal media.
The news media is so self-referential now that everything can be news, just because someone complains about it being covered or about it not being covered.
posted
Dag, the reason Dems are suspicious of the timing nowadays is that the FBI and CIA tend to leak things to the media specifically at the beck and call of the Bush Administration. This means the Bushies have been able to drive the pace of reporting at a level that seems, to people in the media, rather unprecedented. Ergo, whenever an unsourced "leak" from within the federal government brings something to the attention of a conservative reporter, there will be people who'll wonder why it was leaked at that specific time, given past history of timed leaks.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I know why the Dems are suspicious and, as I said, any comments they make about it are news.
Absent those comments, however, it seems inappropriate to add "three days before the democratic convention" without some evidence that this is related.
quote: That's probably because the Democrats, who would be the ones to ostensibly benefit from this timing, lobbied strenously to release the report EARLIER. So unless you think they were engaging in a bit of reverse psychology, the timing's not their doing.
You're not thinking conspiratorialy (is that even a word?) enough. Just because the timing wasn't influenced by the content doesn't mean that the content isn't influnced by the timing Gotta admit that is a little bit tinfoil hat even for me, but it is possible.
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quote: Several days later, after he had retained Breuer as counsel, Berger volunteered that he had also taken 40 to 50 pages of notes during three visits to the Archives beginning in July, the lawyer said.
posted
It's rare an op-ed sums up a situation exactly right, but this one did:
quote: Set aside Republican speculation that former Clinton national security adviser Samuel "Sandy" Berger was trying to hide classified information from the Sept. 11 commission or that he had provided the material to the Kerry campaign. Do likewise with Democratic suspicions that the FBI's investigation of Berger was leaked to distract attention from the commission's report. Those concerns, all unproven, are partisan and secondary. Keep the focus where it belongs. Did Sandy Berger violate the rules regarding the protection of classified information entrusted to him, and if he did, will he be held accountable for his actions?
posted
aspecter: Sandy Berger stole evidence from the 9/11 commision throwing the report's conclusions into question. (even more than it is. Significantly more.)
This is not a red herring.
We don't know what the documents said that he took. It could be something as simple as (watergate) campaign espionage or it could be to save the tatttered remains of his and/or Clinton's reputation.
What did Kerry know and when did he know it?
What did Clinton know and when did he/she know it?
BTW, the dems are now questioning the timing of the release of Bush's military records. That ole "Timing" red herring is good for EVERYTHING isn't it?
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). The story was short since it is a classical station, not news. It started out with the basic facts (He has admitted to stealing classified documents) and then it moved onto an either moderate or Republican (I wasn't paying enough attention) who said "I think Kerry's first action on this matter should be to cut ties, or show cut ties with Berger". (Paraphrased). Then they had a Democratic response "It seems that this was released with the intention of harming berger's reputation, which is in our opinion's, unfortunate". Then they concluded it with "some feel that this is being used to cover the reports of the 911 commision for a few weeks" And that was it. A small statment of what happened, a call for Kerry to abondan this guy, a Democrat who feels the leaking was a bad thing (no comment on the stealing) and finally, the closing note was that some felt this was a Republican move to cover themselves. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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