[lit-ideas] Re: One Plus One equals Russia
- From: Eric <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 04:42:48 -0400
'Republican lawmakers threatened to force the disclosure, so intelligence officials
freed the material…' [NY Times editorial]
What an astonishingly unexamined statement. The whole of Congress has tried at various times to have all sorts of documents and records released with absolutely no success. Until now.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/28/politics/28intel.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Conservative publications have pushed for months
to have the documents made public. In November,
Mr. Hoekstra and Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas,
chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
asked Mr. Negroponte to post the material.
When that request stalled, Mr. Hoekstra introduced
a bill on March 3 that would have forced the
posting. Mr. Negroponte began the release two
weeks later.
Under the program, documents are withheld only if
they include information like the names of Iraqis
raped by the secret police, instructions for using
explosives, intelligence sources or
"diplomatically sensitive" material.
In addition, the intelligence official said, known
forgeries are not posted. He said the database
included "a fair amount of forgeries," sold by
Iraqi hustlers or concocted by Iraqis opposed to
Mr. Hussein.
In previous Internet projects, volunteers have
tested software, scanned chemical compounds for
useful drugs and even searched radiotelescope data
for signals from extraterrestrial life.
The same volunteer spirit, though with a distinct
political twist, motivates the Arabic speakers who
are posting English versions of the Iraqi documents.
"I'm trying to pick up documents that shed light
on the political debate," said Joseph G. Shahda,
34, a Lebanese-born engineer who lives in a Boston
suburb and is spending hours every evening on
translations for the conservative Free Republic
site. "I think we prematurely concluded there was
no W.M.D. and no ties to Al Qaeda."
Mr. Shahda said he was proud he could help make
the documents public. "I live in this great
country, and it's a time of war," he said. "This
is the least I can do."
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