Outraged parent believes race is a factor; One teacher is embarrassed over ‘opt-out’ notes

President Obama is scheduled to give a nation-wide speech to schoolchildren on their first day back from summer vacation on September 8. The speech is billed as a national address to the students of America, however, conservatives have reacted by pressuring school districts to refrain from broadcasting the speech.

In response, schools in several southern states are giving parents an “opt-out” option for their children.

In Simpsonville, South Carolina, for example, the Bells Crossing Elementary school principal issued robocalls to parents telling them that letters would be sent home for them to sign if they did not want their children to watch the President’s speech.

An outraged parent, Chuck Hamilton, contacted Raw Story to complain about what he believes is a racist response to an African American president. “It is obvious to me that had this been Bush, or any other white Republican, the phone call and letter home would not have happened,” Hamilton wrote in an email.

But Bells Crossing Elementary School is not alone in its reaction to the President’s upcoming speech.

A call to the Greenville County School Board confirmed that all schools in that district are receiving calls from their own principals and having letters sent home.

Susan Richards, a spokesperson for the Greenville County School Board declined to answer questions as to why the board felt it necessary to take these measures. “You will have to speak to the Director of Communications, but he is not available right now.” A message was left for the Director, who has not responded.

Teacher at school embarrassed to hand out ‘opt-out’ materials

In an email exchange acquired by Raw Story, Mrs. Hamilton wrote to her child’s fifth grade teacher to express concern over the school’s actions. The Hamiltons have requested that the teacher’s information be kept private.

In response, the teacher expressed “embarrassment” over the way the whole matter has been handled:”

I wholeheartedly agree with you.  In fact, I was and still am embarrassed to pass out those notes or that it was even necessary to do so. Even if I didn’t agree with the policies of the leader of our country - his message isn’t intended to “brainwash the youth of America”  (being TOTALLY sarcastic….) but meant for a positive message in which I am guessing the speech he is going to give is similar to the one he gave his own children at the beginning of the school year.

Feel free to rant…..I have rants of my own~!

Even as teachers and parents express outrage at the school board’s response to the President’s speech, more documented cases are emerging across the country.

In North Carolina, the Dare County School Board is taking similar measures. Another concerned parent, who wishes to remain anonymous, contacted Raw Story about a newsletter item that was sent out and posted on the board’s web site:

According to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, on Tuesday, September 8, at 12 noon, President Barack Obama will deliver a national address to encourage students to set high academic goals and to do their best to succeed in school.

Any parent who wishes for his/her children not to participate may “opt out” by contacting the school(s) where the children are enrolled. Principals will be contacting parents by various means, such as with forms, electronic mail, websites, or via an announcement on the educational television station. If parents have any questions, they should call the school(s) where the children attend.

The Dare County School Board did not return calls for comment.

ABC News also reported that similar school actions are being taken in six states. According to Jake Tapper, “districts in Texas, Illinois, Virginia, Wisconsin, Missouri and Minnesota are even refusing to show the president’s address.”

Talking Points Behind School Reactions?

It is unclear at this point if the reaction from conservatives is nothing more than a political effort by the party to fire up the base against the President or if there is genuine concern from parents, thereby forcing the schools to in turn respond.

But there is plenty of stoking by Conservative pundits and local chapters of the GOP, with eerily similar talking points, claiming that Obama is enacting some sort of socialist indoctrination program.

Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, for example, wrote in a September 1 column on her blog: “Will Obama be able to resist issuing a call to youth arms to marshal help in passing his legislative agenda?”

A blog called GOP Counter Culture pushed for a boycott, asking conservatives to call school boards across the country.

“Tell the school no thanks, your child will PASS. I heard about this first on Glenn Beck’s radio program today,” the blog stated. “And on Michelle Malkin’s website, a board member writes that the DoE usurped them and went straight to the principals on this.”

WorldNetDaily, a right-wing publication, reported on various bloggers and comments from conservative parents who are attempting to create a Keep Your Child at Home Day, citing as an example a comment from the right-wing Free Republic forum.

“I am not going to compare President Obama to Hitler. We’ll leave that to others and you can form your own opinions about them and their analogies. … However, we can learn a lot from the spread of propaganda in Europe that led to Hitler’s power. A key ingredient in that spread of propaganda was through the youth,” wrote a blogger at the AmericanElephant.com blog, where the subject of the day was a national “Keep-Your-Child-at-Home-Day.

CBS News spoke with Jim Greer, the chairman of the Florida Republican Party who used almost identical language in describing Obama’s scheduled speech:

“The idea that school children across our nation will be forced to watch the President justify his plans for government-run health care, banks, and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other President, is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power,” Greer told the network.

Fox News pundits, like Glenn Beck, are also front and center, using the same terminology to label the Obama’s back to school speech as “indoctrination.”

Media Matters for America, a media watchdog organization has documented additional claims from the right that Obama’s speech is seeking to indoctrinate Americas youth and references to Hitler and Socialism, all very similar.

Parent called ‘n*gger loving communist’ for defending Obama speech in paper

After complaints about the plan to have students’ lesson plans include an assignment on “how to help” the president surfaced — the White House did reverse course on Thursday and say they’ll rewrite the primer.

Among the ideas suggested for pre-K to 6th grade students was to “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.”

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor told Fox News that new language will make “lesson plans clearer,” and that a planned Obama speech to students “is not a policy speech, but is intended to encourage kids to work hard and commit to school.”

MSNBC’s Domenico Montanaro wrote, “Since the White House has said the text of the speech will be available for 24 hours before he delivers it and since they altered the lesson plan language, why is this still a controversy? The ability of the conservative media machine to generate a controversy for this White House is amazing. In fact, this is an example of a story that percolates where it becomes harder and harder for some to claim there’s some knee-jerk liberal media bias. (Does anyone remember these kinds of controversies in the summer of 2001?) The ability of some conservatives to create media firestorms is still much greater than liberals these days.”

RAW STORY was unable to confirm if any school boards offered “opt outs” for speeches by Republican Presidents, but race could be a factor on some level.

A parent who was quoted in a local newspaper later wrote on Twitter that she received an anonymous phone call which used the n-word to attack her.

“It seems like there’s a concerted effort to undermine President Obama by people on the right, and I think this is part of that,” Teresa Kopec told South Carolina’s Spartanburg Herald-Journal. “I disagreed with George W. Bush for most of his presidency, but I never disparaged him in front of the kids or told them not to respect the office. By dragging children into this as pawns, and threatening to take them out of school … That just sends a terrible message to our youth.”

Kopec later Tweeted, “I just got anonymous phone call calling me a ‘n*gger loving communist’ for giving pro-Obama statement to local paper.”

Lawyer declines to say how he found out accuser didn’t talk to Justice Department

Karl Rove’s latest attempt to proclaim his innocence and demand apologies from those who have accused him of being behind the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman may backfire if it turns out that Rove was improperly receiving inside information after leaving his position as Deputy White House Chief of Staff.

“For more than two years,” Rove writes in the Wall Street Journal, “House Judiciary Committee Democrats and the New York Times editorial board have argued that I personally arranged for Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman to be prosecuted in 2004 for corruption and ordered the removal of eight U.S. attorneys in 2006 for failing to investigate Democrats. The Washington Post editorial board also echoed this last charge. The Times and the Post have published a combined 18 editorials on these issues, which were also catnip to House Judiciary Committee Democrats.”

Rove then goes on to attack Dana Jill Simpson, an Alabama Republican lawyer turned whistleblower who has linked him to the Siegelman prosecution. In doing so, however, he raises serious questions of impropriety by revealing that he has received confidential information from both the House Judiciary Committee and the Department of Justice.

“Committee staff confided to me that they considered her an unreliable witness,” Rove says of Simpson. “I also understand that Mr. Siegelman and Ms. Simpson refused to cooperate with the Justice Department’s review of his claim of political persecution, while I willingly gave sworn testimony.”

Simpson’s allegations

Simpson — who worked for then-Republican Congressman Bob Riley as an opposition researcher during his successful 2002 campaign to unseat then-Governor Don Siegelman — alleged in a 2007 affidavit that Riley’s campaign staff had used unscrupulous means to force Siegelman not to contest the outcome of the election and also stated that “Karl” had taken a personal interest in the matter.

In even more explosive testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Simpson further described a conference call during which Riley campaign advisor Bill Canary said that “Rove had spoken with the Department of Justice” about “pursuing” Siegelman and advised Riley’s staff “not to worry about Don Siegelman” because “‘his girls’ would take care of” the governor.

Canary is a longtime friend and business associate of Karl Rove, and the “girls” to whom he allegedly referred were his wife Leura Canary, who was US Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama, and Alice Martin, who was US Attorney for the Northern District.

Siegelman had been the target of a series of investigations launched by his political opponents just a few weeks after he took office as governor in 1999, and those investigations were escalated from the state to the federal level by Bush Administration appointees in 2001. He was charged with corruption in 2005, just as he was attempting a political comeback, was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison, and is currently out on appeal.

Rove’s op-ed is intended in part to refute persistent claims, by Siegelman and others, that he was directly involved in the prosecution.

The Office of Professional Responsibility

Simpson’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, along with other evidence, prompted an investigation into Leura Canary and Alice Martin by the Office of Professional Responsibility, which is tasked with investigating corruption allegations against attorneys employed by the Department of Justice.

Rove’s remarkable admission that he “understand[s] that Mr. Siegelman and Ms. Simpson refused to cooperate with the Justice Department’s review of his claim of political persecution, while I willingly gave sworn testimony,” opens both Rove himself and and the OPR to questions of serious impropriety.

Pricilla Duncan, Simpson’s former attorney, said during a Thursday morning phone interview that she was concerned and wanted to know “how Rove could possibly know who the [Department of Justice] was interviewing and which witnesses were cooperating or not?”

When asked for comment, Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin, clarified Rove’s statement about Simpson refusing to cooperate. He wrote in an email to Raw Story, “I think he’s referring to the current round of hearings/interviews. You are correct that she provided an affidavit and interview previously. She did decline to cooperate with the OPR investigation at Justice.”

Luskin declined, however, to comment as to how he found out Simpson had not testified.

Fresh questions about the Department of Justice

Asked if Rove’s claims were true and if her former client had in fact refused to cooperate with OPR, Duncan said yes. But her revelations about why Simpson had refused to cooperate raise additional questions of impropriety by the Department of Justice.

According to documents supplied by Duncan to Raw Story — two of which are emails between Duncan and the DOJ and are quoted below — the OPR appears to have been investigating Simpson herself rather than the US Attorneys whom Simpson had alleged were involved in political prosecution of Don Siegelman.

Duncan says, “My client refused to cooperate in an investigation that had nothing to do with her allegations, but were entirely focused on her personal life.”

On September 19, 2008, an OPR attorney — Lisa Howard — sent this email to Duncan, requesting Simpson’s cooperation:

From: Howard, Lisa (OPR)
To: XXXXXX
Sent: 9/19/2008 12:33:48 PM
Subject: Jill Simpson

Ms. Duncan - I am an attorney with the Office of Professional Responsibility at the U.S. Department of Justice involved in investigating allegations that former Alabama governor Don Siegelman’s prosecution was politically motivated. I have learned that you represented Ms. Simpson when she was interviewed by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary.

I would like to contact Ms. Simpson by letter to ask her to agree to an interview with OPR about the Siegelman matter. Do you still represent her, or can you tell me if she is represented by someone else? If she is unrepresented, can you tell me her mailing address? You can call me to discuss my request at 202-305-2544. Thank you.”

By this time, Simpson had been told by a former client, an ex-husband, and a former close friend that officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the DOJ had approached them asking questions about Simpson’s private life, including her adopted daughter, her sexual behavior, and her business practices.

“No one was asked about Siegelman or any of the allegations,” Duncan said.

When Duncan learned of these interviews, she refused to let her client meet with OPR because “it became clear they were not investigating anyone but Jill.”

“They only asked me if Jill had anything more to add outside of her testimony and that was that,” Duncan added.

In response to the DOJ’s questioning of Simpson’s family and friends, Duncan wrote an email to Lisa Howard:

From: Priscilla Duncan
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 12:56 PM
To: Howard, Lisa (OPR)
Subject: RE: Jill Simpson

Dear Ms. Howard:

My client and I have been waiting for your OPR report on Gov. Siegelman’s case with interest.

To our understanding, the only efforts your office put forth in this matter were to hire Jim Sullivan, the criminal division chief for discredited U.S. Attorney Alice Martin, and William Causey, from your office, to attempt to badger Miss Simpson’s former client, a husband she has not seen in 12 years and an old girlfriend into saying something to discredit her.

(redacted material)

It was the suspicion that this sort of “investigation” was what your office had in mind that convinced Ms. Simpson not to participate in this sham investigation. Any attempts to discredit Ms. Simpson by your office will be met with litigation against the individuals involved. Since there is no remote connection with your charge in this inquiry, you and your minions have no hope of claiming prosecutory privilege.

Columbia law professor and legal contributor to Harper’s Magazine, Scott Horton, who has been investigating the matter, confirms part of Duncan’s account.

“Rove’s claim that Simpson failed to cooperate with the DOJ investigation is untruthful — and this is a point I have studied,” Horton wrote in an email to Raw Story.

“In fact what happened was this: DOJ investigators contacted Simpson’s attorney and asked her whether Simpson had any information to share beyond her testimony and the documents she produced to Congress. She said “no.” That was the end of it. Simpson was entirely willing to meet and discuss the matter with the investigators — unlike Rove. And also unlike Rove, she had already testified and been crossexamined under oath and had produced her documents, so it was not really necessary.”

Lisa Howard of OPR did not return calls for comment.

Rove’s claims of an inside source at the House Judiciary Committee

In addition to the claims relating to Ms. Simpson, Rove also wrote in his op-ed that “Committee staff confided to me that they considered [Simpson] an unreliable witness.”

In this reporter’s conversations with the House Judiciary Committee, Simpson was always described as a credible witness. Horton confirms that he has had much the same experience in his own dealings with HJC staffers.

“I have spoken repeatedly with Committee staff myself and formed exactly the opposite view,” wrote Horton in an email. “They consider Simpson a highly credible witness. Moreover, you don’t need to take my word for it since we have explicit evidence for just that proposition: they issued a report which relies, heavily and repeatedly, on Simpson’s testimony — not something which they would have done had they disbelieved her or found her testimony not credible,”

“What Rove means to say, perhaps, is this: “I have spoken with _Republican_ staffers at the Judiciary Committee,…” And yes, it is clear that the job of Republican staffers on the committee was to challenge Simpson’s credibility. The peak of this effort came when Randy Forbes (R-VA) claimed that there was no evidence to corroborate Simpson’s claims of a telephone conference with Rob Riley’s office on a specific date. Recall that Artur Davis (D-AL) turned Forbes into a proverbial greasespot by whipping out the phone records and showing that they did, in fact, reflect exactly the call she discussed at the time she discussed it. The Republican staffers, as usual, did no research, resting instead on Rove’s “facts” as facts.

“But this shows just what I expected,” Horton continues, “namely that Rove was communicating with G.O.P. staffers throughout the process to get information about the investigation — a process that violated his understanding with the Committee. Just as he violated his agreement by giving “exclusive” interviews to the NY Times and Washington Post before the process was completed. What this shows is two-fold: Rove isn’t bothered in the slightest by breaking his agreements, and Rove is the master of the half-truth and the outright lie.”

Requests for comment to the House Judiciary Committee were not immediately returned.

Larisa Alexandrovna is managing editor of investigative news for Raw Story. Contact: larisa@rawstory.com.

Related Raw Story Articles

I: http://rawstory.com/08/blog/2007/11/26/the-permanent-republican-majority-how-a-coterie-of-republican-heavyweights-sent-a-governor-to-jail/

II: http://rawstory.com/08/blog/2007/11/27/daughter-of-jailed-governor-sees-white-house-hand-in-her-fathers-fall/

III: http://rawstory.com/08/blog/2007/12/16/running-elections-from-the-white-house/

http://rawstory.com/08/blog/2008/02/25/alabama-station-drops-broadcast-of-60-minutes-expose-on-political-prosecution-scandal/

http://rawstory.com/08/blog/2008/02/25/in-exclusive-interview-alabama-whistleblower-says-rove-trying-to-smear-her/

VI: http://rawstory.com/08/blog/2008/05/01/break-ins-plague-targets-of-us-attorneys/

http://rawstory.com/08/blog/2008/06/05/justice-department-investigating-two-us-attorneys-for-political-prosecution/

Watch: During press conference, Bruce Fein says Obama ’shuts his eyes’ to ‘open confessions’ of war crimes

A grassroots coalition will file complaints today with the Washington, D.C. bar against two Central Intelligence Agency lawyers for their involvement in authorizing the use of controversial interrogation techniques against detainees in US custody.

Velvet Revolution, a coalition of over 150 grassroots groups, will register complaints against CIA lawyers Jonathan M. Fredman and John A. Rizzo. Fredmen, who is currently counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, served as the Associate General counsel for the CIA from 2001-2004. Rizzo is the current Acting General Counsel for the CIA but is retiring this month. His nomination to become full General Counsel has been held up for years over his alleged role in enabling the CIA’s controversial interrogation program.

DC lawyer and activist Kevin Zeese, along with a former Reagan administration Associate Attorney General Bruce Fein, held a press conference this morning at the National Press Club in which they discussed the complaints they will be filing later today.

The complaints to be filed against Fredmen and Rizzo describe the role both men played in authorizing the CIA to use techniques generally considered torture against detainees in US custody, captured during the Bush administration.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano, in a statement to RAW STORY Monday, said, “We’ll give this the attention it deserves.”

A call placed to the Director of National Intelligence’s office was not immediately returned.

Detainee Crucified

Among the more startling revelations during the press conference today was an article describing how a detainee in Iraq had been “essentially crucified” during CIA interrogation.

According to a June 22 article in The New Yorker magazine, cited during the press conference today, an Iraqi prisoner in US custody was crucified – dying from asphyxiation while hanging from his arms during a CIA interrogation.

“An Iraqi prisoner named Manadel al-Jamadi died on November 4, 2003, while being interrogated by the C.I.A. at Abu Ghraib prison, outside Baghdad,” the New Yorker’s Jane Meyer wrote. “A forensic examiner found that he had essentially been crucified; he died from asphyxiation after having been hung by his arms, in a hood, and suffering broken ribs. Military pathologists classified the case a homicide.”

No charges have been sought against the interrogators from the CIA who participated in the death of al-Jamadi or CIA officers involved in other cases.

Zeese, the Velvet Revolution, the Bill of Rights Committee, Fein, and others also called on the dismissal of both Fredman and Rizzo from the Obama administration during the press conference today.

Rizzo is already on his way out. But the man nominated by President Obama, former Justice Department lawyer Stephen W. Preston, was loath to criticize his predecessor or the CIA’s activities during his May confirmation hearing.

Questioned whether he felt waterboarding constituted torture, Preston answered, “I have not reached that conclusion.”

Zeese said the “rule of law” must be applied in the case of the two men who led the CIA’s legal efforts.

“We call for dismissal of two torture architects still working in the Obama administration,” said Zeese. “The United States must face the reality of the extent of the torture program under the Bush-Cheney administration. War crimes were committed. The toxic poison of torture will not be removed from the body politic unless the rule of law is applied.”

Rizzo Complaint

John A. Rizzo has been a CIA lawyer for roughly 30 years. The Los Angeles Times has called him the “most influential career lawyer in CIA history, having risen to the top of the agency’s legal ranks while leaving his mark on classified programs from proxy wars in Central America to Predator strikes in Pakistan.”

Rizzo is currently the Acting General Counsel for the CIA and was Deputy General Counsel for the CIA prior to his current role. The complaint, which will be filed with the DC bar today, cites Rizzo’s authority as legal counsel in authorizing torture techniques.

“Specifically,” it reads, “Mr. Rizzo ignored over two centuries of historical and legal precedents, fell short of the bar of the ‘good faith’ imperative, and advanced suspect legal constructs and prescriptions for detainee interrogation well outside of legal norms, thereby providing the false cover of claimed legality for those who then engaged in acts and policies that, in fact, violated the following laws, both in letter and spirit:

1. The United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT), Articles 1, 2, 3 and 16 (ratified in October 1994), implemented by Sections 2340-2340A of title 18 of the United States Code.

2. The Geneva Conventions, Article 3, (ratified in August 1955)

3. The Eighth Amendment against “cruel and unusual punishment”

4. The “Separation of Powers” constructs and imperatives of the U.S. Constitution

5. The United States Criminal Code, Title 18, Prohibitions Against Torture (18 USC 2340A) and War Crimes (18 USC 2441)

The complaint against Rizzo further cites examples in which Rizzo allegedly participated in meetings authorizing torture or authored approval of certain techniques.

“On September 25, the most high-level senior Bush administration lawyers met at the Guantanamo Bay facility and included legal counsel from the President’s office (Alberto Gonzales), the Vice-President’s office (David Addington), the Department of Defense (Michael J. Haynes II), and the Department of Justice (Alice Fisher),” it reads. “With Mr. Rizzo representing the CIA which was overseeing the program, this group was there to observe and “green light” a brutal interrogation program, one that had begun months before with Zubadayah but was continued in a carefully prescribed program (minus waterboarding) with detainees at Guantanamo Bay.”

The full complaint can be read here.

Fredman Complaint

Fredman, meanwhile, was senior counsel within the Counterterrorism Center at the CIA during the Bush administration. According to the complaint, “Fredman approved a policy of torture and oversaw the details of its carefully prescribed application of violence, intimidation and humiliation intended to ‘enhance’ interrogations and aggressively coerce detainees at Guantanamo Bay (Cuba), Abu Ghraib (Iraq), Bagram AFB (Afghanistan), and ‘extraordinary rendition’ or ‘black’ sites in Thailand, Diego Garcia, Poland, Syria, Egypt and elsewhere.”

The complaint against Fredman also cites alleged involvement in authoring legal opinions and participating in meetings where these techniques were decided on.

“According to the first of two May 10, 2005 “Bradbury memos” addressed from the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) of the Department of Justice to Mr. Rizzo at the CIA, the so-called “enhanced techniques” included dietary manipulation, forced nudity, stress positions, abdominal slaps and waterboarding,” the complaint says. “The second May 10th memo addressed the use of combinations of these techniques. Together with the August 2002 memo authored by John Yoo and Jay Bybee, these memos set forth both the claim of legality and detailed guidelines for a brutal and abusive program of detainee treatment. This legal analysis, approved and advanced within the CIA by Mr. Rizzo and Mr. Fredman at CTC, gave the formal ‘in-writing’ green light to a program that led to documented abuses and scores of deaths within the detainee/interrogation system.”

The full Fredman complaint is available here.

Velvet Revolution and other groups filed similar complaints against Bush administration lawyers on May 18 with the state bars of DC, New York, California, Texas and Pennsylvania.

Two current CIA officers agree

Milton Bearden, a former Central Intelligence Agency Pakistan station chief who served at the agency for three decades, says claims that the Bush administration’s so-called enhanced interrogation techniques saved American lives are likely false.

The retired senior CIA officer also says that the former administration’s repeated assertions that attacks were foiled through torture are hurting US credibility abroad, endangering alliances and aiding the cause of would-be terrorists.

Bearden, who formerly headed the CIA’s Soviet/East European Division and served as station chief in Pakistan, Nigeria and Sudan, was a key figure in the funding and training of the mujahedeen in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. He retired in 1994 but says he has communicated with contacts who agree they’ve heard of no evidence to support Bush officials’ claims.

If the Bush administration had proof of a plot stopped by enhanced interrogation, they would have produced it, Bearden says. “I cannot imagine that the system would not have leaked such a story,” he insists. “It would have been leaked in a New York minute.”

Former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney publicly defended their harsh interrogation approach last month. However, the techniques approved by Bush administration lawyers in 2002 appear to be prohibited by both the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Convention against Torture, to which the US is a signatory.

Slapstick plots

Bearden is intimately familiar with the countries that some of the most prominent terror suspects have hailed from. He dismisses many of the alleged terror plots which have been made public.

“They dredge up the slapstick plot of the Liberty Seven or the strange Lyman Faris plot which included a blowtorch,” Bearden said. “But when asked for something more substantive, the [Bush administration] retreated behind the screen of protecting sources and methods. We are told to trust them.”

“When challenged on any aspect of national security,” he added, “the standard collection of administration acolytes instantly dredged up the now well known list of interdicted attacks against us.”

Vice President Dick Cheney has vigorously defended the interrogation program in recent months. In May, the former VP said the specter of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 caused the Bush administration to respond far more aggressively to avoid any future attacks and claimed that many attacks were thwarted as a result of harsh interrogation tactics.

“Every senior official who has been briefed on these classified matters knows of specific attacks that were in the planning stages and were stopped by the programs we put in place,” Cheney insisted.

Alleged damage to national security

Bearden argues that since we already know the methods used — in some cases including waterboarding — there should be no reason to hold back on exposing more substantive thwarted plots. He also believes that making claims of a thwarted plot but being unable to lay the “intelligence on the table” is harmful to US national security.

“Ronald Reagan laid his intelligence on the table almost immediately after his retaliatory attack against Tripoli following the Libyan attack of 1986 on the La Belle Disco in Berlin,” Bearden said. “Reagan let it be known that we had the Libyan codes and did this before he felt even a twinge of heat from the public or Congress because it was the right thing to do.”

Perhaps most significantly, Bearden believes that by making unsubstantiated claims of success in preventing attacks, the Bush administration has actually undermined US alliances with other nations. Bearden and the others he’s communicated with have not heard of any significant plots against the United States that were uncovered by the Bush administration’s harsh techniques — and that, he says, weakens US standing in the world.

“I have never been able to understand how any responsible leaders could so vehemently stick to the excuse of protecting sources and methods while that very position accounted for a weakening not only of this nation’s alliances, but potentially strengthened our enemies,” he said.

Two active CIA officers agree

Two other CIA officers, who have asked to remain anonymous due to their ongoing involvement in covert operations, seconded Bearden’s skepticism that any domestic plots of significance were disrupted during the Bush administration.

“Certain officials of the Bush administration would have had no qualms about exposing any of our officers, operational methods and sources of information if it meant scoring political points,” said one CIA covert officer, whose focus is the Middle-East, referring to the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson. “The fact that [the Bush administration officials] continue to use the protection of sources and methods as a reason for why they can produce no evidence of a serious plot is not believable given what they have already made public.”

Another current CIA officer who works the Near East agreed that if any plot had actually been disrupted, someone from the Bush administration would certainly have leaked the proof, noting, “Nothing is sacred to them.”

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has declined a request from former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman to review his appeal en banc - meaning the full court.

According to Scott Horton, a Columbia University law professor who has been following the Siegelman case for Harper’s Magazine, it is not uncommon for an appeals court to decline a full member — or en banc review — of a case.

An appeals court “usually hears cases when there is a sharp difference of opinion on a panel,” Horton said Friday morning during a phone interview. Horton noted that in Siegelman’s case “there was a unanimous decision” rendered.

When asked what this development means for the Siegelman case, Horton expressed little hope that Siegelman could avoid going back to jail to serve out what could possibly now be a 20-year term.

“[Siegelman] goes back for re-sentencing now. It will be difficult for him to stay out of jail because it is unlikely that the Supreme Court will hear this case,” Horton said.

In March, a three-judge panel from the 11th Circuit Court reversed two out of the seven charges of corruption and bribery relating to Siegelman’s conviction for appointing former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy to a state hospital regulatory board in exchange for money donated to a lottery initiative Siegelman was promoting.

The case has come under public scrutiny because of allegations that former White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Karl Rove, was behind the prosecutions for political motives. Leura Canary, the US Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama and who prosecuted Siegelman is married to Rove’s long-time friend and business partner William Canary.

Siegelman could not immediately be reached for comment.

Federal prosecutors said in a letter earlier this week that they want Siegelman to serve a much longer sentence than he originally received, even though an appellate court has already thrown out two of the charges against him.

They sent a letter to federal probation officers recommended Siegelman be sentenced to 20 years in federal prison when he is re-sentenced. Originally, he was sentenced to more than seven years in jail.

“It’s evident that this team of prosecutors are biased and hell-bent to uphold this conviction and try to punish me as much as they can,” Siegelman told the Associated Press Tuesday.

Over 1 million records on government’s combined watch list

The US government’s consolidated terrorist watch list has exceeded an estimated 400,000 “unique” records of “known or suspected terrorist identities,” according to a Justice Department report released today.

The controversial list, according to the report issued by the Office of the Inspector General Audit Division, is a combined database of various federal law enforcement agencies, administered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) via its Terrorist Screening Center (TSC).

As of 31 December 2008, 1.1 million records exist on the government’s combined watch list, according to the Inspector General’s report. That number, however, includes duplicate files and aliases and does not reflect the actual number of people on the terrorist watch list.

The TSC estimated, as of 9 September 2008, that the total number of “unique” individuals on the watch list was approximately 400,000.

The report is the result of an investigation by the Audit Division and discusses findings related to three objectives:

(1) [D]etermine whether subjects of FBI terrorism investigations are appropriately and timely watchlisted and if these records are updated with new identifying information as required; (2) determine whether subjects of closed FBI terrorism investigations are removed from the consolidated terrorist watchlist in a timely manner when appropriate; and (3) examine the FBI’s watchlist nomination practices for individuals that were not associated with current terrorism case designations.

What about those wrongly listed?

The current report does not, however, address issues where individuals have been flagged as a result of mistaken identity or due to various other reasons not related to terrorism or any form of illegal activity.

James Moore, a Texas journalist who wrote two searing books on former Bush White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, found himself included on a no-fly list, a component of the combined terrorist watch list, and has not been able to get his name removed. It is unclear why Moore was listed and why he remains on the list — but Moore told RAW STORY that the list hasn’t made anyone safer.

“The terrorist watchlist is an icon for government malfunction and abuse,” Moore wrote in an email message Wednesday. “Politicians can seemingly nominate their enemies for the list or have it done by proxy using their bureaucratic influence. And the lists are maintained using outdated matching software that is incapable of finding discrepancies in all of the various data formats used by federal agencies. The list has made a lot of work for a lot of bureaucrats but it hasn’t caught a single terrorist or made safer one American soul.”

According to a March 2004 USA Today article, “51,000 have filed ‘redress’ requests claiming they were wrongly included on the watchlist.” USA Today also noted at that time that in the vast majority of cases reviewed so far, it had turned out that the petitioners were not actually on the list, with most having been misidentified at airports because their names resembled others on it.

There have been 830 redress requests since 2005 where the person in question was, in fact, confirmed to be on the watch list. Further review by the screening center led to the removal of 150, or 18% of them.

The most visible case of consequences for an individual wrongly placed on the watchlist was Canadian software engineer Maher Arar. In 2002, Arar was detained at a New York City airport, then rendered without a court order to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured—all because Canadian officials had wrongly asked for his name to be included on a watchlist.

More often, however, those wrongly identified have merely had to endure the hassles of being on the no-fly list. In 2004, it was reported that both Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) had been inconvenienced in this manner.

These misidentifications are generally explained as affecting only individuals with common names which they might share with actual terrorism suspects. However, last year Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) called for a probe after learning that the name of CNN correspondent Drew Griffin had appeared on the no-fly list shortly after he had done an investigative report on weaknesses in the federal air marshal system. A TSA spokesperson insisted that any connection between the two events was “absolutely fabricated.”

Griffin’s case raises questions similar to Moore’s. Both seemingly ended up on the no-fly list after publishing something unfavorable about the Bush administration or administration officials.

The ACLU has called for the list to be reviewed and pared down to only “credible” threats.

Calls to the TSC for comment were not returned.

The government’s consolidated terrorist watch list was created in March 2004 by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 6, issued by then-President George W. Bush.

Internally the consolidated database of “known or suspected terrorists” is called the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB). It acts as the central registry for various federal departments and state agencies.

The Inspector General’s report released today reaffirms the findings of the Government Accountability Office’s report from February of last year, with a slight difference in the non-unique individuals count.

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Larisa Alexandrovna is managing editor of investigative news for Raw Story and regularly reports on intelligence and national security stories. Contact: larisa@rawstory.com.

Muriel Kane contributed to the reporting for this article.