The Ultra Secret FBI Criminal Files in the Chicago Field Office

In the first edition of their series of reports on corruption in Chicago, University of Illinois professors Thomas Gradel, Dick Simpson and Andris Zimelis included a good discussion of the evolution of machine politics over time.  They looked at the period with Mayor Richard J. Daley (1955-1976), as well as an equally-lengthy interval with his son, Richard M. Daley, serving as mayor (1989-2011).  The earlier regime drew its authority primarily from entrenched ties with ethnic communities, while the latter evolved a more sophisticated set of relationships with a variety of supporters including unions, corporations, and other special interest groups.  The report from the University of Illinois professors was written in early 2009, on the heels of the indictment of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.  And after listing a long train of successful convictions, they concluded simply that “corruption continues unabated in city, county, suburbs and state today.� 

The authors have gone on to write four more updates to this report, which are all available here.  The fourth edition was released in early 2011, following the last Daley term and the passing of the torch to new Mayor Rahm Emanuel.  This fourth report listed over 340 city officials convicted in public corruption cases in the past few decades, with little sign of any slowing in recent years.  The authors listed cases of “bribery, patronage, contract rigging, conflict of interest, nepotism/family ties, clout, and theft,� noting that they were pervasive across a range of agencies.

Chicagoans can be thankful for some prosecutors, but the “City that Works� and the state and federal government functions dealing with it haven’t earned a presumption of innocence.  A careful, cautious and even cynical perspective is warranted when considering the prospects for reform under new Mayor Rahm Emanuel, especially in light of the strong ties that helped lay the basis for his political career in recent decades.

And while thinking about the Chicago political environment and its relevance for the case of Sibel Edmonds, it is useful to be careful about distinctions between the two main parties in our political system.  We have Democrats and Republicans, on the one hand, and the rest of us, on the other hand.  The long train of scandals and convictions such as those laid out by the University of Illinois professors have entrenched bi-partisan roots, with Democrats as well as Republicans breeding disenchantment and suspicion.  The Edmonds case reaches across party lines, as well. Read more È

Department of Homeland Security Finds FOIA to be “Politically undesirable�! 

In theory, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) guarantees the legal right of the American public to obtain federal agency records. Judicially enforceable, FOIA was designed to ensure public access to Executive Branch records. The U.S. Supreme Court has stated that FOIA’s purpose “is to ensure an informed citizenry, vital to the functioning of a democratic society, needed to check against corruption and to hold governors accountable to the governed.�

In practice, FOIA morphed into a monstrosity that not only denies citizens their right to obtain information, but causes some of the requesters to become targets of investigations. The Supreme Court has consistently held that FOIA does not permit agencies to investigate either FOIA requesters or their reasons for submitting requests. In 2004, the Supreme Court held that “[a]s a general rule, withholding information under FOIA cannot be predicated on the identity of the requester.�

President Obama pledged to foster a new era of openness and transparency. On his first day in office, he issued memoranda relating to transparency and open government issues, including “Freedom of Information Act� and “Transparency and Open Government�. Inspirational speeches are great, but actions speak louder than words. The record reflects that during Obama’s presidency FOIA has become even less transparent than before. Those asking the questions and telling the truth are being prosecuted and otherwise attacked at the rate surpassing all prior American presidencies.

Undeterred by the facts, the so-called privacy advocates and government watchdogs (financed largely by the President’s supporters) recently bestowed a Transparency Award upon Obama. Come election time, it will undoubtedly be used to exemplify this administration’s achievements in the area of enhanced transparency. While the Transparency Award is resting next to the Nobel Peace Prize on the Presidential mantel, let’s examine the facts.

One of the government’s most despised agencies, the Department of Homeland Security, has been hard at work trying to steam-clean the wrinkly uniform of its public image. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform recently completed an 8-month investigation that exposed the DHS under Secretary Janet Napolitano of corrupting the agency’s FOIA compliance procedures, exerting political pressure on FOIA compliance officers, and undermining the federal government’s accountability to the American people.

A New Era of Openness? How and Why Political Staff at DHS Interfered with the FOIA Process

Sounds bad? Just wait, because it’s a lot worse than you might think. The DHS staff attempted to frustrate the Congressional investigation through official non-cooperation, tampered with witnesses and even tried to steal Committee documents. Yes, you’re reading this right. After a witness interview on March 4, 2011, Reid Cox (one of the DHS lawyers) stuffed Committee’s exhibits into his bag and headed straight for the door. Republicans and Democrats alike protested that the Department’s attorney couldn’t leave with the Committee’s exhibits. Cox disagreed and kept on going. The report noted, “Any attempt to steal Committee documents is a serious matter. If the motive for stealing Committee documents is to use them to conduct a forensic investigation to identify a Committee source, it creates an extremely sensitive situation. The Department was notified that any future efforts to remove documents would not be tolerated.�

In a March 4, 2011 e-mail to the DHS’ Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs Nelson Peacock, members of the Congressional committee stated: “[W]e have had some bizarre exchanges with your lawyers. They keep trying to steal the exhibits we show the witnesses.�

What was in those exhibits that the agency is so determined to hide? Some of the highlights include the evidence that career FOIA professionals at the DHS have been stymied in their statutory compliance by the unprecedented intrusion of Napolitano’s political appointees, also known as the “Front Officeâ€� staff (Noah Kroloff, John Sandweg, Amy Shlossman, Julia Fox and Jordan Grossman). Chief Privacy Officer and Chief FOIA Officer is another one of Napolitano’s political appointees, Mary Ellen Callahan. Read more È

Today marks Boiling Frogs Post’s fifth month of operation, and the last day of our fundraising campaign. On behalf of our team members I want to thank all of you for your support, with a special thanks to 658 of you who donated to our cause. We may not have reached our benchmark for our desired objectives and planned expansion, but we have you and a good start, so we’ll continue as best as we can, and work toward those objectives.

I am thrilled to announce the addition of a new team member, Luke Ryland, a good friend and a partner whom I have known and worked with since 2006; please welcome Luke and here is his bio:

Luke Ryland is an independent political analyst and online journalist based in Australia. He has been an expert commentator on the Sibel Edmonds case and nuclear black market cases for various progressive radio shows and online publications. Mr. Ryland’s work focuses on the nuclear black market, the Turkish lobby in the US, the energy and geopolitical wars in Central Asia, and the corruption of US Congress. Mr. Ryland has an MBA and a Bachelors degree in Commerce from the University of Melbourne. Visit Luke Ryland’s website.

We recently published Luke Ryland’s expose on FBI documents confirming major criminal investigations of Turkish operatives and their US official friends in Chicago. And here is a link to a recent interview with Mr. Ryland conducted by Scott Horton of AntiWar.Org: Click here.

Starting this coming Wednesday I’ll be on the road for a few weeks, traveling for work and personal matters. I won’t be out of touch. We have three Boiling Frogs interviews, one of which will be posted every other week: Professor Francis Boyle, Naomi Wolf, and Peter Phillips. Meanwhile, Peter B Collins and I will find ways to overcome significant time zone differences and connection difficulties, and continue to conduct additional interviews. We will also have articles and analyses by our contributors, and of course Paul Jamiol’s great editorial cartoons.

Here is my list of noteworthy articles and links from this past week:

Let’s start with our President, since we’ve been keeping tabs on his changes on his promised changes. The following piece is also related to the Obama White House’s 180 degree turn on protection for national security whistleblowers, which we’ve been covering for over a week.

A little secret about Obama’s transparency
Andrew Malcolm, LA Times

The current administration, challenged by the president to be the most open, is now denying more Freedom of Information Act requests than Bush did.

The Democratic administration of Barack Obama, who denounced his predecessor, George W. Bush, as the most secretive in history, is now denying more Freedom of Information Act requests than the Republican did.

Transparency and openness were so important to the new president that on his first full day in office, he dispatched a much-publicized memo saying: “All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open government. The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.”
One of the exemptions allowed to deny Freedom of Information requests has been used by the Obama administration 70,779 times in its first year; the same exemption was used 47,395 times in Bush’s final budget year.

An Associated Press examination of 17 major agencies’ handling of FOIA requests found denials 466,872 times, an increase of nearly 50% from the 2008 fiscal year under Bush.
…

We’ve been keeping tabs, and our list of ‘Bush-Like’ and ‘Worse-Than-Bush’ points has been expanding continuously. Mr. Obama’s love and usage of State Secrets Privilege, his position against government whistleblowers, his support for illegal domestic wiretapping, his passion for wars and drones, his kind-heartedness towards torturers & other criminals…During his first few months in office, a few of his previously duped supporters were too generous and maybe a bit too naïve to label him ‘Bush-Lite.’ How about now? Is it time to call the President ‘Bush-Dark’? You be the judge; what say you?

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 Karzai talks peace with militant group linked to Taliban
Deb Riechmann, AP

President Hamid Karzai held an unprecedented meeting yesterday with representatives of a major Taliban-linked militant group, boosting his outreach to insurgency leaders to end the eight-year war.

Less certain is whether the talks with the weakened Hizb-i-Islami faction represent a game-changer in the conflict, given its demand to rewrite the Afghan constitution and force a quick exit of foreign forces.

It is the first time that high-ranking representatives of the group, led by warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, have traveled to Kabul to discuss peace. The reconciliation offer from Hekmatyar contrasts with his reputation as a ruthless extremist.

Hekmatyar, who is in his 60s, was a major recipient of US military aid during the war against the Soviets in the 1980s but fell out of favor with Washington because of his role in the civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal. The US government declared Hekmatyar a “global terrorist’’ in February 2003, saying he participated in and supported terror acts committed by Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Unless that tag is removed, the designation could complicate any move by the United States to sign off on a deal, even though in recent years Hekmatyar has expressed a willingness to negotiate with the Karzai government. A spokesman for Hekmatyar said the delegation had lunch with Karzai at the presidential palace and planned to meet with him again.

…

Last January our team member duo, Liz Gould and Paul Fitzgerald, wrote an excellent piece on this opium dealing terrorist, who happened to get his grooming from our very own CIA. If you haven’t read the Gould-Fitzgerald piece titled ‘Apocalypse of the American Mind’, click here. Was he ever off the CIA list of ‘operators’? I for one would certainly doubt it.

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NATO rejects Russia’s demand to destroy Afghan poppy fields
Deutsche Press-Agentur

 Brussels – NATO and Russia clashed on Wednesday over how to tackle the drug problem in Afghanistan, where Western nations have been fighting a Taliban-led insurgency for eight years.

The country is the world’s largest producer of poppy seeds, a key ingredient in the manufacture of heroin. Russia is keen to pursue an aggressive eradication strategy, while Western allies fear that such an approach risks antagonizing the local population, who rely on selling poppy crops to survive.

The different points of view came to a head at a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council attended by the head of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Agency (FSKN), Victor Ivanov and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

‘Afghan opiates led to the death of 1 million people by overdose in the last 10 years, and that is United Nations data. Is that not a threat to world peace and security?’ Ivanov asked journalists after the meeting.

…

Russians know very well what this is about. After all, they used to be a major player in ‘this’ particular field, and now a bit grumpy because…their share of this pie has been significantly reduced? Certainly it’s not about a million+ deaths caused by ‘overdose;’ of that much I can assure you. So maybe our guys will let their guys have a bit more; like this maybe: Read more È

Distorting & Undermining Institutional Accountability & The U.S. legal system
By William Weaver

The impulse to secrecy is now the dominant trait of federal government.  Public access to information is disappearing faster than the Amazon rain forest, and a recent case is an important example of how this impulse distorts and undermines crucial institutional accountability and the U.S. legal system.  The Freedom of Information Act meant to put knowledge in the hands of the people so they could make intelligent decisions about public policy and subject the government to the cleansing effects of public scrutiny.  Over the decades, courts have pared down the reach of FOIA by upholding agency refusals to disclose information that are questionable and sometimes transparently motivated by desires to avoid embarrassment, public scrutiny, or revelation of criminal acts perpetrated by the government.

Courts will even accept no response as an acceptable response under FOIA in a rather strange device known as a Glomar Response.  Built by Howard Hughes under the guise of a private vessel designed to mine manganese nodules from the ocean floor, the Glomar Explorer was actually designed and built in the early 1970s to recover nuclear weapons and other material from a sunken Soviet submarine.  A FOIA request for information concerning the relationship between the CIA and the Glomar Explorer was met with rejection and an explanation that,

“the fact of the existence or non-existence of the records . . . request[ed] would relate to information pertaining to intelligence sources and methods which the Director of Central Intelligence has the responsibility to protect from unauthorized disclosure.�

The Glomar Response was designed to permit the CIA to remain silent in the face of requests for information when the very fact of possession or lack of possession of the requested documents would compromise national security.  Although the government abandoned its position in the original case, Glomar responses are now routinely accepted by the courts.  As one all-star appellate panel claimed in justifying judicial timidity,

“When a pattern of responses itself reveals classified information, the only way to keep secrets is to maintain silence uniformly. And this is what the CIA has done.�

With complete predictability, a myriad of federal agencies seized on the doctrine.  Since the mid-1990s, the NSA, FBI, Department of Justice, U.S. Marshall’s Service, Department of State, and even the U.S. Customs Service, have used the Glomar Response.  But nowhere in FOIA are agencies given the right to not respond to requests for information; the courts supplied them with that benefit by creating it as a judge-made rule.  Self-emasculation has become a high art by the federal judiciary in national security cases.   Obviously, such a tool as Glomar is very useful to federal agencies to avoid scrutiny and blanket requests with the pall of national security – whether or not a real national security concern underlies any particular matter. Read more È