‘Zero Dark Thirty’ leak investigators now target of leak probe
By Marisa Taylor and Jonathan S. Landay
McClatchy Washington Bureau, December 20, 2013
WASHINGTON — More than two years after sensitive information about the Osama bin Laden raid was disclosed to Hollywood filmmakers, Pentagon and CIA investigations haven’t publicly held anyone accountable despite internal findings that the leakers were former CIA Director Leon Panetta and the Defense Department’s top intelligence official.
Instead, the Pentagon Inspector General’s Office is working to root out who might have disclosed the findings on Panetta and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers to a nonprofit watchdog group and to McClatchy.
While the information wasn’t classified, the inspector general’s office has pursued the new inquiry aggressively, grilling its own investigators, as well as the former director of its whistle-blowing unit, according to several people, including a congressional aide. They requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issues surrounding the 2012 movie “Zero Dark Thirty.”
“I’m concerned that the inspector general’s office is barking up the wrong tree,” said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who long has championed government whistle-blowing. “There’s no doubt they should look into the ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ fiasco, but they should focus on holding people accountable for leaking highly classified operational material instead of wasting time and money investigating who leaked the report.”
(More here.)
Comment from: Scott Horton
Sent: Saturday, December 21, 2013 2:41 AM
To:
Subject: ZD30 Probe Turns on Itself
The thesis consistently put forward by the sociologists who have studied bureaucratic uses of secrecy (Georg Simmel, Max Weber, Edward Shils, Daniel Patrick Moynihan) is that notwithstanding the claims of national security protection put forward by its promoters, in fact the essence of the use of secrecy consists of inter-bureaucratic rivalry designed to allow the institution wielding it to prevail in power struggles over its rivals. When the state is democratic, the victim in the power struggle is inevitably democracy itself—thus secrecy, not terrorism, becomes the prime culprit in a global war on democracy. This McClatchy story provides yet another vindication of that thesis. In sum, an internal probe learns that the bogus leaks that fueled the narrative of ZD30 came from the top (Leon Panetta personally, and others acting with his authority) and were motivated by a desire to polish the image of the CIA in the public eye through the use of information that was false or was heavily shaded to avoid the truth. Now the probe has turned on itself: who allowed the public to learn that we lied to them! In the warped, sick world of government secrecy in the era of Obama, and the CIA in particular, we must hold to account not the liars who sought to mislead the public (that's apparently something to be valued and protected), but those who outed them. This is the essential ethos of the new national security state.
McClatchy Washington Bureau, December 20, 2013
WASHINGTON — More than two years after sensitive information about the Osama bin Laden raid was disclosed to Hollywood filmmakers, Pentagon and CIA investigations haven’t publicly held anyone accountable despite internal findings that the leakers were former CIA Director Leon Panetta and the Defense Department’s top intelligence official.
Instead, the Pentagon Inspector General’s Office is working to root out who might have disclosed the findings on Panetta and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers to a nonprofit watchdog group and to McClatchy.
While the information wasn’t classified, the inspector general’s office has pursued the new inquiry aggressively, grilling its own investigators, as well as the former director of its whistle-blowing unit, according to several people, including a congressional aide. They requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issues surrounding the 2012 movie “Zero Dark Thirty.”
“I’m concerned that the inspector general’s office is barking up the wrong tree,” said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who long has championed government whistle-blowing. “There’s no doubt they should look into the ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ fiasco, but they should focus on holding people accountable for leaking highly classified operational material instead of wasting time and money investigating who leaked the report.”
(More here.)
Comment from: Scott Horton
Sent: Saturday, December 21, 2013 2:41 AM
To:
Subject: ZD30 Probe Turns on Itself
The thesis consistently put forward by the sociologists who have studied bureaucratic uses of secrecy (Georg Simmel, Max Weber, Edward Shils, Daniel Patrick Moynihan) is that notwithstanding the claims of national security protection put forward by its promoters, in fact the essence of the use of secrecy consists of inter-bureaucratic rivalry designed to allow the institution wielding it to prevail in power struggles over its rivals. When the state is democratic, the victim in the power struggle is inevitably democracy itself—thus secrecy, not terrorism, becomes the prime culprit in a global war on democracy. This McClatchy story provides yet another vindication of that thesis. In sum, an internal probe learns that the bogus leaks that fueled the narrative of ZD30 came from the top (Leon Panetta personally, and others acting with his authority) and were motivated by a desire to polish the image of the CIA in the public eye through the use of information that was false or was heavily shaded to avoid the truth. Now the probe has turned on itself: who allowed the public to learn that we lied to them! In the warped, sick world of government secrecy in the era of Obama, and the CIA in particular, we must hold to account not the liars who sought to mislead the public (that's apparently something to be valued and protected), but those who outed them. This is the essential ethos of the new national security state.
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