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Whitehouse PROFS email privacy case



this was a hot subject a long time ago on the list, here's a book
with the scoop


------- Forwarded Message
From: Phil Agre <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: PROFS Case: Book on White House e-mail

Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 12:50:49 -0500 (EST)
From: Eddie Becker <[email protected]>
Subject: PROFS Case: Book on White House e-mail

  NEW BOOK PROVIDES NARRATIVE ON PROFS CASE
  ALONG WITH REMARKABLE PRIMARY DOCUMENTS.
  Following Press Release    11/22/96
  REVELATIONS FROM --WHITE HOUSE E-MAIL: THE 
  TOP SECRET COMPUTER MESSAGES THE 
  REAGAN/BUSH WHITE HOUSE TRIED TO DESTROY, 
  Edited by Tom Blanton (New York: The New Press, 256 pp. 
  plus 1.44 megabyte computer disk), distributed by W.W. Norton 
  & Company.
  For more information, contact: Tom Blanton (o) 202/994-7000, 
  (h) 301/718-6543, [email protected]
  SECRET SUPPORT FOR SADDAM HUSSEIN
  Top Reagan administration officials, including Colin Powell, 
  presided over covert intelligence support to Saddam Hussein 
  during the Iran-Iraq War, including targeting information on 
  Iranian civilian infrastructure for Saddam's SCUD missiles.  In 
  secret e-mail messages, National Security Council staffer William 
  Cockell recommended -- and Deputy National Security Adviser 
  Alton Keel agreed -- they cover-up the assistance to Saddam, 
  because "it is difficult to characterize this as defensive assistance." 
  [pp. 36-41]  Subsequently, while Powell served as Deputy 
  National Security Adviser in 1987, the Reagan administration 
  discussed a "shopping list" of pro-Iraq actions in order to "stiffen 
  them up." [pp.235-237]
  HELPING NORIEGA "CLEAN UP HIS IMAGE"
  Three months after Seymour Hersh and The New York Times 
  exposed Manuel Noriega's involvement in drugrunning and 
  murder, Noriega approached the National Security Council staff 
  with an offer to assassinate the Nicaraguan Sandinista leadership.  
  Oliver North relayed the offer to his boss, National Security 
  Adviser John Poindexter, writing that "you will recall that over the 
  years Manuel Noriega in Panama and I have developed a fairly 
  good relationship."  Poindexter replies, "I have nothing against him 
  other than his illegal activities" and approves a North meeting with 
  Noriega -- as does Secretary of State George Shultz.  The 
  bottom line?  The White House agrees to help Noriega "clean up 
  his image" in return for Panamanian sabotage operations against 
  the Nicaraguan Sandinistas. [pp. 23-25]
  THE WHITE HOUSE SENDS A COCAINE CONSPIRATOR 
  TO CLUB FED
  Top Reagan administration officials from the White House, 
  Pentagon, and Justice Department just said yes to a reduced 
  prison sentence (in a minimum security facility) for a Honduran 
  colonel and sometime CIA asset who was convicted of cocaine 
  trafficking and conspiracy to assassinate the civilian president of 
  Honduras, because otherwise the colonel might "start singing 
  songs nobody wants to hear" about covert operations in 
  Honduras.  [pp. 42-48]
  SECRET DEALS WITH LOBBYISTS ON A 
  CONTROVERSIAL CONGRESSIONAL VOTE
  The White House struck a secret deal with the American Israel 
  Public Affairs Committee in the spring of 1986 to avoid an 
  AWACS-style all-out battle on a Saudi arms deal vote, and in 
  return got AIPAC's help on foreign aid funding and on the Iran-
  contra scandal.  But National Security Council staffer Howard 
  Teicher warned, "whatever one may think of the jewish 
  leadership, the 'masses' are rarely if ever swayed by what the 
  rational, reasonable leaders say.  instead, it is the israel right or 
  wrong demagogues at the grassroots level that will try to take 
  advantage of the leadership's pusillanimity."  [pp. 150-157]
  HIDDEN FAILURES OF THE POLYGRAPH 
  (PRECURSORS OF ALDRICH AMES)
  According to the National Security Council's top 
  counterintelligence official in 1985, career FBI agent David 
  Major, two out of the 48 individuals indicted, arrested and/or 
  convicted of espionage against the U.S. in the years 1975-85, 
  had successfully deceived the CIA's favorite screening tool, the 
  polygraph (lie detector) -- a 4% error rate.  (Aldrich Ames 
  subsequently beat the polygraph twice.)  [p.220]
  ROSS PEROT'S EGO RIDES AGAIN
  Ross Perot "sandbagged" the Reagan White House at a 1986 
  Congressional hearing on the POW-MIA issue, according to the 
  lead White House staffer on the issue, Col. Richard Childress, 
  who also wrote, "he has played into Hanoi's hands for his ego and 
  doesn't even know it."  [p. 162]
  MORE WHITE HOUSE E-MAIL STORIES
  * Then-Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin personally 
  arranged with Oliver North for secret shipments of captured PLO 
  weapons to Central America in September 1986, with the 
  approval of the National Security Adviser.  Rabin also 
  commented, according to North's e-mail, "at some length about 
  his low opinion of our intel service [CIA] - both in terms of 
  coverts ops and intelligence collecting," and promised "no more 
  Pollards."  [pp. 119-122]
  * The regular breakfast meetings in the Reagan administration of 
  the National Security Adviser, the Secretary of State (George 
  Shultz), and the Secretary of Defense (Caspar Weinberger) often 
  degenerated into what staffers called "slugfests."  p. 193
  * Contrary to claims in a recent autobiography, National Security 
  Adviser Robert McFarlane did not anticipate the collapse of the 
  Soviet Union and craft U.S. policy accordingly to pressure the 
  Soviets, rather, in his 1984 e-mail, McFarlane wrote "it will not 
  change ideologically and therefore our task is to establish a basis 
  for peaceful competition with them."  p.189
  * At the behest of Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Vice 
  President George Bush proposed a "7-point peace plan" during a 
  Middle East trip in 1986, only to have it shot down by White 
  House and State Department opposition back in Washington.  p. 
  200
  * While serving as Deputy National Security Adviser to President 
  Reagan in 1987, Colin Powell lived in an alarmed house at Fort 
  McNair which "scared hell out of the family initially and then 
  became amusing when the MPs assaulted the house every time 
  the alarm misfired."  p. 211
  * White House staffers joked about CIA Director William 
  Casey's renowned "mumbles," writing, "The last time he told 
  Goldwater we were going to 'lay some mines in Nicaragua,' 
  Goldwater thought he said we were going to 'pay some fines for 
  some joggers.'"  p. 214
                                        END     


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