Thread: DHS -Emails: Insiders worried over political 'meddling'

Emails: Insiders worried over political 'meddling'Mar 28 11:06 AM US/Eastern
By TED BRIDIS
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Insiders at the Homeland Security Department warned for months that senior Obama administration appointees were improperly delaying the releases of government files on politically sensitive topics as sought by citizens, journalists and watchdog groups under the Freedom of Information Act, according to uncensored emails newly obtained by The Associated Press.
The highly unusual political vetting was described as "meddling," "crazy" and "bananas!" It is the subject of a congressional hearing later this week and an ongoing inquiry by the department's inspector general.

Concerns came even from the official put in charge of submitting files to the political staff of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for the secretive reviews. Chief Privacy Officer Mary Ellen Callahan, who was appointed by Napolitano, complained in late 2009 that the vetting process was burdensome and said she wanted to change it.

Callahan is expected to be a central witness during an oversight hearing Thursday by the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. In emails, she warned that the Homeland Security Department might be sued over delays the political reviews were causing, and she hinted that a reporter might find out about the political scrutiny.

"This level of attention is CRAZY," Callahan wrote in December 2009 to her then-deputy, Catherine Papoi. Callahan said she hoped someone outside the Obama administration would discover details of the political reviews, possibly by asking for evidence of them under the Freedom of Information Act itself: "I really really want someone to FOIA this whole damn process," Callahan wrote.

Less than one week after Callahan's email, on Dec. 21, the AP formally requested the records about the controversial political vetting. The agency ultimately turned over more than 995 pages of emails last summer, after a seven-month fight, and the AP wrote about the program. But the emails were heavily censored under provisions in the Freedom of Information Act allowing the government to withhold passages that describe internal policy-making deliberations.

The newly obtained versions of the same internal emails are not censored. Together with other confidential emails obtained by the AP for the first time, the files reflect deep unease about the reviews and included allegations that Napolitano's senior political advisers might have hidden embarrassing or sensitive emails that journalists and watchdog groups had requested.

After an admitted al-Qaida operative tried to blow up a commercial airliner flying to Detroit on Christmas 2009, the AP asked for emails sent among Napolitano; her chief of staff, Noah Kroloff; deputy chief of staff Amy Shlossman; and four others. But the number of printed pages that Kroloff and Shlossman turned over to the FOIA unit was much less than what a computer search indicated should have existed, according to emails. The department said Monday that the disparity was an idiosyncrasy of how the computer searches were made and that no emails were hidden.

"When (the chief information office) pulled off the emails for these individuals, the page count is much higher, indicating that Shlossman and Kroloff possibly did not retrieve all the responsive emails or opted not to produce all responsive emails," Papoi wrote in May to Callahan. "I think we have an obligation to compare the hard copy emails to those pulled by the CIO from the individuals' email accounts to determine why the discrepancy."

Department spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said Monday that no emails were withheld by Napolitano's office, and no one complained that emails weren't turned over that should have been. The department's computer searches distinguish each email within a conversation thread as a separate message, so the number of printed pages from such searches appears higher than when someone manually prints emails from an inbox but the content is the same.

"At no point did anyone alert the office of the secretary or the office of the general counsel of concerns that responsive documents had not been submitted for review," Kudwa said in a statement. "Had any concerns been raised, appropriate steps would have been taken."

More recently, political advisers did not turn over copies of all emails they exchanged with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement that were the subject of requests under the Freedom of Information Act, according to people briefed on the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity. The emails were revealed only when the recipients elsewhere in the department provided them. An internal email from January said incorrectly that the missing messages involved a request by immigration rights advocates for government files about a controversial enforcement program, but questions about the emails actually involved two other requests around the same period, these people said.

The congressional investigation into government transparency under President Barack Obama is among the earliest by Republicans since they won control of the House and targets one of the first pledges Obama made after he moved into the White House.

The Freedom of Information Act, the main tool forcing the government to be more transparent, is designed to be insulated from political considerations. Anyone who seeks information through the law is supposed to get it unless disclosure would hurt national security, violate personal privacy or expose confidential decision-making in certain areas. People can request government records without specifying why they want them and are not obligated to provide personal information about themselves other than their name and an address where the records should be sent.

But at the Homeland Security Department, since July 2009, career employees were ordered to provide political staffers with information about the people who asked for records—such as where they lived and whether they were private citizens or reporters—and about the organizations where they worked. If a member of Congress sought such documents, employees were told to specify Democrat or Republican. No one in government was allowed to discuss the political reviews with anyone whose information request was affected by them.

Papoi was replaced earlier this month by her new boss, Delores J. Barber, who took over Papoi's title as deputy chief FOIA officer and moved into Papoi's office. The Republican chairman of the House oversight committee, Rep. Darrell Issa of California, said that "appeared to be an act of retaliation," after Issa identified Papoi as the employee who confidentially complained in March 2010 to the DHS inspector general about the political vetting of requests for government files.

The emails also raise doubts about whether the emails previously released to the AP were properly censored. "The government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed or because of speculative or abstract fears," Obama said shortly after he took office.

In a statement Sunday, Kudwa said, "Redaction decisions have always been made by FOIA professionals and career legal staff."

The government censored Callahan's email that described the "crazy" scrutiny by political advisers. It also censored another email by Holzerland, who told Callahan in September 2009 that the political reviews were "bananas!" Also censored were complaints by Papoi, the former deputy, that the political reviews were "meddling" and, together with "constant stonewalling" by the department's top lawyers, causing delays in the agency's open records department.

"I currently have 98 requests that are tagged by the front office for tracking and forwarding to the front office," Papoi wrote in one previously censored passage. "I simply don't have the time or staff to review all of those requests before we send them on. Quite honestly, we shouldn't have to."

The AP protested last year that the emails it received had been improperly censored, but the Homeland Security Department never responded to its formal appeal.

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Online:

Censored copies of government emails: http://www.dhs.gov/xfoia/gc_1283193904791.shtm



http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id ... _article=1

Janet Napolitano needs to resign and every person involved in these "reviews" and refusing to comply in full with the Freedom Of Information Act needs to be fired. Furthermore, the Department of Homeland Security needs to be disbanded.

The solution to securing our nation is clear. It's the responsibility of the states who need to all pass AZ immigration bills, post haste, and use their existing 800,000 sworn, trained and ready state and local law enforcement officers to enforce US immigration law including the joint use of National Guard troops on the borders. The Congress needs to pass a bill that denies any federal funding to any state that doesn't have such a law and/or refuses to enforce US immigration law to the letter and dime within the state boundaries or outside through the joint use of National Guard troops on the borders. States also need to gather up all their research and statistics, take it to Congress, post haste, and over-turn Plyler vs. Doe through national legislation in accordance with a rational national immigration policy that simply says each state shall enforce US immigration law and that prohibits the use of any public funding for any purpose to aid or abet any illegal alien including public education, except short-term emergency medical care or other expenses associated with detainment pending deportation.

Sure, there will be some states who want to play with illegal aliens, but they won't be able to do it with federal money. Sure, there will be efforts by some to continue to defy US immigration law and push the open borders agenda, but they will be few and far between and they won't last, the public pressure through their own voters will grind it to a halt in short order not to mention the pressure from other states to bring all our states into compliance with a citizen-state driven national policy that has zero tolerance for illegal immigration.

The federal government has completely betrayed the American people on the issue of national security and sovereignty. It has been complicit if not proactive in immigration law violations, open borders, integrating international populations into ours, robbing our citizens of both their lives and livelihoods and destroying our economy, all the while bankrupting our governments with treasonous policies and traitor laws.

It's time for all Americans to unite with each other and the Rock of Reason to stop this insanity, end the madness and regain control of our country which is a nation of the people, by the people and for the people of the United States, not every other nation on the planet.