Click here to read the actual law here if interested

When I was trained as a Classification Advisory Officer with the NSA, I learned that the most important factor in terms of releasing or redacting information were the exceptions. For example, with the Freedom of Information Act, all information is releasable to US persons upon request barring 9 mostly boring exceptions that don't apply to the Epstein Transparency Law because it has its own set.

Let's look at the allowed exceptions….

"(A) contain personally identifiable information of victims or victims’ personal and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy;"

Makes sense. Don't victimize the victims.

"(B) depict or contain child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) as defined under 18 U.S.C. 2256 and prohibited under 18 U.S.C. 2252–2252A;"

Pretty self-evident here.

"(C) would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution, provided that such withholding is narrowly tailored and temporary;"

Might bear weight if they hadn't specifically issued a statement that there were going to be no more investigations:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1407001/dl

"(D) depict or contain images of death, physical abuse, or injury of any person; or" [continued in (E)]

Also clear and appreciated. I don't want to see that crap either.

"(E) contain information specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy and are in fact properly classified pursuant to such Executive order."

Ok, let's break that one down a little further… Exception E requires a standing Executive Order, that it be national defense/fp related, and be properly classified. Basically it has to be "properly classified" which refers to any controlled documents including "for official use only" (now referred to as "Controlled Unclassified Information") or legit classified stuff. You can easily identify a document that was ever in a controlled status by the required "portion marks" on every paragraph and section:

A typical document with portion marking at the beginning of the page and each paragraph

Fun fact: after I left the NSA it was a LONG TIME before I finally stopped reflexively starting every paragraph with portion marks.

Now that you understand the rules…

Let's play a redaction game!

Challenge #1

Here's a redacted document where you see Jeffrey Epstein (of course) receiving emails from someone who's name is redacted:

DOJ redactions that are illegal if they don't meet one or more exemptions

Which exemptions apply?

1. ❌ No, this clearly wasn't a victim
2. ❌ Not an image
3. ❌ Not pursuant to an investigation (by their own admission)
4. ❌ Not an image
5. ❌ No portion marks, so NOT classified or controlled

Oops. That's an illegal redaction DOJ. Strike one.

Challenge #2

Here's an image. What do you see?

A 2019 text exchange between Jeffrey Epstein and Steve Bannon

Which exemptions apply?

1. ❌ No, this clearly wasn't a victim
2. ❌ No child visible
3. ❌ Not pursuant to an investigation (by their own admission)
4. ❌ Not related to death, physical abuse, or injury
5. ❌ No portion marks, so NOT classified or controlled

Oops. That's an illegal redaction DOJ. Strike two.

Challenge #3

Let's look at another redacted page… or in this case hundreds of pages all look exactly the same:

119 pages identically blocked out. See for yourself: EFTA00005586

1. ❌ 119 pages of victim names on every line and no other content? Fat chance
2. ❌ 119 pages of Grand Jury documents of only of full page photos of smut? No way
3. ❌ Not pursuant to an investigation (by their own admission)
4. ❌ Same as 2, no chance
5. ❌ No portion marks, so NOT classified or controlled

In case there was a question of whether they really could simply be classified documents and warrant full page redaction, first; US Classified/Foreign Party documents marked "Grand Jury-NY"? Please. Secondly, here's what a full page redaction actually looks like:

Courtesy https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/foia/2019-04-18/redactions-declassified-file

Do you see it? Yup! The portion marks are covered here, but the classification and other control markings are still visible. You will NEVER see a page without any kind of control or portion marks… let alone hundreds in a row. This definitely doesn't count as "in fact properly classified…" per the 5th exception.

Oops. That's an illegal redaction DOJ. Strike three.

Now YOU try!

Go check out any redacted Epstein documents and look for the black bars. Do they cover things that clearly fall into one or more exemptions? I'll be honest, I tried, and I haven't been able to find a single proper redaction yet. Maybe you'll have more luck…

Double-pointer!

Here's the best part: "(2) All redactions must be accompanied by a written justification published in the Federal Register and submitted to Congress." Has that happened? I very seriously doubt it and, if I'm right, that's compounded disregard for the law.

1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12: Thomas W. Phelan: 9781889140162: Books
(See online!)

Addressing the task of disciplining children ages 2 through 12 without arguing, yelling, or spanking, this program offers easy-to-follow steps to immediately manage troublesome behavior with reason, patience, and compassion.

My wife found this book when my kids were still very young and I'm so grateful she did. There's no reason to yell or plead or punish harshly. Simply give them some viable options, list the REASONABLE consequences for non-compliance, and then follow through. It couldn't be simpler and its effective as things based in human Psychology tend to be.

This is awesome terrible. Apparently a UK immigration officer added his wife to the no-fly list when she was out of country effectively stranding her.

Based on the lack of details and the fact that she could have just taken a ferry not an airplane, this story doesn't really seem that likely, but it's making the rounds and the most important issue here is that the possibility of a single government official working alone abusing the system. While important security databases are poorly controlled, these kinds of abuses are possible.

Speaking of, I found a supposed copy of the no fly list online. Check it out!

I'm outta office. Too late sucka!

E-mail records required by law to be available were "lost" during the Bush administration and somehow no one seemed to end up bearing the responsibility. That aside, the e-mails have now been "found" and it will be very interesting to see what's in them.

Meredith Fuchs, general counsel to the National Security Archive, said "many poor choices were made during the Bush administration and there was little concern about the availability of e-mail records despite the fact that they were contending with regular subpoenas for records and had a legal obligation to preserve their records."

"We may never discover the full story of what happened here," said Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director. "It seems like they just didn't want the e-mails preserved."

"It seems like they just didn't want the e-mails preserved"…. No kidding. During a time when they were blocking the subpeona's of congress for Whitehouse staffers to testify against them for the screwups of WMDs in Iraq, the CIA leak, the security agency spying case, and more. I wonder what they could have to hide?

More importantly, can they retro-actively impeach him or is there some kind of statue of limitations? One of the biggest mistakes Obama has already made was to say that we should look forward and not back. That is incorrect mister president. The American public needs to see that abusers of power are held accountable. Make it so!

(Image is in the Public Domain)

Though they originally blamed it on anti-virus software on the machines, Diebold has admitted that it was coding error that leads its machines to drop votes. Hopefully that will help in the lawsuit against Diebold and encourage others states to recoup their losses as well.

(Image is used under the Pixabay license)

Here's an article about the White House's struggle with keeping required records: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080824-white-house-memo-no-white-house-email-recovery-this-year.html

Why do we need to hold people accountable for abuse?

(Image used under: Creative Commons 2.0 [SRC])

I found this online petition to remove Pelosi for failing to do her job and being a political hack. Even if Congress couldn't pull an actual impeachment (which I believe they could for trying to block investigations of the White House staff alone), then they could still do something.

(Image used under: Creative Commons 2.0 [SRC])

Schneier covers two videos explaining why it's a bad idea to say anything to police when arrested or investigated.

The first video is a law school professor explaining why he's proud to say he will never talk to a police officer under any circumstances. Here are some highlights:

• There are tens of thousands of federal crimes. Many of which are so broad, you could be convicted under completely bogus circumstances.
• Example: If the IRS just wants to "Ask you a few questions" you say no unless they grant you immunity
• There is NO way it can help you. But even if you tell the absolute truth and are totally innocent, there are many ways it can hurt you.

The neat thing is that he gave up half his time to an expert law-enforcement interviewer. The second video is of that expert interviewer explaining some of the tips and tricks he uses to get people to talk. Highlights include:

• Any cop can follow you for a time and find a legitimate violation to pull you over for
• He'll come into the room with a stack of papers with a videotape on top (so they think there's a video) and just start doing paperwork. Because people hate silence, eventually the suspect will start talking
• He brings in a tape recorder and eventually says, "I want to talk to you off the record" and he turns it off. The thing is there's no such thing as "off the record" and every word in an interrogation room is recorded.
• While you may technically be innocent until proven guilty, a jury assumes that if you're sitting next to a defense attorney, you have a reason to be there.
• If you didn't know already, police are allowed to lie in interviews

The last thing he stressed which seemed supported by the rest of his talk was that he never tries to send an innocent person to jail. Which so long as the interviewer your talking to has that same viewpoint is very comforting. Since you can't know their intentions, I think it's safer to take the first guy's advice and not talk to the police without representation.

George W. Bush

(Image used under: Fair Use doctrine)

This makes me sick.

George W. Bush

(Image used under: Fair Use doctrine)

Here's a take that I'm ashamed to admit I hadn't considered: Members of Congress may be protecting Bush because of votes they made previously that might seem to have supported his illegal activities. While it might not end in prosecution, it could end their Congressional careers.

So, of course key Congressional Democrats who were made aware of these illegal torture and surveillance programs are going to protect the Bush administration and other lawbreakers. If you were Jay Rockfeller or Nancy Pelosi, would you want there to be investigations and prosecutions for torture programs that, to one degree or another, you knew about? If you were Jane Harman, wouldn't you be extremely eager to put a stop to judicial proceedings that were likely to result in a finding that surveillance programs that you knew about, approved of, and helped to conceal were illegal and unconstitutional?