[extropy-chat] Domestic and Foreign monitoring potpourri

[Terry W. Colvin]

PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE ON RECONSTRUCTION AND STABILIZATION

On December 7, President Bush issued National Security 
Presidential Directive 44 on "Mananagement of Interagency 
Efforts Concerning Reconstruction and Stabilization."

"The purpose of this Directive is to promote the security of the 
United States through improved coordination, planning, and 
implementation for reconstruction and stabilization assistance 
for foreign states and regions at risk of, in, or in transition 
from conflict or civil strife," the Directive states.

The full text of the Directive is posted here:

http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-44.html

The use of presidential directives as an instrument of executive 
authority is discussed in "Presidential Directives: Background 
and Overview" by Harold C. Relyea, Congressional Research 
Service, updated January 7, 2005:

http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/98-611.pdf


GAO INVENTORY OF AGENCY AUTOMATED INFO SYSTEMS (1991)

A descriptive inventory of more than one hundred automated 
information systems and databases used by government agencies in 
support of counter-drug law enforcement activities was compiled 
by the General Accounting Office in 1991 at the request of 
Congress.

The surprisingly expansive 75 page account is mainly of 
historical interest, though it may also be useful in focusing 
Freedom of Information Act requests and other research 
activities.

"Because the agencies consider the information contained in this 
report to be sensitive," the GAO wrote in 1991, "we have marked 
the report For Official Use Only."

It is still not included in GAO's public database. But a copy 
was obtained by Secrecy News.

See "War on Drugs: Inventory of Federal Agencies' Automated 
Information Systems," U.S. General Accounting Office, GAO/IMTEC-
91-28FS, April 1991 (1.8 MB PDF file):

http://www.fas.org/sgp/gao/ais-1991.pdf


POSTSCRIPTS

** Presidents have previously claimed authority over domestic 
communications, observed intelligence historian David Kahn, but 
they have done so with congressional sanction:

"On 16 July 1918 a congressional resolution gave the president 
the power to assume control of wire communications during the 
war (40 Statutes at Large 904). A presidential proclamation of 
22 July 1918 took that control and devolved the power on the 
postmaster general (40 Statutes Part 2, 1807-8). A law of 29 
October 1918 (40 Statutes 1017-18) prohibited anybody from 
divulging the contents of those communications. The resolution 
was repealed in 41 Statutes 157."

** In the 1990s, intrepid researcher Glenn Campbell probably did 
more than any other individual to make "Area 51" the most famous 
secret military base in the world. Now he has turned his 
peculiar talents to the even more challenging proceedings of 
family court in Las Vegas. See his web site 
www.familycourtchronicles.com and a profile of his activities in 
the Las Vegas Sun, "An eccentric's struggle for truth," December 18:

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2005/dec/18/519837904.html

** While the DNI Open Source Center monitors Lebanese 
Hizballah's unsavory Al Manar television broadcasts (Secrecy 
News, 12/15/05), Americans are effectively blocked from doing 
the same, observed Jack Shafer in Slate last year. See "Who's 
Afraid of Hezbollah TV? Not me":

http://www.slate.com/id/2111527/


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
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