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Pentagon Papers Now Online
The "Pentagon Papers," officially titled "Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force," are now online at the National Archives in PDF format:
- Pentagon Papers, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
On the 40th anniversary of the leak to the press, the National Archives, along with the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon Presidential Libraries, has released the complete report. There are 48 boxes and approximately 7,000 declassified pages. Approximately 34% of the report is available for the first time.
What is unique about this, compared to other versions, is that:
- The complete Report is now available with no redactions compared to previous releases
- The Report is presented as Leslie Gelb presented it to then Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford on January 15, 1969
- All the supplemental back-documentation is included. In the Gravel Edition, 80% of the documents in Part V.B. were not included
- This release includes the complete account of peace negotiations, significant portions of which were not previously available either in the House Armed Services Committee redacted copy of the Report or in the Gravel Edition
Pentagon Papers on C-SPAN
C-SPAN will have special programming about the Pentagon Papers this weekend:
On June 13th, 1971, the New York Times began publishing the "Pentagon Papers," a top-secret Defense Department study on the United States political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 through 1967. On the 40th anniversary, this Monday, June 13th, the government will mark the study as declassified and release it to the public in its entirety. On Saturday, June 11 at 6:00pm ET, tune in to C-SPAN Radio to hear the landmark 1971 Supreme Court Oral Argument as the Nixon Administration attempted to prevent the New York Times and Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers. On Sunday, June 12 at 5:20pm ET, tune in to American History TV on C-SPAN 3 to view a panel discussion from 2006, marking the 35th anniversary of when the New York Times first published the story. Panelists included Daniel Ellsberg who first leaked the study to the New York Times. Along with C-SPAN, and C-SPAN 2, both C-SPAN 3 and C-SPAN Radio are available to stream LIVE online, anytime: http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN3/Continue reading
Thomas Drake’s Plea Deal
Secrecy News has details and documents about the plea deal in the case of former National Security Agency official Thomas A. Drake who says he shared NSA information with The Baltimore Sun in an attempt to save taxpayers' money and strengthen national security:
- Settlement Reached in Thomas Drake “Leak” Case, by Steven Aftergood, Secrecy News (June 10th, 2011).
- The Secret Sharer: Is Thomas Drake an enemy of the state?, by Jane Mayer New Yorker (May 23, 2011). Binney expressed terrible remorse over the way some of his algorithms were used after 9/11. ThinThread, the "little program" that he invented to track enemies outside the U.S., "got twisted," and was used for both foreign and domestic spying: "I should apologize to the American people. It's violated everyone's rights. It can be used to eavesdrop on the whole world." According to Binney, Drake took his side against the N.S.A.'s management and, as a result, became a political target within the agency.
Planning for a digital release of the Pentagon Papers
As noted here earlier "NARA is planning a digital/textual release of the Pentagon Papers for the week of June 13, 2011. This simultaneous release will be conducted by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library, and the National Declassification Center at College Park." We're waiting for details, but NARA says that they "are looking to host a digital version on the archives.gov website, and the three Presidential libraries (Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon) are planning their own access to the same digital version." NARA will maintain its own preservation copies of digital records but will not be sending copies to GPO. http://blogs.archives.gov/ndc/?p=126 Update The archives has announced that "The materials will also be available online at http://www.archives.gov/research/pentagon-papers/ June 13, at 12 noon EDT." According to the New York Times NARA announced Tuesday that the 11 words, which it had said would be redacted on one page of the Papers, would be published after all. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/us/08pentagon.html Continue reading
Building a Civic Commons
Andrew McLaughlin who has been Director of Global Public Policy at Google, Deputy Chief Technology Officer for President Obama, Senior Fellow at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, is now the Executive Director of Civic Commons and part of the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School. On his new blog at Stanford he introduces the Civic Commons:
- Building a Civic Commons, by Andrew McLaughlin, Stanford Law School, Center for Internet and Society (June 7, 2011). Civic Commons is a new non-profit initiative that helps governments build and use shared and open technologies to improve public services, transparency, accountability, citizen participation, and management effectiveness, all while saving money.
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