The Truth about Fast & Furious

[gejohnston]

108. you have no idea how the system works

, on to your strange theories about confidential documents and investigative journalism, your insistence that a piece of investigative journalism should be called an "article" rather than a "report", what you hypothetically think that Cummings would or should have done in your alternate reality universe, and so on.

What strange theories are those? Partisan or not, they have documents to back up their claims. I know how the system works, and the laws governing official documents. Since the article only uses the unofficial term "confidential", I am left to assume they refer to administrative markings like FOUO (or a DoJ equivalent) or is actually classified as CONFIDENTIAL. At the same time, Dodson claims that Eban contacted his ex wife, getting her address from Dodson's personnel record.

In November 2011, Agent Dodson contacted
Congressional investigators to advise them that a reporter named Katherine Eban had contacted
his ex-wife. Ms. Eban was inquiring about the circumstances of Dodson’s divorce, apparently
based on information in Agent Dodson’s ATF personnel file

If that is true, it was obtained without Dodson's permission, violating the Privacy Act. If someone did that to me in the Air Force, they would be in jail.

Either way, a felony was committed because both are exempt by FOIA. I have processed for FOIA requests than you. I also spent enough time dealing with and writing such documents, FOUO through SECRET, to know what I am talking about. I find it strange that someone who doesn't seen to know anything on that aspect of government bureaucracy would describe explanations based on actual knowledge as "strange theories". Ask Pvt Manning about those strange theories. What do you think the charges against him actually are? Disclosing classified information to unauthorized persons.
Look up the Privacy Act. It is an article in a magazine. I don't know what Cummings should or should not do, I do know what I would do if I were in his position.

The fact of the matter is that Katherine Eban, for the first time, did a thorough job of interviewing a whole bunch of people associated with F&F, to get a complete and accurate picture of what was going on, and she also obtained a large number of documents, some (but not all) of which she made public.

You can think whatever you want. She only quoted two people, including Voth. She did not make any documents public, she included excerpts from documents that were already public. We only have her word for it. The whole article makes Voth look like Mr. Squared Away Marine and the rest of the crew as a mess that needs to be cleaned up. The whole article actually reminds me of the movie Heartbreak Ridge. It has the same basic plot.

Yes, of course it's possible that she's lying or she got tricked or she's an anti-gun stooge or whatever other unlikely theory that you manage to convince yourself of in order to justify your devotion to Darrell Issa's witch hunt, but like I said over and over again, outside the NRA bubble, you have yet to make a single cogent point.

Pro or anti gun has nothing to do with it. It is a standard whistle blower case. Issa might have decided to turn it into a witch hunt, but I'm talking about Voth. It started with a group of whistle blowers rolling over on Voth's stupidity. Where Issa or anyone else decided to take it is beside the point. If anyone has failed to make a single cogent point, it is you because you have no idea what you are talking about. If name calling is "cogent" by your definition, then I can understand why you didn't make the debate team.