Reply #149: Sure there's a purpose in rehashing Acxiom if you leave misleading impressions [View All]

[Tom Rinaldo]

Do you know who Robert O'Harrow Jr. is? If not than google him. Start with this: REPORTER, WASHINGTON POST; AUTHOR, NO PLACE TO HIDE. There is no greater advocate for or writer more informed about the needs for privacy in the electronic age than he.

At a conference entitled: “NO PLACE TO HIDE: WHERE THE DATA REVOLUTION MEETS HOMELAND SECURITY”
http://www.americanprogress.org/atf/cf/%7BE9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521-5D6FF2E06E03%7D/0504transcript.pdf

O'Harrow said this about Wesley Clark and Acxiom:

ROBERT O’HARROW:
"...There is a guy that I think many of us in the room respect and admire deeply, General Clark, and he serves as a great example of someone who was deeply involved in representing a company called Axiom. And Axiom was one of those companies that responded with – I know that from my reporting – very patriotic motives. They had a lot of that as a marketer and they shared it and they shared it to good effect; it helped. They also saw ways that they could change their business model and become part of the security industrial complex. And one of the people that was helping open doors for Axiom in Washington was General Clark. The reason I raise that is because I kept finding that General Clark got to places before I did and people spoke admiringly of his ability to say what he knew, to say what he didn’t know, to play it straight, and to in every case do it in the smart way, which is why people respect him."

And in reply Clark said a number of very interesting things, of which I will quote just two, but the entire conference transcript is available at the link above and makes for very thought provoking reading:

"WESLEY CLARK: Well, thanks. First of all, I have read parts of this book and I followed all of Robert’s work in the Post. I think it’s good work and I am a strong believer in the fourth estate and public scrutiny and – you know, I grow up like most of this did in the ‘60s on Eisenhower’s statement about the military industrial complex, but we are in the very early stages of looking at data and security.

I respect Senator Church and what he said in 1975 and it was visionary and the results of it were that the U.S. military was barred from collecting information on U.S. citizens. It was so bad at one point that as a battalion S-3, I couldn’t get the telephone numbers of the people that worked for me because they said, “Sir, this is protected by privacy,” and, you know, when you tell the military to do something, we do it and we do really well. So we really guarded each other’s phone numbers from each other, and I don’t mean to make fun of it. I mean if this is a legitimate concern; we just have to get the balance right..."

"... WESLEY CLARK:
...Can I just say one more thing about this impulse to privacy that you’ve mentioned, Bob, because when I was doing this – and I want to say this because Nuala is here, because when the government starts working programs and it does know where they go and where they going they are always cautious because everybody knows that these programs that do data are very sensitive. Before the government could even get a grip on some of these programs, when the word comes out on them they are blasted before people even understand it. So on the one hand, I understand exactly why there is an impulse for privacy. People – companies like Axiom were told, “Look, you just can’t compete for this contract if you talk about this to the press because we don’t know what the program is and we want to have – we want to be able to –“ this is – I’m speaking for the government – “We want to be able to see what data you have available. We want to figure out if we can use it, and we don’t want to have to answer a million enquiries from the press about it until we get it done. Then we’ll run it through.

You know, my instinct on it was a little bit different than the government’s, but I didn’t have any influence on them. I mean, my instinct would have to bring in the ACLU and to say, “Please create a group that’s sort of like a trusted group that we can bounce ideas off of and we want to run these ideas by you. And if you have strong objections, we want to hear them. We want to hear them right upfront. What we ask is that you will work with us in a collaborative sense so that – you know, you tell us before you run out to the Washington Post the next day and we have got (unintelligible.)” So, you know, we are just exploring ideas. We want to try to put this together and I do think there is a need for that. There is a need for enough privacy in governmental decision-making that the government can come out with programs and then have a chance to explain them, not to take anything away from the press because that balance is a dynamic balance. It’s fought by and maintained by hardworking reporters who make a lot of phone calls and get turned down a lot, but it’s a very important public duty.

So I am not sure if the balance is right is what I am saying. I don’t know if it’s right and that is one of issues we ought to explore..."


I have no real interest in picking old scabs. You do realize that this thread we are writing on called out Clark supporters by name, it supposedly was not one started to attack any National Democrat (though I think that is debatable)? Above in this thread I left a link to an example of a post I made discussing a controversy effecting another candidate. I am a Democratic voter who will participate in our Primaries designed to help select which Democrat among other Democrats our Party nominates. I think what I wrote was a fair and useful addition to the discussion going on, and no one yet has countered me on that or disagreed.

And I and other Clark supporters continue on this thread to field both negative comments about Clark, and other more nuetral questions concerning his life record. Since Clark still may run for President, it is appropriate for people to raise legitimate concerns about him, as it is to examine anyone who asks us to support him or her becoming President of the United States. But to be less abstract about it, let me be clear: I think John Edwards is an excellent Democrat. I think he in making a very positive contribution to the discussion of critically important issues in this nation. I am sure that he would make a good President of the United States. I am not sure that he would make a better President of the United States than would some other individuals who have offered themselves, or have been talked about, for that job. We all have a choice to make. Comparisons must be made.

In terms of commenting further on specific isues that you made glancing reference to about Clark in your post, I am afraid that the clock just ran out for me to do so. I leave on a business trip in two hours and have matters that need attending to now.


By the way are you confident that Ron Paul and the other two Republicans in the House who defied Bush and voted against the Patriot Act did not vote for Richard Nixon, and/or Ronald Reagan earlier in their life? Or any of the many Democrats in the House who also voted against the Patriot Act? I would not make that assumption. I think that part of your logic was weak at best. People come to new understandings over many years. If I were to ask you whether someone who co-sponsored the IWR that passed, and who was quoted by the White House on their web site arguing strongly in favor of that piece of legislation, might a few short years later be one of the leading critics of that President and the course of action that that legislation authorized, would that seem illogical to you also?