WTF? DoD will block testimony to Congressional committees

[MH1]

Was this reported earlier and I missed it? From an editorial in the Boston Globe today:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2007/05/20/dont_let_bush_muzzle_gis/

...
But new Bush administration guidelines would limit Congress's freedom to get testimony from a wide range of service members and civilian Pentagon employees. The Department of Defense is reserving the right to bar enlisted personnel, career bureaucrats, and any officers below the rank of colonel from testifying to oversight committees or having their statements transcribed. According to the guidelines, "Junior officers . . . and non-commissioned officers, deemed appropriate by the may provide support to briefers or witnesses, but shall not be asked or required to have their names entered into the record or speak on the record."

The new rules, spelled out in a letter to the staff director of the House Armed Services Committee, are the handiwork of Robert L. Wilkie, the assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs. Wilkie has held this position since last year and in the past served as an aide to former senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, and then on the staff of President Bush's National Security Council from 2003 to 2005. While Congress and the Pentagon have long had to negotiate back and forth on which representatives of the department would appear on Capitol Hill, the Wilkie guidelines are new. A special Armed Services subcommittee on oversight and investigations, chaired by Representative Martin Meehan of Lowell, has written at least 10 letters to the Pentagon seeking information and received just one official reply.

...

Does anyone know more about this?

[wildbilln864]

1. k%r! This is outrageous!

:grr:

[jimshoes]

2. Hmm, did the DOD start their

own little country within a country recently? Who exactly does the Department Of Defence work for? Are they telling "We The People" to Fuck off and go away? Perhaps it's time to take away their money.

[Amonester]

14. Since their New Pearl Harbor, the Department Of Defence "works" 4

bu$che's ba$e (the have's, and mostly, the have-more's):

- them$elve$ (the MIC). I read somewhere they already robbed 2.3 trillion$ ("un-accounted for");
- the BFEE'$ KKKBR;
- darth chainey'$ helliburton & big oil;
- rum$feratu'$ bechtel;
- blackwater;
- very, very "few" others (and, for sure, NOT We The People: about 99% of the rest of the country)

6½ years after their coup d'etat.

:grr:


On edit, the link from the DU Research Forum here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=358&topic_id=3606

Pentagon missing $2.3 trillion - Rumsfeld Sept.10, 2001 (::::: note the DATE) :mad:

[acmavm]

3. So, is it true Rumsfeld never left, that he's still there in an 'advisory'

capacity? Because this sound just like him.

[Wise Doubter]

8. I`ve often wondered.....

when someone is "gone" - are they really, or just operating from under the bed.

Blackmail is a powerful tool.:wtf:

[msongs]

4. why not? NOBODY is gonna do anything about this. paper tiger dems included nt

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. Frickin banana republic we're living in.

:mad:

[MH1]

6. Actually, I did miss it - it was covered, then dropped.

I'm surprised this isn't getting more attention. I like that the BG has raised it again, for those of us who missed it on the first pass.

BG article from May 10:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/05/10/pentagon_restricting_testimony_in_congress/

Dailykos diary mentioning it:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/11/142116/187

And googling "Wilkie Congress testimony rules letter" brings up scads of mentions (but not the original letter, so far as I've looked through the results, which is what I was looking for).

Are we all just on outrage overload at this point?

[Burried News]

7. Is it fascism yet? nt

[Wise Doubter]

9. n/t

[bonito]

10. K & R

[Straight Shooter]

11. They didn't need these cover-your-ass rules when the Repubs were in power.

That says a lot about how much they're hiding.

[loudsue]

12. Am I confused? Or wasn't (isn't) Wilkie one of the people under

investigation for churning no-bid military/government contracts that leads to Cheney's doorstep?

:kick:

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. Are there any generalities that one can state about a DoD employee?

Do they generally wear white hats or black hats? Democrat or Republican, does it matter?

[struggle4progress]

15. 2 USC 198:

Every person who having been summoned as a witness by the authority of either House of Congress to give testimony or to produce papers upon any matter under inquiry before either House, or any joint committee established by a joint or concurrent resolution of the two Houses of Congress, or any committee of either House of Congress, willfully makes default, or who, having appeared, refuses to answer any question pertinent to the question under inquiry, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not more than $1,000 nor less than $100 and imprisonment in a common jail for not less than one month nor more than twelve months.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode02/usc_sec_02_00000192----000-.html

The law has apparently been on the books since before the Civil War: it was reenacted without change in 1938.

[Imagevision]

16. Brought to you by the same folks who ordered the testing stopped on troops body armor

This Military Industrial Complex thing is still alive and kicking...!