The Rest of The Story: The "Founding Founders"

    Today, the White House created a bit of a kerfuffle with a blog post entitled "The Papers of the Founding Founders Are Now Online".  No, that's not a typo of mine.  Here's the screenshot:

    After Charles C.W. Cooke of National Review raised the alarm, Twitchy got into the act. Sooner, Twitter was abuzz with the news.  Many assumed it was actually a case of political correctness gone meta.  Whatever the reason, it was not long before the adjustment was made, and the "Founding Fathers" resumed their rightful place in U.S. history.
    But there's more.  Unlike many of the current scandals (IRS, NSA, DOJ, AP, ETC.) where journalists, pundits, and bloggers have so far searched in vain for the smoking gun, the incontrovertible evidence of presidential fingerprints, this time is different.  The path of this scandal leads directly to the Oval Office, indeed to the lips of President Obama himself.  (OK, technically the path leads to Ford's Theatre, but "Oval Office" sounded more dramatic.  On June 7, 2010, the president spoke at an education and arts event at the famed theatre in Washington, and near the close of his remarks, according to the official White House transcript, he said the following [emphasis added for dramatic effect]:

And as we celebrate Independence Day, there are few better examples of how the spirit of our Founding Founders did more than just create a nation -- it inspired people in every corner of the globe yearning to be free.

     In a somewhat disappointing footnote to this story, the video of the actual event reveals that President Obama actually said "Founding Fathers," White House transcript notwithstanding.  Oh, well, Woodward and Bernstein's place in journalistic history is secure... for now.

HHS Touts a ‘Huge Year in Data Liberation’ With ‘Health Datapalooza IV’

As the IRS scandal grows, the Department of Health and Human Services today published a blog post titled "Health Datapalooza IV Tops Off a Huge Year in Data Liberation":

Health Datapalooza IV wrapped up last week with over 1900 attendees and 80 companies, this was the biggest ‘palooza’ yet. Kicked off by Secretary Sebelius for the second year in a row, this year’s event was a tremendous display of health data in action...
At HHS, we have evolved and improved how we make health data available to the public. Last year, we launched a new version of healthdata.gov and made it significantly easier for our internal publishers to get their datasets listed, both manually and through an application programming interface (API)...

Although the data that the HHS is "liberating" is not linked to personal individual health information, the government will soon be in possession of new datasets of just such personal information once the Affordable Care Act kicks in on January 1, 2014, and individuals are required to prove via the IRS that they have health insurance.


Note: This article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

NSA's Million Square Foot Utah Data Center to be Completed in 2013

    Recent revelations about the scope of the National Security Agency's (NSA) data collection efforts have raised concern about what information the government is collecting, from whom, and about whom.  In March 2012, the website Wired.com published an article by James Bamford about the innocuous sounding Utah Data Center being built by the NSA that could very well be the future home for the mind-boggling bits of information that the agency is collecting.  The article reads like a conspiracy theorist's dream, but contracts located on the government's FBO.GOV website appear to back up much of the information Wired presented about this data center.  Bamford writes:

Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy.

    On August 18, 2009, a "sources sought" listing appeared on the Federal Business Opportunities website, which, with modifications over the next few months, provided information for potential contractors for the project, including a powerpoint presentation with detailed specifications, diagrams, and even conceptual designs of the Utah facility, such as these:

    A "presolicitation" was posted on the site on December 19, 2009 and culminated in an award of almost $1.2 billion on September 24, 2010:

    Although some of the documents are "locked," this description of the project is available:

The project consists of the design and construction of a Tier III, 65 MW technical data center, located on Camp Williams, Utah. Basic ancillary supporting design and construction services include, but are not limited to: providing basic utility infrastructure, electrical service (primary power and temporary construction power), water, sewer, and gas. The facility itself will consist of approximately 1M SF of facility, of which 100K SF will be mission critical data center space with raised flooring and 900K SF of technical support and administrative space. Ancillary supporting facilities include, but are not limited to: water treatment facilities (pre and post), vehicle inspection facility, interim visitor control center, perimeter site security measures, fuel storage, water storage, chiller plant, fire suppression systems and 100% electrical generator and UPS back up capacity. The schedule will be very aggressive.

     Other contracts related to the data center are available on FBO.GOV, including the most recent from October 2012 for $23 million.  The recipient of the contract was Balfour Beatty, which had also obtained the original $1.2 billion contract.  This newest contract covers Facility Support during the transition of the facility over to government control, which, according to the documents, appears to be scheduled for September 2013, which is the same date Bamford used in his Wired article.  If the NSA is indeed collecting data on the scale that recent news reports seem to indicate, it will not be long before the agency has an enormous new facility in which to store it.

U.S. Responds to Human Rights Concerns From Russia Over Gitmo Hunger Strike

    Thursday, at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Gary Robbins delivered another response to the "many concerns" expressed by Russia about the ongoing hunger strike by many of the terrorist detainees at the Guantánamo Bay facility:

Last Thursday, President Obama reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to closing the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba (GTMO), and proposed a series of steps to achieve that end, including his intention to lift the Presidential moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen. The President also called on Congress to lift the restrictions on detainee transfers from Guantánamo, which the Administration has long maintained impede its ability to close the detention facility. To the extent possible, the United States will transfer those detainees who have been designated for transfer, and where appropriate, will prosecute others in our courts and military justice system. While it will take some time to fully close the detention facility in Guantánamo, all U.S. detention operations will continue to be carried out in accordance with international humanitarian law, including the Geneva Conventions, and all other applicable international and domestic laws. 

In the meantime, the Department of Defense is committed to ensuring the health and safety of the detainees who remain at the facility. 

Moreover, the United States remains committed to transparency about the facility and the military commissions. As we have previously noted, we are working with ODIHR to accommodate a visit Guantánamo and observe military commission proceedings. We have also offered to host the visit of a Russian delegation to Guantánamo, given the many concerns that the Russian Federation has expressed about the facility. That invitation remains open.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    One of President Obama's first acts in office in 2009 was an executive order to close the Guantánamo Bay detention facility. The president has blamed Congress for its continued operation.


Note: This article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

In Guatemala, Kerry Reminisces About Trip to Visit Communist Sandinista Leader in 1985

    Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking at the General Assembly of the Organization of American States in Guatemala on Tuesday, reminisced about his first trip to Latin America as a US Senator back in 1985:

I have been traveling, actually, to Latin America for decades now. I think the first trip I made as a United States senator in 1985 was to this region. And that was during a time of great transformation and challenge in places like Nicaragua and El Salvador. And like my Senate colleagues, I was then focused on issues of conflict resolution. I worked particularly closely with President Oscar Arias, working on the peace process back then, as well as on counter-narcotics cooperation and on human rights and on seeking justice for those who had lost their lives in the course of the Central American wars and the internal difficulties of a number of countries during that period.

    Kerry did not specifically mention to the OAS gathering that his 1985 trip was to meet with then-president of Nicaragua Daniel Ortega, the head of the Moscow-backed Communist Sandinistas who were fighting a proxy war with the United States via the US-backed "Contra" rebels. The Christian Science Monitor reported on Kerry's trip at the time:

Sens. Kerry & Harkin with Ortega in 1985

Senator Kerry flew to Nicaragua in April with fellow Democratic Sen. Thomas Harkin of Iowa, met with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Saavedra, and brought back word that Mr. Ortega would be willing to accept a cease-fire if Congress rejected aid to the rebels, or ``contras.'' That week the House initially voted down aid to the contras, and Mr. Ortega made an immediate trip to Moscow -- an action that moved House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. to say the ill-timed trip embarrassed those who had voted against aid. 

In spite of this setback, Kerry said in an interview that he doesn't think his trip to Nicaragua damaged him politically and that his mail supports him... 

Kerry emphasizes that he is not an advocate or supporter of Ortega's government. ``I have no illusions about the Sandinistas.'' Nevertheless, he argues, ``We are still trying to overthrow the politics of another country in contravention of international law, against the Organization of American States charter. 

``We negotiated with North Vietnam. Why can we not negotiate with a country smaller than North Carolina and with half the population of Massachusetts? It's beyond me. And the reason is that they just want to get rid of them [the Sandinistas], they want to throw them out, they don't want to talk to them.''

     Ortega, who has had an on-again, off-again relationship with Nicaragua, has been once again serving as president of that country since 2007.  He recently politely shared a dinner with President Obama at the May summit of Central American leaders, but was soon after publicly critical of the US and its influence in the region.  Oretga also famously supported Qaddafi during the Libyan conflict in 2011.


Note: This article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

State Department Offers Reward for Leads on ‘Location’ of Terrorists

    The State Department announced on Monday a total of up to $23 million in rewards for information on terrorists in West Africa, the first time the Department's Rewards for Justice program has offered rewards in that part of the continent.  Although the Obama administration has repeatedly insisted that the leadership of al-Qaeda has been decimated, four of the five terrorist on this new list are either current al-Qaeda leadership or alumni of the organization according to the State Department press release.  And from the wording of the new reward offers, as well as many of the previous outstanding reward offers, capturing and taking these men into custody is not the primary focus of Rewards for Justice [emphasis added]:

The Secretary of State has authorized rewards of up to $5 million each for information leading to the location of AQIM leader Yahya Abu el Hammam and Signed-in-Blood Battalion leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar [former AQIM]; rewards of up to $3 million each for information leading to the location of AQIM leader Malik Abou Abdelkarim and MUJWA spokesperson Oumar Ould Hamaha [former AQIM]; and a reward of up to $7 million for information leading to the location of Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram.

    One of the distinguishing features of the Rewards for Justice program is the more limited  qualification attached to most of the reward offers.  While other government reward programs for information on fugitives depend on information leading to an arrest or even an arrest and conviction, the vast majority of rewards offered by the State Department's Rewards for Justice ask only for "information leading to the location" of the terrorists in question.
    There are exceptions, such as the $10 million for "[i]nformation leading to the arrest or conviction of Hafiz Mohammad Saeed," but even the $25 million reward for Ayman al-Zawahiri, founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, requires only "location."  In fact, rewards on only five of the 58 terrorists currently listed call for "capture" or "arrest."  The remainder, including all of the new West Africa additions, the first added to the program since President Obama's speech on counterterrorism policy two weeks ago, are subject to the location-only standard.
    In that speech, the president said in his justification of his drone policy, "despite our strong preference for the detention and prosecution of terrorists, sometimes this approach is foreclosed."  Since 53 of 58 Rewards for Justice offers simply ask for the "location" of the terrorists, it seems safe to assume that "detention and prosecution" is less a "strong preference" and more a rare exception, at least in this collection of high-value targets.  And with the president's renewed call for closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, the administration arguably has more incentive than ever to keep the number of high-ranking terrorist leaders in custody low.  The current structure of the Rewards for Justice program would seem to reflect the administration's intentions to do just that.


Note: This article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

CBO: Uninsured Under Obamacare Never Falls Below 30 Million

    On Monday, CNBC reported on a new survey that found that two-thirds of Americans currently without health insurance don't know if they will purchase coverage by the deadline, the first day of 2014.  The survey was released by InsuranceQuotes.com, a company that offers comparison shopping for insurance, similar to the "marketplaces" envisioned by the Affordable Care Act (ACA).  The results of the survey surprised Laura Adams, senior insurance analyst at the company:

"I was really shocked that 64 percent [of uninsured adults] said they haven't decided if they will purchase insurance by the Jan. 1 deadline," Adams said. "I was definitely surprised by the high number of people who really have no clue what they're going to do next year." 

"We don't want these consumers to miss this key deadline," she said, adding that new heath-care exchanges under Obamacare will begin accepting applications for insurance in less than four months. "They're going to potentially go without health care for the entire year."

    However, for those who have kept up with Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections on the implementation and progress of ObamaCare over the next decade, the results will not be all that surprising.  On the contrary, the most recent report issued by the CBO in May appears pessimistic by comparison.  Of the 55 million "Uninsured Nonelderly People" the report lists for 2013, only 11 million, or 20%, are projected to obtain insurance during 2014; the number of uninsured falls only to 44 million next year according to the CBO.  This leaves a full 80% uninsured, significantly more than the 67% found by the survey.
    In fact, the CBO projects that under the ACA over the next decade, the number of uninsured will never fall below 30 million.  Here are the year by year projections from the report:

2013 - 55,000,000
2014 - 44,000,000
2015 - 37,000,000
2016 - 31,000,000
2017 - 30,000,000
2018 - 30,000,000
2019 - 30,000,000
2020 - 30,000,000
2021 - 31,000,000
2022 - 31,000,000
2023 - 31,000,000

     Despite the ACA's mix of requirements, mandates, subsidies and penalties, the CBO projects that the law will never be able to decrease the number of uninsured below 11% of the population.  During the decade projected by the CBO, the percentage of uninsured nonelderly persons decreases from 20% in 2013 to 11% by 2016, but then remains there for the rest of the ten year period.  Not everything in the CBO report is similarly static, however.  The "Average Exchange Subsidy per Subsidized Enrollee" increases 50% over the same time period, rising from $5,290 in 2014 to $7,900 in 2023.


Note: This article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.