Posted on 03/22/2004 11:06:57 AM PST by areafiftyone
WASHINGTON - Former Treasury Secretary Paul ONeill received 140 sensitive documents that should have been marked classified, the Treasury Departments inspector general said Monday.
The report found that while the departments review system for classifying documents needed improvement, no federal laws had been broken in the incident.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by The Associated Press and other news media, the Treasury Departments inspector general released several hundred pages covering its investigation of how ONeill received some 19,000 documents that were used to write a book highly critical of President Bush.
The new report found that 140 of those documents had not been marked classified even though they contained national security or sensitive but unclassified information.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
As always . . . . . no.
Has it been reported who this person was?
I'd be most interesting to hear who it was and who they worked for
If not, have they even requested to get them back yet?
Have they authorized, in the interest of NATIONAL SECURITY, the raiding and search of the O'Neil residence to get back the documents?
Has O'Neil been questioned by the appropriate government agency like Justice Dept. or the FBI?
Why hasn't he been arrested?
I guess it's part of the "new tone in Washington." Government officials are allowed to skate while those in the private sector take all the blame for what's wrong with the world.
I'll throw my hat in with R_on_the_L_Coast. Government documents do not generate themselves, nor do they classify themselves. Source, content, method, and conclusions all impact on classification of information. The (former) Sec Treasury was an "original classifying authority". Whether a doc was classified or not, it was his responsibility to recognize documents which required classification, and so declare. Sec. O'Neill's inability to recognize 140 documents as requiring classification reflects directly on his exceptionally poor judgment and credibility.
Impossible. I recently was advised that an Air Force Manual that we had on our network had classified info in it. We were ordered to secure the file and go through the procedures to "cleanse" the system. I WAS NOT responsible for the document. Nor were the over 1000 people who had an copy of it. Those that created the document and labeled it FOUO were. As a former squadron security manager and safe custodian, I can tell you that it nearly always works that way.
We may be in agreement. I think I weigh much more responsibility on a man who once held the office of Sec Treasury however. Numerous other supporting issues aside, O'Neill was the "Originating Authority", responsible for classification and declassification of all information within his Department. In particular his "working papers", the improperly classified documents in question related to O'Neill's administration; white papers, memos, "working papers", etc. He was either the originator, or original addressee of most. For whatever reason; carelessness, stupidity, incompetence, or selfservice, O'Neill's failure to recognize classified information within his own papers demonstrates an absolute failure in judgement as Secretary of the Treasury.
I'll put it this way. If upon my USAF retirement my former administrative personnel gave me a CD of all the documents I had a hand in creating during my time as a constitutionally appointed Officer of the US government, I'd shred it right in front of him and a few other witnesses. That said, executive officers are provided extraordinary privilege to documents related to their administration. Presidential libraries contain untold classified documents. However, those documents are (hopefully) not handled in a flippant manner. They are subject to review and redaction prior to public release. In other words:
Do you really think O'Neill reviewed 19,000 documents before he handed them over to the writer?
Apparently not. But he could have paid an authorized individual to do it. Historically, that is how other's have handled their papers.
Do you really think he should have?
YES.
Treasury launched an investigation into the documents in January after CBSs 60 Minutes showed a document marked secret during an interview in which ONeill promoted the new book...
The two above sentences from the article contradict each other. The first sentence says that the 140 documents were not marked classified. The second sentence says that at least one document *was* marked secret.
Or, is the Treasury inspector general and AP playing misleading word games.
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