Hope you all are proud.. another secret op busted before it even got off the ground.
Pathetic.
They don't care. As long as Michelle Malkin or Ann Coulter is against it, so are they.
Who are you addressing that to, yourself?
"Hope you all are proud.. another secret op busted before it even got off the ground."
I am. It's not.
That was exactly my thought.... :(
Concur
If you look at recent events, from bombings to beheadings to cartoon flag burnings, they all should be studied from behind a loaded gun, IMHO.
Discretion is the better part of valor. Safety off.
LOL! You're awfully gullible. Oooo! UAE is going going to help us with investigations of the ports they're going to operate in the United States! Oooo! Top secret!
The administration did not require Dubai Ports to keep copies of business records on U.S. soil, where they would be subject to court orders.
Wow - so they're going to get audited like the average American citizen? I can see why they wanted to keep this a SECRET! LOL! Maybe they'll have to walk through a metal detector to get inside the White House, too.
A secret op? Hogwash. This is nothing less than trading US port infrastructure for some hoped for information and cooperation. And no wonder its secret -- the details involve removal of otherwise routine security procedures.
From today’s Houston Chronicle:
"Under a secretive agreement with the administration, a company in the United Arab Emirates promised to cooperate with U.S. investigations as a condition of its takeover of operations at six major American ports . . ."
Now someone please explain what the heck this quid pro quo is all about? As a condition to UAE ownership of US port infrastructure, they (the UAE) agreed to cooperate with the US? So they weren't cooperating before, and we had to extend a little carrot? And that carrot is trading domestic port infrastructure for information? Sheesh. Very reassuring.
" The U.S. government chose not to impose other, routine restrictions."
I hope you all are asking yourselves -- What The Heck? This is becoming some kind of bad joke. And if you are still taking the blasé approach to this, read carefully the following:
"Under the deal, the government asked Dubai Ports to operate American seaports with existing U.S. managers "to the extent possible." The company promised to take "all reasonable steps" to assist the Homeland Security Department.
The administration required Dubai Ports to designate an executive to handle requests from the U.S. government, but it did not specify this person's citizenship.
It said Dubai Ports must retain paperwork "in the normal course of business" but did not specify a time period or require corporate records to be housed in the United States. Outside experts said stricter provisions are routine in other industries.
Foreign communications companies with American customers are commonly required to store business records in the United States. A senior U.S. official said the Bush administration considers shipping manifests less sensitive. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the confidential nature of the agreement."
I know. It's all ok because our "government" knows best and they (whoever the living heck they are) looked at this real close. So close in fact, that perfectly nonsensical exceptions to routine security procedures were removed.
What type of nonsense is it to require so-called retention of paperwork, but not require specific time-periods or that the paperwork be retained in the US? And what kind of balderdash is it to say that shipping manifests are less sensitive? So now the US Customs CIS program and the proposed Cargo Verification regime amount to a lot of hot air?
This is, frankly, madness.