Tuesday, May 3, 2011
FBI dealt stinging rebuff
with decision to ditch body
"Within hours of President Obama’s announcement Sunday night that the U.S. intelligence community had confirmed the identity of bin Laden’s body, FBI officials briefed field offices via secure videoconference calls" in the words of one news account.
We're also told the FBI is on a "war footing" in the aftermath of Osama bin Laden's death.
Not too much more concerning the FBI.
But Washington insiders will have noticed that the FBI was denied access to the CIA's prize corpse. No bureau agents were given the opportunity to look it over and, more important, the FBI's famed forensics lab was bypassed. Whether this had anything to do with the bureau's initial refusal to list bin Laden as a suspect in the 9/11 attacks is not evident.
The line is that the White House didn't want to have a shrine form around the remains. But the body could easily have been kept indefinitely at a morgue on some undisclosed military base.
That excuse however will do little to ameliorate the impression that the FBI's vaunted power is on the wane, an impression that may well have an impact on Capitol Hill where lawmakers are eyeing budgets with eagle eyes.
No-read directives authenticate
documents aired by Wikileaks
When Wikileaks documents go online, we have the peculiar situation of government officials, apparently led by the attorney general, ordering various people to avoid reading them, based on the theory that it is illegal to read classified data.
Whatever happened to the response of neither confirming nor denying the authenticity of leaked documents?
It would seem that by ordering government employees and even lawyers for Guantanamo detainees to avoid reading the "classified material," the government is confirming the authenticity of the documents and hence is de facto declassifying it.
Obviously the wealth of detail in the Wikileaks documents makes it difficult to deflect the political reactions by simply playing dumb. But that's no reason for in effect fully confirming their authenticity. If the government said nothing much, then there would be no proof that documents hadn't been tampered with prior to release.
One would think the constitutional lawyer occupying the presidency would grasp this. So what's going on?
It appears that the Justice Department wants to uphold a novel legal theory: government officials should have the right to prohibit selected persons -- who have been convicted of no crime -- from receiving information in the public domain. Perhaps this is an outgrowth of the notion that the government should have a right -- in contradiction to the First Amendment's abridgement clause -- to block those deemed possible terrorists from access to information that, though public, might further some terroristic plot.
The Justice Department, Pentagon and CIA are of course very leery of using prior restraint on news organizations. But if they can reinforce the idea that classes of people can be roped off from public data, they will accomplish a drastic reduction in free speech rights. Right now, only "a few" people are affected (well, actually in theory millions of government employees). But give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile... especially with respect to freedom of speech.
documents aired by Wikileaks
When Wikileaks documents go online, we have the peculiar situation of government officials, apparently led by the attorney general, ordering various people to avoid reading them, based on the theory that it is illegal to read classified data.
Whatever happened to the response of neither confirming nor denying the authenticity of leaked documents?
It would seem that by ordering government employees and even lawyers for Guantanamo detainees to avoid reading the "classified material," the government is confirming the authenticity of the documents and hence is de facto declassifying it.
Obviously the wealth of detail in the Wikileaks documents makes it difficult to deflect the political reactions by simply playing dumb. But that's no reason for in effect fully confirming their authenticity. If the government said nothing much, then there would be no proof that documents hadn't been tampered with prior to release.
One would think the constitutional lawyer occupying the presidency would grasp this. So what's going on?
It appears that the Justice Department wants to uphold a novel legal theory: government officials should have the right to prohibit selected persons -- who have been convicted of no crime -- from receiving information in the public domain. Perhaps this is an outgrowth of the notion that the government should have a right -- in contradiction to the First Amendment's abridgement clause -- to block those deemed possible terrorists from access to information that, though public, might further some terroristic plot.
The Justice Department, Pentagon and CIA are of course very leery of using prior restraint on news organizations. But if they can reinforce the idea that classes of people can be roped off from public data, they will accomplish a drastic reduction in free speech rights. Right now, only "a few" people are affected (well, actually in theory millions of government employees). But give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile... especially with respect to freedom of speech.
Monday, May 2, 2011
BURIED AT SEA?
Osama bin Laden, the long-time figurehead of the al Qaeda terrorist network, has been buried at sea after being killed in a U.S. raid in Pakistan, U.S. authorities report.
Huh? His body wasn't brought to the United States for autopsy and detailed computer forensic investigation? We have to take the word of the authorities that there was a DNA match.
Notice that, by not bringing the body to the United States -- and getting rid of it at sea so that it can't be exhumed -- it becomes impossible to match his bio-signatures against purported videos of him, particularly the one in which he claimed responsibility for the attacks of 9/11 after initially denying involvement.
U.S. officials told CBS News that bin Laden's body would be handled in accordance with Muslim traditions, which include strict rules on burial taking place within 24 hours after death.
Sources confirmed to CBS News national security correspondent David Martin that his body was released into the sea from a U.S. Navy vessel on Monday, likely into the Indian Ocean.
Bin Laden was a Saudi national, but officials tell CBS News that the Kingdom was unwilling to have his remains repatriated.
He was killed in a U.S. raid launched early Monday in the relatively-well-heeled town of Abbottabad, near the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.
Osama bin Laden, the long-time figurehead of the al Qaeda terrorist network, has been buried at sea after being killed in a U.S. raid in Pakistan, U.S. authorities report.
Huh? His body wasn't brought to the United States for autopsy and detailed computer forensic investigation? We have to take the word of the authorities that there was a DNA match.
Notice that, by not bringing the body to the United States -- and getting rid of it at sea so that it can't be exhumed -- it becomes impossible to match his bio-signatures against purported videos of him, particularly the one in which he claimed responsibility for the attacks of 9/11 after initially denying involvement.
U.S. officials told CBS News that bin Laden's body would be handled in accordance with Muslim traditions, which include strict rules on burial taking place within 24 hours after death.
Sources confirmed to CBS News national security correspondent David Martin that his body was released into the sea from a U.S. Navy vessel on Monday, likely into the Indian Ocean.
Bin Laden was a Saudi national, but officials tell CBS News that the Kingdom was unwilling to have his remains repatriated.
He was killed in a U.S. raid launched early Monday in the relatively-well-heeled town of Abbottabad, near the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
U.S. bars Gitmo defense lawyers
from reading shabby terror evidence
Andy Worthington, writing on the Wikileaks.ch site, writes that the Gitmo files show that most of the evidence against detainees is based on very shaky statements made by fellow prisoners, some of whom were mentally ill or stressed out from torture and others of whom were seeking preferential treatment.
Nevertheless, the Justice Department has ordered Gitmo defense attorneys to avoid reading the Wikileaks files.
Worthington writes:
"Alert readers will notice that they are cited repeatedly in what purports to be the government's evidence, and it should, as a result, be difficult not to conclude that the entire edifice constructed by the government is fundamentally unsound, and that what the Guantánamo Files reveal, primarily, is that only a few dozen prisoners are genuinely accused of involvement in terrorism.
"The rest, these documents reveal on close inspection, were either innocent men and boys, seized by mistake, or Taliban foot soldiers, unconnected to terrorism. Moreover, many of these prisoners were actually sold to US forces, who were offering bounty payments for al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects, by their Afghan and Pakistani allies -- a policy that led ex-President Musharraf to state, in his 2006 memoir, In the Line of Fire, that, in return for handing over 369 terror suspects to the US, the Pakistani government “earned bounty payments totalling millions of dollars.”
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Task force scrambles in wake
of nuclear lab cyber attack
A national nuclear laboratory remains under cyber lockdown following a sophisticated cyber attack detected April 15.
The potential threat of the attack was underscored by the fact that a task force of information technologists flocked to the lab from government units -- including Los Alamos National Laboratory -- and private computer firms to assess and counter the threat, working through the Easter weekend. The attack, using "elusive" code, was mounted by "serious people who want information,"
a spokeswoman said.
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory spokeswoman, Barbara Penland, said yesterday that Thursday morning is the latest target for resuming internet access for laboratory employees, according to Frank Munger of the Knoxville News-Sentinel. Target dates for full restoration of computer services has been delayed several times.
Internet connectivity has been shut off since April 15.
Munger writes:
"Asked if issues have proved more difficult to deal with than expected, Penland said, 'I think we were prepared for it to be difficult, simply because this particular version of APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) has hit other companies lately and so we were prepared for it to be difficult.'
"'She added: 'These are not your teen-age hackers. These are serious people who want information . . . I think the coding has been elusive, and so the process of identifying it and seeking it out -- it just has to be very deliberate and complete.'
"'This is industry's version of purgatory or hell,' she said."
A task force of information technologists flocked to the lab from government units, including Los Alamos National Laboratory, and private computer firms to assess and counter the threat, working through the Easter weekend, Munger reports.
The phishing attack, which installed malware via bogus emails concerning government benefits, deals another setback to the nuclear industry in the aftermath of the Japanese nuclear crisis, though supercomputers and classified matter were said to have been safe, not being directly connected to the internet.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Safeguarding sources or political skins?
judge's words retroactively censored
ProPublica's Dafna Linzer, in covering the Guantanamo detainee cases, exposed a case of retroactive censorship that raises eyebrows.
http://www.propublica.org/article/in-gitmo-opinion-two-versions-of-reality
[Linzer's most recent report is at
http://www.propublica.org/article/appeals-court-makes-it-easier-for-govt-to-hold-gitmo-detainees]
[Linzer's most recent report is at
http://www.propublica.org/article/appeals-court-makes-it-easier-for-govt-to-hold-gitmo-detainees]
By Dafna Linzer
ProPublica, Oct. 8, 2010, 12 p.m.
This story was co-published with The National Law Journal [1].
When Judge Henry Kennedy Jr. ordered the release of a Guantánamo Bay detainee last spring, the case appeared to be a routine setback for an Obama administration that has lost a string of such cases.
But there turns out to be nothing ordinary about the habeas case brought by Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman [2], a Yemeni held without charges for nearly eight years. Uthman, accused by two U.S. administrations of being an al-Qaida fighter and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, is among 48 detainees [3] the Obama administration has deemed too dangerous to release but "not feasible for prosecution."
A day after his March 16 order [4] was filed on the court's electronic docket, Kennedy's opinion vanished. Weeks later, a new ruling [5] appeared in its place. While it reached the same conclusion, eight pages of material had been removed, including key passages in which Kennedy dismantled the government's case against Uthman.
In his first opinion, Kennedy wrote that one government witness against Uthman had been diagnosed by military doctors as "psychotic" with a mental condition that made his allegations against other detainees "unreliable." But the opinion the public sees makes no mention of the man's health and discounts his testimony only because of its inconsistencies.
The alterations are extensive. Sentences were rewritten. Footnotes that described disputes and discrepancies in the government's case were deleted. Even the date and circumstances of Uthman's arrest were changed. In the first version, the judge said Uthman was detained on Dec. 15, 2001, in Pakistan by Pakistani authorities. Rewritten, Kennedy said in the public opinion that Uthman admitted being captured "in late 2001 in the general vicinity of Tora Bora," the cave complex where bin Laden was thought to be hiding at that time.
The creation of the additional opinion stemmed from a mishap inside the Justice Department: Kennedy's first opinion was accidentally cleared for public release before government agencies had blacked out all the classified information it cited.
While the government privately took responsibility for the error, it initially refused to correct it. Two people familiar with the discussions said prosecutors in the Justice Department's Civil Division gave Kennedy a choice: his entire decision would remain classified or he could write a new version that did not reference classified evidence.
Justice Department sources offered a different account. They said the department later relented and gave Kennedy a properly redacted version of the opinion, in which classified material had been blacked out. The sources said this opinion was meant to be published. But for reasons that remain unclear, the edited opinion became the starting point for the creation of an entirely new version.
Matthew Miller, a spokesman with the Justice Department, said "the department's practice in all of these cases is to propose release of a properly redacted opinion."
The second opinion, drafted after a contentious exchange between Kennedy and the prosecutors, did not refer to the earlier version and gave no indication material had been removed.
Legal scholars and classification experts said the drafting of a second opinion was a deception. All previous opinions in Guantánamo habeas cases have noted when material has been blacked out or removed to protect security.
Stephen Gillers, who teaches legal ethics at New York University School of Law, said Kennedy may well have had a legitimate concern about "national security issues."
"But that concern then inspired him to participate in the creation of a parallel universe that fools everyone except a small circle of judges. We don't allow the justice system to create false impressions," Gillers said.
ProPublica obtained the original version of Kennedy's opinion when it appeared briefly in the court record and conducted a line-by-line comparison with what was published five weeks later. That comparison, highlighting information that was removed, can be found here [6].
Reporting for this story was complicated by the fact that much of the evidence is classified, and judges, lawyers and prosecutors are barred from discussing most aspects of the litigation. But an examination of the opinions and additional documents, as well as interviews with government and intelligence officials, former military prosecutors and key players in the habeas cases, makes it possible for the first time to publicly examine the evidence against a detainee designated for indefinite detention.
To justify Uthman's incarceration, the government relied on statements from five current or former detainees [7] who were previously discredited by judges in other cases, questioned by internal Obama administration assessments or found unreliable by military psychiatrists because they were mendacious, mentally ill or subjected to torture.
Kennedy's first opinion reveals that some of the government's evidence came from a detainee who committed suicide at Guantánamo three years ago after months of hunger strikes. In the second opinion, the detainee's name is concealed, making it impossible for the public to know he is dead.
DOJ's Miller said witness testimony is thoroughly reviewed before it is presented. "In every habeas case where we ask the court to rely upon detainee statements, we do so because we believe courts can and should consider their accounts based on the totality of the evidence," Miller said.
The Justice Department has appealed Kennedy's ruling and officials there declined to say what they might do if the government does not prevail.
Uthman, according to senior government officials, is on the secret list of 48 Guantánamo detainees who the Obama administration designated for indefinite detention and, officials said, he is the first of those men to win his habeas petition.
Further complicating matters, Uthman hails from Yemen -- a country the White House has deemed too unstable to handle such a transfer. Should he send Uthman home, President Obama risks a fierce political backlash from Republican lawmakers eager to portray the president as weak on terrorism.
Disclosure of the Uthman case comes at a pivotal moment in the government's complicated efforts to prosecute detainees and close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. On Oct. 6, a federal judge in New York barred the government from using its main witness [8] against a terrorism defendant because the information that led investigators to the witness was obtained through torture.
Botched Classification
When Kennedy, who serves on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, ruled in February that Uthman was being improperly detained, his 27-page opinion was turned over to a court security officer for classification review.
The judges themselves have very little insight into the process and no sway over what is redacted. Government security officials review filings in the habeas litigation and other cases involving classified evidence and remove sensitive information.
In the Uthman case, that clearance process took three weeks. Kennedy's decision was stamped "Redacted," by the court's security officer and returned to his chambers on March 16. The deletions were minimal. For the first 16 pages, the only word blacked out was "secret," stamped at the top and bottom of each page.
Kennedy's clerk added the document to the electronic court file late in the day. Twenty-five hours later, the security office sent out urgent notices to attorneys and the judge that the opinion had not been ready for release and needed additional deletions. The decision was promptly removed from the public docket.
In a closed hearing in his courtroom four days later, Kennedy lashed out at the government for releasing classified information. He and Justice Department attorneys then argued over what to do, according to three sources familiar with the discussion.
Kennedy insisted that the reasoning behind his first habeas ruling be made public. But the Justice Department resisted releasing it in redacted form, arguing that blacked out portions would call attention to the exact material the government wanted to conceal.
With Uthman slated for indefinite detention, the stakes were high.
During the next month, government lawyers scoured the Internet for the original decision; the legal database Westlaw was asked to remove it from archives; defense attorneys were instructed to destroy their electronic copies.
Even the court docket was altered. When the opinion was originally posted on March 16, the docket noted Kennedy's grant of the writ of habeas corpus to the petitioner. Today, the entry for March 16 simply reads: "Document Entered In Error Erroneously."
Kennedy ordered the Justice Department to explain how the information was released and to suggest solutions. In the written response, according to three people who saw it, the department took responsibility for the error. Kennedy rejected the government's initial attempt to keep the opinion classified, insisting on other options, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.
One Justice Department source said the department relented, gave Kennedy a properly redacted copy of his opinion, and expected him to publish it. But two others said no such intention was conveyed to Kennedy.
Classification experts could not recall another case in which a second decision was secretly created.
"Reconstituting and replacing a judicial opinion without public notice is active deception," said Steven Aftergood, a classification expert with the Federation of American Scientists in Washington. "There is a role for classification and there are things that need to be redacted, but there is never a justification for deception in the judicial process and that's what this is," Aftergood said, after reviewing both versions of Kennedy's ruling in the Uthman case.
Two senior officials in the Obama administration and two others with direct involvement in habeas cases were surprised to learn that Kennedy's final opinion was a different version than the original.
Changing the Record
Uthman was 21 years old and traveling with about 30 other men when he was taken into custody by Pakistani police in the town of Parachinar, near the Afghan border. It was Dec. 15, 2001, and U.S. troops were in the middle of a five-day battle against an al-Qaida stronghold known as Tora Bora, where bin Laden was believed to have taken shelter. Parachinar and Tora Bora are 12 miles apart but separated by a treacherous mountain range that takes two to three days to traverse.
The government maintains that Uthman was in Afghanistan to fight for bin Laden; Uthman has claimed he went there to teach the Quran to children. Some facts of his story are not in dispute, some critical ones are. They look different depending on which of Kennedy's two opinions you read.
Kennedy's original opinion noted that Uthman was seized in Parachinar; that he reached the town after an eight-day trek from the Afghan town of Khost, nowhere near Tora Bora; and that his journey to Pakistan began around Dec. 8, 2001. Those facts make it difficult to portray Uthman as a fighter in a battle that took place between Dec. 12 and Dec. 17 at Tora Bora. Two footnotes in the original opinion note that the government does not contest that Uthman was taken into custody in Parachinar.
Both were removed in the second opinion and Kennedy substituted wording to write instead that Uthman admitted he was seized "in late 2001 in the general vicinity of Tora Bora, Afghanistan."
The intent of this editing may have been to conceal the role of the Pakistanis in capturing al-Qaida fighters although those details were long ago declassified. But the effect was to link Uthman more closely to the retreat of bin Laden and his inner circle through Tora Bora.
It is unclear precisely what restrictions or classification requests guided Kennedy's alterations. Neither the judge nor the Justice Department would say.
Gillers said such editing has an effect on public opinion, even when it doesn't change the outcome of the case.
"The ability to influence Kennedy's opinion gives the government a public relations advantage," Gillers said. "These battles are fought outside the court system as well as within it."
Another advantage has been the government's ability to largely conceal the identities of its witnesses.
In ordinary federal proceedings, from mob cases to white-collar crime, prosecutors would be loath to attempt such strategies because repeated use of a discredited witness would provide a significant opening to defense attorneys. In the habeas cases, it is difficult for defense lawyers and judges to learn of the roles played by flawed witnesses in previous cases.
The issue arose in a separate habeas case in May 2009, when Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia noted that a government witness had been diagnosed by Guantánamo medical staff as suffering from "psychosis." In a footnote, she said she was troubled that the diagnosis had come to her attention "through the diligent work" of the defense attorney "and not as a result of the government's obligation to provide" it.
Attorneys with security clearances can access classified information the government plans to raise in court at a secure facility near the Pentagon. But the material is not easy to use.
The facility is staffed by court security officers and Justice Department officials who determine what information the lawyers can remove from the facility, including, in some cases, their own notes. No classified information can be shared over the telephone or Internet, a significant burden for lawyers who reside outside the Washington area.
"It's monumentally difficult to fight these battles when the government holds all the cards," said David Remes, one of the attorneys representing Uthman. Neither Remes nor Uthman's other Washington attorneys, including William Livingston at Covington & Burling, would discuss the details of the Uthman case.
Near Total Secrecy
Although President Obama inherited many aspects of U.S. detention policy from his predecessor, Guantánamo detainees have been fighting their detentions in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia almost entirely on his watch.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2008, as Obama was campaigning for president, that detainees could challenge their detentions in federal court under the constitutional doctrine of habeas corpus, which protects individuals from unlawful imprisonment by the government.
Obama, still a senator then, issued a statement calling the ruling "an important step toward re-establishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law, and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus. Our courts have employed habeas corpus with rigor and fairness for more than two centuries, and we must continue to do so as we defend the freedom that violent extremists seek to destroy." The first challenges were decided on Nov. 20, just three weeks after Obama's election.
Lawyers from the Justice Department's Civil Division handle the Guantánamo litigation in coordination with intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense, which acts as warden of Guantánamo. The litigation process was built around the government's assertion that the bulk of the evidence is classified, a claim that has enabled the government to operate under a cloak of near total secrecy, with judges and defense attorneys barred from publicly discussing most aspects of the litigation. Court filings that reveal details about the cases undergo classification review before they are made public.
Intelligence and military officials take the lead in determining what can be released. As this story was going to publication, the Justice Department released an unclassified version of its appeal brief [9] in the Uthman case. A number of details that were excised from Kennedy's final opinion appear in the appeals brief.
Justice Department spokesman Miller said, "as a general matter, Justice Department litigators are not responsible for classification or declassification decisions in habeas cases."
Officials at other agencies said they had a fairly free hand in removing information supplied for the government's case. "Whenever a court security officer identifies a document slated for posting on the court's public docket as potentially containing classified information, the officer refers that document to appropriate agencies for classification review," Maj. Tanya Bradsher, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon, said.
One government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity acknowledged that the classification process has been plagued with inconsistencies and that no one is coordinating the effort. In most declassified habeas filings, the names of all detainee-witnesses are removed; in others, a name or two slips past the redaction process.
Some government-ordered deletions clearly appear designed to conceal names of confidential informants, associations with foreign intelligence services and the identities of certain federal agents. But the Uthman case shows that many of the deletions go further.
"This censorship has nothing to do with protecting 'national security' and everything to do with covering up government mistakes and malfeasance," said Jonathan Hafetz, a professor at Seton Hall University School of Law who has represented a number of detainees in habeas litigation. The practice, he said, allows the government to "mislead the American public on issues of profound importance to the country by skewing the perception of who really is at Guantánamo."
There have been some attempts, but with limited results, to make more of the habeas proceedings public. Nearly two years ago, as the litigation was getting under way, three media organizations -- The Associated Press, The New York Times and USA Today -- sought access to the court filings in which the government argued for holding the detainees.
The government fought the request but Judge Thomas Hogan, then the chief judge of the U.S. district court in Washington, ordered the government to release redacted, unclassified versions of its filings within 14 days [10].
David Schulz, a First Amendment attorney who is representing the media group, said the government is flouting Hogan's order.
"The frustrating thing about this litigation is that the judge in no uncertain terms upheld the public's constitutional right to inspect the records of the habeas proceeding and yet, nearly two years after the documents were supposed to be filed and publicly available, we are still waiting to get properly redacted filings," Schulz said.
The government is now seeking to amend Hogan's order to include six new broad categories of information that it can restrict without review by a judge unless the detainee objects. Schulz has opposed this idea [11]. Both sides are waiting to hear from Hogan.
When the media group first fought for access, just weeks after the 2008 presidential election, the Bush administration was still in office. But Schulz said the election has had no impact on the department's position in this area.
Said Schulz: "The Obama Justice Department has fought as hard and resisted as strongly the right that the public has to see these court records."
Friday, March 25, 2011
Japanese politician warned of nuke peril
in the 'land of volcanoes' and quakes
A Japanese legislator expressed strong reservations about the wisdom of nuclear power in the "land of volcanoes" during a dinner with U.S. diplomats, according to a leaked State Department cable.
Lower House Diet Member Taro Kono in his October 2008 comments expressed concern about the issue of nuclear waste, pointing out that Japan had no permanent high-level waste storage, and thus no solution to the problem of storage. He cited Japan´s extensive seismic activity, and abundant groundwater, and questioned whether there really was a safe place to store nuclear waste in the "land of volcanoes."
Among problems faced in the current nuclear crisis is the overheating of spent fuel rods, which are contained on site because there is nowhere to dispose of them. One of the spent fuel pools contained particularly dangerous reprocessed fuel.
The cable, posted by Norway's Aftenposten newspaper from its cache of Wikileaks documents, follows. Below that is a set of cable links found on the Aftenposten web site.
REF: STATE 107836
Classified By: Ambassador J. Thomas Schieffer; reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)
1. (C) Summary: Lower House Diet Member Taro Kono voiced his strong opposition to the nuclear industry in Japan, especially nuclear reprocessing, based on issues of cost, safety, and security during a dinner with a visiting staffdel, Energy Attache and Economic Officer October 21. Kono also criticized the Japanese bureaucracy and power companies for continuing an outdated nuclear energy strategy, suppressing development of alternative energy, and keeping information from Diet members and the public. He also expressed dissatisfaction with the current election campaign law. End Summary.
2. (C) Member of the House of Representatives Taro Kono spoke extensively on nuclear energy and nuclear fuel reprocessing during a dinner with a visiting staffdel, Energy Attache and Economic Officer October 21. Kono, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party first elected in 1996, is the son of Yohei Kono, a former President of the LDP who is currently the longest serving speaker of the House in post-war history. Taro Kono, who studied and worked in the United States and speaks excellent English, is a frequent embassy contact who has interests in agriculture, nuclear, and foreign policy issues. He is relatively young, and very outspoken, especially as a critic of the government´s nuclear policy. During this meeting, he voiced his strong opposition to the nuclear industry in Japan, especially nuclear fuel reprocessing, based on issues of cost, safety, and security. Kono claimed Japanese electric companies are hiding the costs and safety problems associated with nuclear energy, while successfully selling the idea of reprocessing to the Japanese public as "recycling uranium." He asserted that Japan´s reprocessing program had been conceived as part of a nuclear cycle designed to use reprocessed fuel in fast breeder reactors (FBR). However, these reactors have not been successfully deployed, and Japan´s prototype FBR at Monju is still off-line after an accident in 1995.
3. (C) Kono said following the accident at the Monju FBR, rather than cancel plans to conduct reprocessing, the electric companies developed the Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel program. However, Kono criticized the MOX program as too expensive, noting it would be cheaper to just "buy a uranium mountain in Australia," or to make a deal to import uranium from other sources. Kono claimed the high costs of the reprocessing program were being passed to Japanese consumers in their power bills, and they were unaware of how much they paid for electricity relative to people in other countries. In describing the clout wielded by the electric companies, Kono claimed that a Japanese television station had planned a three part interview with him on nuclear issues, but had canceled after the first interview, because the electric companies threatened to withdraw their extensive sponsorship.
4. (C) In addition to the electric companies, Kono was also very critical of the Japanese ministries, particularly the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI). He claimed the ministries were trapped in their policies, as officials inherited policies from people more senior to them, which they could then not challenge. As an example, Kono noted that Japanese radiation standards for imported foods had been set following the Chernobyl incident, and had not changed since then, despite other nations having reduced their levels of allowable radiation.
5. (C) In a similar way, he alleged, METI was committed to advocating for nuclear energy development, despite the problems he attributed to it. Kono noted that while METI claimed to support alternative energy, it in actuality provides little support. He claimed that METI in the past had orchestrated the defeat of legislation that supported alternatives energy development, and instead secured the passage of the Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) act. This act simply requires power companies to purchase a very small amount of their electricity from alternative sources. Kono also criticized the government´s handling of subsidies to alternative energy projects, noting that the subsidies were of such short duration that the projects have difficulty finding investors because of the risk and uncertainty involved. As a more specific example of Japan neglecting alternative energy sources, Kono noted there was abundant wind power available in Hokkaido that went undeveloped because the electricity company claimed it did not have sufficient grid capacity. Kono noted there was in fact an unused connection between the Hokkaido grid and the Honshu grid that the companies keep in reserve for unspecified emergencies. He wanted to know why they could not just link the grids and thus gain the ability to add in more wind power.
6. (C) He also accused METI of covering up nuclear accidents, and obscuring the true costs and problems associated with the nuclear industry. He claimed MPs have a difficult time hearing the whole of the U.S. message on nuclear energy because METI picks and chooses those portions of the message that it likes. Only information in agreement with METI policies is passed through to the MPs. Elaborating on his frustrations with the ministries, Kono noted that the Diet committee staffs are made up of professional bureaucrats, and are often headed by detailees from the ministries. He said he had no authority to hire or fire committee staff, and that any inquiries he made to them quickly found their way back to the ministries.
7. (C) Kono also raised the issue of nuclear waste, commenting that Japan had no permanent high-level waste storage, and thus no solution to the problem of storage. He cited Japan´s extensive seismic activity, and abundant groundwater, and questioned if there really was a safe place to store nuclear waste in the "land of volcanoes." He noted that Rokkasho was only intended as a temporary holding site for high-level waste. The Rokkasho local government, he said, had only agreed to store waste temporarily contingent on its eventual reprocessing. Kono said that in this regard, the US was better off that Japan because of the Yucca mountain facility. He was somewhat surprised to hear about opposition to that project, and the fact that Yucca had not yet begun storing waste.
8. (C) In describing how he would deal with Japan´s future energy needs, Kono claimed Japan needed to devise a real energy strategy. He said while he believed Japan eventually would have to move to 100% renewable energy, in the meantime he advocated replacing energy produced by nuclear plants ready for decommissioning with an equal amount of energy from plants using liquid natural gas. To this he would add new renewable energy sources.
9. (C) Kono also made a few side remarks concerning the Japanese election process. He expressed dissatisfaction with the current election campaign law, which he called outdated. He noted, for example, that during the official campaign period he was not allowed to actively campaign on the Internet. He said he could print flyers during this time, but only a limited number, which had to be picked up by constituents at his campaign office. So, to get around these and other limitations, MPs had to campaign before the official campaign period began. Given the current uncertainty on a date for elections, he noted in a humorous manner that if the government delayed elections long enough, he and the other MPs would go broke. SCHIEFFER
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in the 'land of volcanoes' and quakes
A Japanese legislator expressed strong reservations about the wisdom of nuclear power in the "land of volcanoes" during a dinner with U.S. diplomats, according to a leaked State Department cable.
Lower House Diet Member Taro Kono in his October 2008 comments expressed concern about the issue of nuclear waste, pointing out that Japan had no permanent high-level waste storage, and thus no solution to the problem of storage. He cited Japan´s extensive seismic activity, and abundant groundwater, and questioned whether there really was a safe place to store nuclear waste in the "land of volcanoes."
Among problems faced in the current nuclear crisis is the overheating of spent fuel rods, which are contained on site because there is nowhere to dispose of them. One of the spent fuel pools contained particularly dangerous reprocessed fuel.
The cable, posted by Norway's Aftenposten newspaper from its cache of Wikileaks documents, follows. Below that is a set of cable links found on the Aftenposten web site.
REF: STATE 107836
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Classified By: Ambassador J. Thomas Schieffer; reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)
1. (C) Summary: Lower House Diet Member Taro Kono voiced his strong opposition to the nuclear industry in Japan, especially nuclear reprocessing, based on issues of cost, safety, and security during a dinner with a visiting staffdel, Energy Attache and Economic Officer October 21. Kono also criticized the Japanese bureaucracy and power companies for continuing an outdated nuclear energy strategy, suppressing development of alternative energy, and keeping information from Diet members and the public. He also expressed dissatisfaction with the current election campaign law. End Summary.
2. (C) Member of the House of Representatives Taro Kono spoke extensively on nuclear energy and nuclear fuel reprocessing during a dinner with a visiting staffdel, Energy Attache and Economic Officer October 21. Kono, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party first elected in 1996, is the son of Yohei Kono, a former President of the LDP who is currently the longest serving speaker of the House in post-war history. Taro Kono, who studied and worked in the United States and speaks excellent English, is a frequent embassy contact who has interests in agriculture, nuclear, and foreign policy issues. He is relatively young, and very outspoken, especially as a critic of the government´s nuclear policy. During this meeting, he voiced his strong opposition to the nuclear industry in Japan, especially nuclear fuel reprocessing, based on issues of cost, safety, and security. Kono claimed Japanese electric companies are hiding the costs and safety problems associated with nuclear energy, while successfully selling the idea of reprocessing to the Japanese public as "recycling uranium." He asserted that Japan´s reprocessing program had been conceived as part of a nuclear cycle designed to use reprocessed fuel in fast breeder reactors (FBR). However, these reactors have not been successfully deployed, and Japan´s prototype FBR at Monju is still off-line after an accident in 1995.
3. (C) Kono said following the accident at the Monju FBR, rather than cancel plans to conduct reprocessing, the electric companies developed the Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel program. However, Kono criticized the MOX program as too expensive, noting it would be cheaper to just "buy a uranium mountain in Australia," or to make a deal to import uranium from other sources. Kono claimed the high costs of the reprocessing program were being passed to Japanese consumers in their power bills, and they were unaware of how much they paid for electricity relative to people in other countries. In describing the clout wielded by the electric companies, Kono claimed that a Japanese television station had planned a three part interview with him on nuclear issues, but had canceled after the first interview, because the electric companies threatened to withdraw their extensive sponsorship.
4. (C) In addition to the electric companies, Kono was also very critical of the Japanese ministries, particularly the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI). He claimed the ministries were trapped in their policies, as officials inherited policies from people more senior to them, which they could then not challenge. As an example, Kono noted that Japanese radiation standards for imported foods had been set following the Chernobyl incident, and had not changed since then, despite other nations having reduced their levels of allowable radiation.
5. (C) In a similar way, he alleged, METI was committed to advocating for nuclear energy development, despite the problems he attributed to it. Kono noted that while METI claimed to support alternative energy, it in actuality provides little support. He claimed that METI in the past had orchestrated the defeat of legislation that supported alternatives energy development, and instead secured the passage of the Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) act. This act simply requires power companies to purchase a very small amount of their electricity from alternative sources. Kono also criticized the government´s handling of subsidies to alternative energy projects, noting that the subsidies were of such short duration that the projects have difficulty finding investors because of the risk and uncertainty involved. As a more specific example of Japan neglecting alternative energy sources, Kono noted there was abundant wind power available in Hokkaido that went undeveloped because the electricity company claimed it did not have sufficient grid capacity. Kono noted there was in fact an unused connection between the Hokkaido grid and the Honshu grid that the companies keep in reserve for unspecified emergencies. He wanted to know why they could not just link the grids and thus gain the ability to add in more wind power.
6. (C) He also accused METI of covering up nuclear accidents, and obscuring the true costs and problems associated with the nuclear industry. He claimed MPs have a difficult time hearing the whole of the U.S. message on nuclear energy because METI picks and chooses those portions of the message that it likes. Only information in agreement with METI policies is passed through to the MPs. Elaborating on his frustrations with the ministries, Kono noted that the Diet committee staffs are made up of professional bureaucrats, and are often headed by detailees from the ministries. He said he had no authority to hire or fire committee staff, and that any inquiries he made to them quickly found their way back to the ministries.
7. (C) Kono also raised the issue of nuclear waste, commenting that Japan had no permanent high-level waste storage, and thus no solution to the problem of storage. He cited Japan´s extensive seismic activity, and abundant groundwater, and questioned if there really was a safe place to store nuclear waste in the "land of volcanoes." He noted that Rokkasho was only intended as a temporary holding site for high-level waste. The Rokkasho local government, he said, had only agreed to store waste temporarily contingent on its eventual reprocessing. Kono said that in this regard, the US was better off that Japan because of the Yucca mountain facility. He was somewhat surprised to hear about opposition to that project, and the fact that Yucca had not yet begun storing waste.
8. (C) In describing how he would deal with Japan´s future energy needs, Kono claimed Japan needed to devise a real energy strategy. He said while he believed Japan eventually would have to move to 100% renewable energy, in the meantime he advocated replacing energy produced by nuclear plants ready for decommissioning with an equal amount of energy from plants using liquid natural gas. To this he would add new renewable energy sources.
9. (C) Kono also made a few side remarks concerning the Japanese election process. He expressed dissatisfaction with the current election campaign law, which he called outdated. He noted, for example, that during the official campaign period he was not allowed to actively campaign on the Internet. He said he could print flyers during this time, but only a limited number, which had to be picked up by constituents at his campaign office. So, to get around these and other limitations, MPs had to campaign before the official campaign period began. Given the current uncertainty on a date for elections, he noted in a humorous manner that if the government delayed elections long enough, he and the other MPs would go broke. SCHIEFFER
UNCLAS TOKYO 003263SIPDISSIPDISE...JA SUBJECT: JAPAN: NUCLEAR POWER: EARTHQUAKE CAUSES...at Kashiwazki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) and...safety checks. Reports by Tokyo Electric Power Company...Post´s contact at Japan´s Nuclear and Industrial Safety...
http://www.aftenposten.no/spesial/wikileaksdokumenter/article4062825.eceUNCLAS TOKYO 003296 SIPDIS SIPDIS...TRGY SUBJECT: JAPAN: NUCLEAR POWER: ADDITIONAL MISHAPS...KASHIWAZAKI-KARIWA REF: TOKYO 03263 1) SUMMARY: On July 17, Tokyo Electric Power Company...Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant in Niigata...
http://www.aftenposten.no/spesial/wikileaksdokumenter/article4062820.ece27.10.2008: MP CRITICIZES JAPANESE NUCLEAR PLANS 18.mar.2011
...her: C O N F I D E N T I A L TOKYO 002993 SIPDIS DEPT FOR EAP...SUBJECT: MP CRITICIZES JAPANESE NUCLEAR PLANS REF: STATE 107836 Classified...his strong opposition to the nuclear industry in Japan, especially nuclear reprocessing, based on issues...
http://www.aftenposten.no/spesial/wikileaksdokumenter/article4064035.ece4.
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...information on the impact of the earthquake on the nuclear power plant, see Tokyo 03296 and Tokyo 03263. (EST: Ayanna Hobbs)19...TEPCO Officials Brief Embassy on Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Plant Damage...
26/07/2007: The Japan Economic Scope 16.mar.2011
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...Les saken her: UNCLAS TOKYO 003739 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE...since the Plan assumes nuclear power plants (NPPs...appear overly optimistic. Nuclear power plants provide about...earthquake. In FY 2003, when Tokyo Electric Power was forced...earthquake on Japan´s nuclear power industry is as...
http://www.aftenposten.no/spesial/wikileaksdokumenter/article4064034.ece...E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TOKYO 003679 SIPDIS SIPDIS OSD FOR...developments in China in such areas as TOKYO 00003679 002 OF 002 human rights...of his interest in Japan´s nuclear energy program, Minister Koike...of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant had not been damaged in...
http://www.aftenposten.no/spesial/wikileaksdokumenter/article4062828.ece...return for 3.63 million yen in TOKYO 00005603 002 OF 010 bribes Nikkei...Constitutional review imperative Tokyo Shimbun: New students at nursing...hides 8 active faults near Shiga nuclear power plant 2) EDITORIALS Asahi...successful Aegis missile test Tokyo Shimbun: (1) Moriya rearrested...
http://www.aftenposten.no/spesial/wikileaksdokumenter/article3972794.ece2.12.2008: BILATERAL RELATIONSHIPS WITH SWITZERLAND AND THE PRINCIPALITY OF LIECHTENSTEIN 10.jan.2011
...weeks the Swiss position in the Iran-Nuclear dispute is completely clear. There is...explore a diplomatic dialogue on the Iranian nuclear proliferation issue, perhaps we could...which held its last negotiating round in Tokyo in October 2008 and is intended to increase...
http://www.aftenposten.no/spesial/wikileaksdokumenter/article3980221.eceS E C R E T TOKYO 000011 SIPDIS STATE FOR ISN/RA, ISN/CPI, EAP/J, SCA/CEN E...was unfamiliar with the companies involved, but would work with METIs nuclear energy division, which should already have the required corporate contacts...
http://www.aftenposten.no/spesial/wikileaksdokumenter/article3988310.ece
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