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Military Analyst FOIA: DoD Website URLs Substantially Changed Without Explanation
Warning: DoD May Change URLs, thwarting TPM
The Department of Defense (DoD) has changed URLfor documents on the military analyst program. The Department of Defense released to the NYT and public emails and other documents related to the military analyst program in response to a NYT FOIA request.New York Times' David Barstow is involved with this analysis and reporting.
It is not obvious the problem is with the URL. Some readers may believe they cannot view a document because of an error with the analysis; or the DoD site has excessive traffic. This may not be the case.
Any saved URLs or URLs posted to public blogs may or may not be valid. Earlier analysis with original URLs, without an auto-connect feature, are no longer valid.
One objective of information warfare is to thwart others from getting access to information, not just provide invalid information. The White House has not commented on how these changes may or may not relate to efforts to thwart enforcement of the laws of war. The public should ask for White House, State Department, NSC, DoD, DOJ OLC, and outside counsel emails and notes discussing how the public might be thwarted from getting access to information about this military analyst program.
White House Involved With DoD Military Analysts
The disclosed emails are damaging to the President. The emails show the White House, Rove, State Department, CIFA, and National Security Council are linked to the Military Analyst program. See 120
Some of the URLs have been updated on the DoD website. Without an auto-connect feature from the original (now invalid) URL to the new (updated, valid) URL, it is difficult for TPM readers to easily see the documents showing the White House connection to the military analysts.
Previous commentary establishing the link between the President, White House, and the DoD military analysts includes now-invalid URLs.
For example, one original URL had spaces, but the new URL for the same document no longer has the spaces. The spaces in the original (now invalid) URL are represented by %20. It is difficult for most people to manually remove the %20 from the original URL to connect to the updated URL
Inadequate DoD Explanation
Without mentioning the URL changes or deletions, the DoD website states, in very small font at the bottom:
DoD's failure to explain the changes may suggest to the court a bad faith effort to interfere with public oversight and subsequent discovery.
Some analysis links to original the DoD urls. The new URLs mean the original links are no longer valid, unless DoD provides an auto-connect feature from the content with the original URLs to the current URL.
White House: DoD Analysts and Guantanamo Emails
Using other documents the ACLU obtained, it's possible to understand some of the military analyst-related emails. ACLU data show a memo involving prisoner abuse from a Navy Commander at 1377 is the same officer at 119 . 1379 shows Plexico's name and illustrates some of the background discussions McClellan was having to respond to prisoner abuse questions.
The changes to the DoD URLs makes the analysis and comparison difficult. Congress and the NYT will have to update their saved URLs, and this will complicate fact checking, discovery, and oversight.
Going Forward
The New York Times through the court should seek an explanation from the White House and DoD why the URLs for the FOIA response changed. DoD should discuss with Congress, the court and NYT whether it is or is not unwilling to make these changes, or provide an easy method to connect to the original FOIA documents using the originally-released DoD URLs.
Congress is encouraged to review these DoD actions in light of the standards of comity. It remains unclear what action the NYT may take under FOIA to ensure DoD fully discloses the content, and explains the reasons it is not substantially complying with the Court Order.
DoD should provide a clear change page showing the exact changes to URLs, and changes in identifying information to each linked document. Where the URL title has changed, DoD should provide a copy of the original URL, and a copy of the updated URL. This reconciliation table should be provided to the NYT and available to Congress in letter.
The DoD-change page should also state which specific dates on documents have changed. DoD should explain why the dates on key URLs have been changed. If there are no changes, DoD should report in writing to the court that there are no changes to the URLs, the reference dates, or any summary table available for public inspection.
DoD should provide an auto-connect feature from the original URL (with spaces). Until DoD make these changes, the public should discuss whether DoD is deliberately changing DoD URLs to thwart access to the information, or make it difficult to understand findings in earlier analysis.
Next Steps
Where there are URL errors, TPM readers are encouraged others to examine the original URLs, noting the numbers of the URL which correspond to a document date, then find the updated URL at the DoD site. DoD should provide this summary reconciliation table so the public, Congress, outside counsel and prosecutors may easily access the data as the court intended.
Please contact your Members of Congress to inquire whether they have had any concerns about this FOIA response, the DOD website and URL change, or the established White House connection to the DoD military program,
Possible War Crimes Evidence
It remains to be understood how DoD and the White House are changing URLs to deliberately thwart enforcement of the laws of war.
Any commentary you may have about problems getting access to court-ordered DoD disclosures may be important war crimes evidence. This evidence could be important related to allegations of obstruction, jury tampering, intimidation, or deliberate evidence destruction.
It is unclear if DoD may change the URLs again, or revert the new URLs to the old version. Readers are encouraged to retain the original (now invalid) URLs, and not delete them from the original posts, but provide annotations to the updated URLs.
The information you have related to the changed URLs may be important evidence showing a DoD effort to thwart discovery of important information. Please consider retaining your original emails, work products, and other documents with the incorrect URLs. This may be important to show the court the impact of DoD's changed URLs.
The Department of Defense (DoD) has changed URLfor documents on the military analyst program. The Department of Defense released to the NYT and public emails and other documents related to the military analyst program in response to a NYT FOIA request.New York Times' David Barstow is involved with this analysis and reporting.
It is not obvious the problem is with the URL. Some readers may believe they cannot view a document because of an error with the analysis; or the DoD site has excessive traffic. This may not be the case.
Any saved URLs or URLs posted to public blogs may or may not be valid. Earlier analysis with original URLs, without an auto-connect feature, are no longer valid.
One objective of information warfare is to thwart others from getting access to information, not just provide invalid information. The White House has not commented on how these changes may or may not relate to efforts to thwart enforcement of the laws of war. The public should ask for White House, State Department, NSC, DoD, DOJ OLC, and outside counsel emails and notes discussing how the public might be thwarted from getting access to information about this military analyst program.
White House Involved With DoD Military Analysts
The disclosed emails are damaging to the President. The emails show the White House, Rove, State Department, CIFA, and National Security Council are linked to the Military Analyst program. See 120
Some of the URLs have been updated on the DoD website. Without an auto-connect feature from the original (now invalid) URL to the new (updated, valid) URL, it is difficult for TPM readers to easily see the documents showing the White House connection to the military analysts.
Previous commentary establishing the link between the President, White House, and the DoD military analysts includes now-invalid URLs.
For example, one original URL had spaces, but the new URL for the same document no longer has the spaces. The spaces in the original (now invalid) URL are represented by %20. It is difficult for most people to manually remove the %20 from the original URL to connect to the updated URL
Inadequate DoD Explanation
Without mentioning the URL changes or deletions, the DoD website states, in very small font at the bottom:
This page was last updated on:
Friday, 23-May-08 23:38:48
DoD's failure to explain the changes may suggest to the court a bad faith effort to interfere with public oversight and subsequent discovery.
Some analysis links to original the DoD urls. The new URLs mean the original links are no longer valid, unless DoD provides an auto-connect feature from the content with the original URLs to the current URL.
White House: DoD Analysts and Guantanamo Emails
Using other documents the ACLU obtained, it's possible to understand some of the military analyst-related emails. ACLU data show a memo involving prisoner abuse from a Navy Commander at 1377 is the same officer at 119 . 1379 shows Plexico's name and illustrates some of the background discussions McClellan was having to respond to prisoner abuse questions.
The changes to the DoD URLs makes the analysis and comparison difficult. Congress and the NYT will have to update their saved URLs, and this will complicate fact checking, discovery, and oversight.
Going Forward
The New York Times through the court should seek an explanation from the White House and DoD why the URLs for the FOIA response changed. DoD should discuss with Congress, the court and NYT whether it is or is not unwilling to make these changes, or provide an easy method to connect to the original FOIA documents using the originally-released DoD URLs.
Congress is encouraged to review these DoD actions in light of the standards of comity. It remains unclear what action the NYT may take under FOIA to ensure DoD fully discloses the content, and explains the reasons it is not substantially complying with the Court Order.
DoD should provide a clear change page showing the exact changes to URLs, and changes in identifying information to each linked document. Where the URL title has changed, DoD should provide a copy of the original URL, and a copy of the updated URL. This reconciliation table should be provided to the NYT and available to Congress in letter.
The DoD-change page should also state which specific dates on documents have changed. DoD should explain why the dates on key URLs have been changed. If there are no changes, DoD should report in writing to the court that there are no changes to the URLs, the reference dates, or any summary table available for public inspection.
DoD should provide an auto-connect feature from the original URL (with spaces). Until DoD make these changes, the public should discuss whether DoD is deliberately changing DoD URLs to thwart access to the information, or make it difficult to understand findings in earlier analysis.
Next Steps
Where there are URL errors, TPM readers are encouraged others to examine the original URLs, noting the numbers of the URL which correspond to a document date, then find the updated URL at the DoD site. DoD should provide this summary reconciliation table so the public, Congress, outside counsel and prosecutors may easily access the data as the court intended.
Please contact your Members of Congress to inquire whether they have had any concerns about this FOIA response, the DOD website and URL change, or the established White House connection to the DoD military program,
Possible War Crimes Evidence
It remains to be understood how DoD and the White House are changing URLs to deliberately thwart enforcement of the laws of war.
Any commentary you may have about problems getting access to court-ordered DoD disclosures may be important war crimes evidence. This evidence could be important related to allegations of obstruction, jury tampering, intimidation, or deliberate evidence destruction.
It is unclear if DoD may change the URLs again, or revert the new URLs to the old version. Readers are encouraged to retain the original (now invalid) URLs, and not delete them from the original posts, but provide annotations to the updated URLs.
The information you have related to the changed URLs may be important evidence showing a DoD effort to thwart discovery of important information. Please consider retaining your original emails, work products, and other documents with the incorrect URLs. This may be important to show the court the impact of DoD's changed URLs.
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