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Pentagon Demands Return of Leaked Afghanistan Documents
Multiple news agencies are reporting that the Pentagon has demanded the return of WikiLeaks' collection of secret documents relating to the war in Afghanistan. Defense Department spokesman Geoff Morrell said, "The only acceptable course is for WikiLeaks to take steps immediately to return all versions of all of these documents to the US government and permanently delete them from its website, computers and records." According to the BBC, Morrell also "acknowledged the already-leaked documents' viral spread across the internet made it unlikely they could ever be quashed," but hopes to prevent the dissemination of a further 15,000 documents WikiLeaks is reportedly in the process of redacting. "We're looking to have a conversation about how to get these perilous documents off the website as soon as possible, return them to their rightful owners and expunge them from their records." WikiLeaks, predictably, shows no sign of cooperating.
It is already out in the open. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. Or "Things that have been seen can not be unseen."
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Government is the only business which holds the special right to employ coercion (meaning physical force or threat thereof) against you in order to achieve its goals. Secrets have absolutely no place in such a relationship.
Am I saying I wouldn't put an ounce of trust in such an entity no matter how loud they scream "we need secrets"? You're damn right I am.
It's all bark and no bite. They're just pissed for getting called out for what most intelligent people already knew. That the wars are not going well and that W wasn't taking the war seriously at all. At this point any damage that's going to be done has been done, and this is mostly just about saving face.
Here we go again with people thinking that the paper paradigm applies to the digital world.
How on Earth do you return digital documents? Do you scrape the oxide layer off the hard drives, put it in a little vial, mark it with volume mount point(s) and put it into an envelope addressed to Pentagon? Oh, yes, I know, you first print out the directory listing (like we used to do with the floppies), tape it to the vial, then scrape, fill the vial and ship.
As for the further documents -- they better watch out, because WikiLeaks may just give up and publish all of the unredacted stuff just to preserve it.
As for WikiLeaks somehow "embarrassing" the U.S. military: waitaminuzel here. Did WikiLeaks compel the military to do all the embarrassing stuff? No? Then well, maybe it was better the taxpayers knew what their money is spent on, huh?
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Go download it like the rest of the world has already?
Honestly, what kind of statement is that. It's already been leaked. What is there to gain from getting it back? I doubt Wikileaks got a stack of paper from PFC Manning anyway.
Fame whore? Without googling, off of the top of your head, what's the full name and correct spelling of the guy behind WikiLeaks? And what does he look like?
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
But I bet they would.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
"We're looking to have a conversation about how to get these perilous documents off the website as soon as possible, return them to their rightful owners and expunge them from their records." WikiLeaks, predictably, shows no sign of cooperating.
Good.
Yes, those BRAVE people at WikiLeaks are standing up to a power that might SUBPOENA them from across an ocean.
Yay.
Now, if they had the backbone to stand against the real nasty regimes of this world, maybe the worship being thrown WikiLeaks way would be justified.
Woo hoo. They're SOOO brave.
Not.
The best thing about this information is it reveals how governments lie and lie and lie to the populace. Thats the only reason they only want the information back.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
That's what I'm afraid of!
It's been made clear to governments around the world that an untamed Internet is more powerful than all of them put together. Because the Internet is nothing but their populations truly free.
They should realize they work for us, and stop fecking up because it'll get them into trouble.
But instead they'll pretend it's a security risk and a danger to children and destroy it piece by piece.
The documents leaked so far illustrate the frustration of U.S. forces in fighting the protracted Afghan conflict and revived debate over the war's uncertain progress.
These documents are showing that the US' operation aren't doing too well. WikiLeaks is holding back stuff that may endanger people's lives.
This is all about the Pentagon and the Government trying hide their incompetence and stupidity. It's also to trying to keep information out of our hands to keep the support for the wars from it's continual slide down.
We're in another Viet Nam type era.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Well, it is the business of a military to conduct war. In the case of the US military, it is their job to conduct war when the executive asks them to. And he did. Do you know why he did? Because Americans demanded and supported it overwhelmingly. How is that not the "right" thing for the US military to do?
It has already been proven that most of the people who supported military action also believed that saddam was responsible for 9/11 and a whole bunch of other total bullshit that the then-current administration deliberately led people to believe (with media collusion) specifically to drum up support for the war. Fuck, anyone who's seen Wag the Dog should be capable of seeing through it, let alone anyone who has paid any attention to history at all. Nice to see that the Halliburton shills are still too unpopular to risk logging in, though.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
return them to their rightful owners
Rightful owners? They must mean the American people who paid for all of this, right?
Reply to That ||
Losing a war? Here's the plan!
1. Leak documents that show boring day to day operational details, including civilian casualties on the internet
2. Blame the people who distribute, download and read said documents for the deaths of those people and the deaths of everyone else from now on in the war due to "security risks"
3. ???
4. Profit
5. (STILL lose the war)
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Because while the name of some Afghani that ratted out where a random weapons cache or meeting point is isn't exactly important or ground breaking news to us, it sure makes them less likely to help and the Taliban is already saying their looking over the lists for reprisal targets (probably partially in truth but mainly to scare Afghani civilians into not cooperating anymore).
I don't think that's the way it is going to have been set up. Far more likely it's going to be an automatic disclosure of the decryption process from a source independent of Wikileaks should Julian Assange or any other key members fail to check in some how at regular intervals. That way if they should be detained or "meet with an unfortunate accident" the contents of the assurance file go public.
Quite frankly, I think the US military and government are pointing their fingers in the wrong direction here. The people that are really at fault here are those who have still not managed to put adequate controls on the access and export of sensitive data; one of the task given to the DHS, IIRC. Quite simply put, I doubt that there is any reason why a single person should have been able to access all those documents in the first place, let alone be in a position to take copies and pass them on too WikiLeaks and the media. It's not like Gary McKinnon hasn't given them enough egg on their faces about poor security procedures already, is it...?
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Obama is? He took three months to consider his general's report, then gave the man LESS than the MINIMUM number of troops the general asked for-- as if to claim that he somehow knew better.
My point is this: don't pin it on W. All of our leaders are rife with incompetence.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Last time i looked up US law, it was only illegal to distribute or help facilitate distribution of classified documents (not to possess or read).
Even if Wikileaks was US based, i don't know if the Pentagon would be within it's rights to force anything but a takedown....
Though, they may be in their rights to disconnect Internet connections owned by US companies or on US soil that wikileaks can travel over (facilitate distribution).
Though there may be a clause that says if you distribute classified documents to unauthorized destinations we get to take all your copies (so make sure to have lots of lube on hand as par for the course with a DOJ investigation)
Also, I think the bulk of the classified document policy falls under and executive order not a federal law. So I doubt the bulk of the nuances federal employees/contractors are under do not apply to US citizens, much less the foreign nationals
In any case, they cant touch anyone who downloaded the documents and didn't 1.) redistribute it or 2.) fund wikileaks so how do they really expect to clean up the mess. Everyone who wants the documents already has them
anything the DOJ/Pentagon tries to do now will just be an international PR nightmare
Seriously? The guys been in the paper constantly the last few months and has given countless interviews. My mother knows his name. Oh, and he looks like Bill Maher but slightly gayer and more strung out.
Yes, Seriously. I guess everyone missed my point.
WikiLeaks has been around for years and it has only been in the last couple of months that he's come out of the woodwork to defend what they have done.
Before this episode, one would would have to look kind of hard to get his name and his photo wasn't the easiest thing to find - I tried a couple of years ago when WikiLeaks first started making waves.
That isn't a media whore.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Right... people are disappearing and starving to death in North Korea, and you're most concerned about "war crimes" in Afghanistan? Make sure that you imprison the leaders of all the countries who sent troops there. Oh yeah, and 99 out of 100 members of the Senate.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Obama is? He took three months to consider his general's report, then gave the man LESS than the MINIMUM number of troops the general asked for-- as if to claim that he somehow knew better.
My point is this: don't pin it on W. All of our leaders are rife with incompetence.
I think I'm gonna go ahead and pin it on the guy that started it, if it's okay with you. Or even if it's not.
I don't know how they intend to save face by claiming they shouldn't be held accountable, and will make people pay for embarrassing them.
The fact that they consider embarrassment a bigger issue than accountability or civilian lives, is a clear sign they have their priorities wrong.
I think I'm gonna go ahead and pin it on the guy that started it, if it's okay with you. Or even if it's not.
Osama Bin Laden?
Obama is? He took three months to consider his general's report, then gave the man LESS than the MINIMUM number of troops the general asked for-- as if to claim that he somehow knew better.
So Obama is not taking it seriously because he took three months to decide? How long is long enough? And he didn't give the general everything he asked for? That indicates he's "claiming he knows better"? Or are you saying that "taking it seriously" requires immediately granting the Pentagon everything they ask for? Strange test.
Another more simplistic possibility is perhaps this: Clearly the US government know exactly what has been leaked so far, they know the document pile it came from, so it's not much of a stretch to figure out what else is very probably also there that has yet to be leaked.
They knew what we were in for.
When you see photos of Afghanistan and see all that rubble, guess who did that? The Russians bombed them back into the Stone Age and they still couldn't get them under control - and if you consider that the Soviets didn't give a rat's ass about PR, I'm sure they didn't pull any punches like we do (read: the didn't give a shit about civilian casualties)
Bush KNEW this would be folly if they didn't have an adequate plan but Nooooooo, he went in there shoot'in up the place with no plan.
So yes, I'll blame Bush - he deserves it.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
It's a question of access and sharing vs security. Controls on information are more lax towards the front because it's there where the information can make a difference between soldiers connecting the dots and making the right move or not, and the consequences are very real. You try to push that information to the front so the people there can make the most informed decisions possible. You run the risk of something like this happening but on the other hand controlling that information more tightly runs the risk of people messing up and dying in incidents that could have been prevented by better access to information. In the tighter control scenario you would have bureaucrats telling soldiers they can't have access to information that could save their lives and in the other scenario you would have to have a soldier that's willing to put his comrades and mission in harms way in order for there to be a leak. So I think it should be easy to see why it's generally supported to push intel like this to the front, and I doubt they'll let this incident change that much.
I should hope not. Too bad the authorities have convinced the public to condemn the messenger instead of the message... Very sad state of affairs we have here.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
he had (has?) a home country. Its just that as with nearly everyone in his organisation, it was neither of the 2 countries that got attacked
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
It's already been proven that most of the people who voted for they guy who promised to end the war but hasn't also fail to comprehend basic economics and a whole bunch of other bullshit and were also much less informed about facts than those who didn't fall for shallow and, err, hopey shtick that's given us almost two years of FAIL.
This is a red herring, because I think Obama is part of the same problem that Bush is a part of, that the Clintons are a part of... There's a reason republicans and democrats unite to attack "third-party" candidates and it has nothing to do with delivering to you the best possible president. I have utterly given up on voting for the lesser of evils, because I no longer believe in the lesser of evils. Better to make a statement, however feeble, than lend your support to the two-party system.
I usually try not to feed the trolls, but you handed me a pretty fantastic straight line. If that was your goal, then you're still a troll, but thanks.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Law enforcement and intelligence were too compartmentalized according to the 9/11 commission. They didn't share enough data, didn't make it available across the board and all that. Problem is that the more sharing there is, the more likely some asshat in a place like the Pentagon or FBI can leak data from the CIA or military intelligence (NSA, DIA, NGA, NRO, etc.) or vice versa.
I don't know why this is a surprise to anyone on Slashdot. It's generally taken for granted by most posters here that the more people that can get on a system, the more likely it is that security will be compromised.
Of course, the solution is quite simple. We treat whistleblowers who revealed classified docs the way we should treat people who send prisoners off for rendition: you are judged by the outcome, not your intentions. If you reveal classified docs that show clear, unequivocal felonious behavior, you get pardoned for breaking the law. If you misinterpreted it and are wrong, you get sent to Leavenworth for the better part of the remainder of your life.
The international banking cartels drive the decisions of military contractors and government, they create the money for war and profit from it
You are aware of the fact that you can't actually count to 2^256, no matter how many acres of computers you have? If they are able to crack 256-bit AES, it would be because they found some usable weakness in the algorithm, in which case we have no idea how much computing power is required, and maybe an ordinary computer will do.
I like to think they use those acres to play raytraced Crysis.
now that's just funny, government and people talking about "at risk" persons. this "war" in Afghanistan is a lie, it is NOT against those who attacked the U.S. on 9/11 (they're long gone) nor is it against the Taliban who hosted the attackers (also long gone). The label "Taliban" is instead now slapped on insurgents who are, surprise!, pissed off at a foreign occupier. Let's not give this bullshit war-for-profit-and-political-coin any legitimacy by claiming that it is somehow treason or puts people at risk by publishing information about its folly
That's right. "Taking a war seriously" means hollering "Let's get it on" and sending in the shock and awe, killing a few hundred thousand civilians and then letting the guy behind 9/11 have a nice vacation in Tora Bora.
You are welcome on my lawn.
What is the Pentagon trying to hide? Honestly Wikileaks should tell them to go get stuffed.
Make no mistake, by the standards of any state in the union, Julian is a murderer.
Wikileaks is probably moribund now because of how they handled this. But this is the internet, so there will be a replacement sooner or later. I can only hope that the replacement learns the right lessons here.
The leaked data can fit (broadly) into 4 categories.
1) Junk. Unavoidable in any large data/document set.
2) "This is what war looks like." Gun camera footage, etc. Kudos for releasing this. The people back home should be able to see this so they can make informed decisions.
3) "Our plan isn't working very well." We all knew this already. No harm in releasing it, and drawing attention to it might foster real debate.
4) Shit that is going to get people killed. There is no journalistic value in publishing a list of villagers that are helping us. The world does not benefit from knowing which people in the Taliban were feeding us information. These people are DEAD, some already and some soon to be. And Julian killed them just as surely as if he had pulled the trigger himself.
So, after the leak hangs and Julian goes into hiding, if you decide to start Wikileaks 2.0, please try really hard not to help our enemies kill our friends. We want to support your cause and we think that it is important to make the truth available to the people so they can make informed decisions. But we have limits, so you need to have some decency and exercise some discretion.
See that "Preview" button?
NOT following the generals suggestion does not equate to incompetent.
Soldiers always want more war - that is not what is always wanted by society at large.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Why no classified Russian or Chinese documents on Wikileaks?
Oh that's right.
The Russians and Chinese would hunt them down and kill them.
Which is not out of the question, btw. It will be a real tragedy when Julian is knifed in a botched robbery attenpt.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I have utterly given up on voting for the lesser of evils
"Ok, you have a choice: you can vote for death by hanging, or death by firing squad." Lesser of two evils be damned; I'm not voting for anyone who wants one of my favorite activities to be illegal, let alone several of them. And both the Democrats and Republicans want pot, prostitution, gambling, and noncommercial copyright infringement to be illegal. Both parties want longer and longer copyright terms.
Since there were five parties in the last Presidential election with their names on ballots in enough states to mathematically have a chance to win, now we have the lesser of five evils, none of whom have a party I could actually bring myself to join.
If you want my vote, stop outlawing things I love.
Free Martian Whores!
You guys seem to make waaaay too many really evil choices.
One of the claims of the press is that they are the "fourth branch of government" and that they are necessary to keep the people in power honest. Of course that is all BS as the press first serves it's own interests and hides behind a constitutional protection of "freedom of the press".
You're sort of right, there. It has become a 4th branch of government. Meaning that "its" interests are the same as those of the other three branches. Which seem to boil down to "usurping as much power as possible."
We are talking about the international press and they are not obligated in any way to act as responsible stewards of US government information. For the most part, the press is propaganda. It is just not easy to figure out who they are serving as most of the time they fly no flag and take whatever position that leads to the creation of bigger and more sensational stories.
Seems pretty obvious to me. When Lindsay Lohan's trip to rehab is bigger news than the latest death tolls in "our" latest imperialist adventure in Asia, it's hard to ignore the conspiracy theories.
Wikileaks is not a press organization. It is a clearinghouse for folks who are willing to reveal information that they may be sworn to protect.
You have to wonder what would make people willing to violate that sort of oath. Maybe they've come to realize just how evil their lords and masters truly are?
Many of the sources of information on Wikileaks are folks who have committed an act of treason against their country by revealing information that was meant to be kept secret.
This is where you went completely off the deep end. And one of the huge reasons America is in such horrible shape.
Pointing out war crimes is not treason. It's a responsibility. Doing so knowing that you're risking torture and death at the Egyptian version of Gitmo is an extreme act of patriotism. AFAIC, it ranks right up there with having the courage and patriotism to sign the Declaration of Independence.
America's Founding Fathers were traitors and terrorists, too.
A voter who's kept in the dark and does not know what the government is doing cannot vote intelligently. Sure, all governments have to keep secrets. But "ours" has become pathological about classifying absolutely everything.
We're about two steps from being Soviet Russia. Getting the truth out to people the way wikileaks is doing is just about the only thing that might wake up enough people to keep us from taking those steps.
What should happen is that folks who commit treason should be dealt with "old school", drawn, quartered and their body parts spread to the different corners of the realm.
Goose-stepping fascists like you seem to be are exactly the reason the Founding Fathers wrote that minor little clause about "cruel and unusual punishment." I realize that you obviously have absolutely no respect for the Constitution, but here's the catch about that: it is the basis for the federal government's authority. Without it, the United States does not exist.
It has been entertaining to most of us as we have had any skin in the game, it was always someone else s secrets.
I couldn't make heads or tails out of that sentence. I'm tempted to say something insulting about it, but I'm trying my best to keep this reasonable and civil.
It's not the US Military that drives the decisions of the US Government. It's the military contractors that drive the decisions of the US Government.
Military-industrial-congress complex: The same people go through a revolving door and alternate between military, government and private enterprise. Perfect example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Rumsfeld
You see, term limits only mean that the people in power have a rotation. They go from being in control of the government to running newspapers and contractors when the other team is in government and then they come back to power with a new frontman.
The people behind Nixon were the same people behind Reagan, and Bush1, and Bush2. You can look at group pictures and litterally see these same people standing behind the frontman.
You can't take the sky from me...
Last I checked the citizens of the USA are the rightful owners and based on the information in them, the Pentagon as a whole needs to be fired by their employer AND the rightful owners of those documents: US citizens.
Consider this my official endorsement of the "Anyone but a Republicans and Democrats" candidate.
Brewster had it right, time to vote "None of the Above"
Clinton dropped the ball.
Bush kicked the ball out of bounds.
Obama then robbed the spectators and sold the ball to the opposing team.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
I thought that the White House National Security Adviser was going around saying that the documents ended in December of 2009 before the surge, and now were winning.
If the documents ended in Dec of 2009 that would mean almost a years worth of documents while Obama was President.
>>>The people behind Nixon were the same people behind Reagan, and Bush1, and Bush2. You can look at group pictures and litterally see these same people standing behind the frontman.
That's interesting. Republicans are all the same puppets. Wow. I guess that's why the mods gave you a +1 insightful mod. Ya know, I was just looking at photos of Wilson and FDR, and I swear I saw saw germans/italians in the background - pulling the strings. I guess Democrats are puppets too, eh? +1 insightful for me too.
Trivia
- The majority of the Democrats (like KKK Wizard Robert Byrd) voted against the 1950s and 60s Civil Rights Legislation. They don't teach you that in history books, do they?
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
>>>Choosing the lesser of two evils sometimes means you're left with a really evil choice.
The third choice is for the CIA to stop trying to project power beyond the US border. They should not be interfering with foreign affairs, anymore than we would want the EU to assassinate a Governor (Schwarzenegger for example) and install somebody the EU likes better.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Alex Jones has an interesting theory: Wikileaks is actually a false flag project by the government to (1) leak information and then (2) use that to justify why only people with Internet Licenses should be allowed to have websites.
I think AJ is full of shit too, but it's an interesting thought.
Sounds like something the 1920s-era National Socialists would invent.
I don't think there's a conspiracy here at all... just a case of Bradley Manning's ego running wild (when he gets to Ft. Leavenworth, I wonder if he'll think it was worth it?), but if there was any conspiracy to leak the documents, then it's far more likely that an intelligence agency did it to pressure Pakistan, as many docs purportedly implicate the Pakistani military and intelligence services of aiding Al Qaeda on the side.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The people behind Nixon were the same people behind Reagan, and Bush1, and Bush2. You can look at group pictures and litterally see these same people standing behind the frontman.
And?
Obama has Clinton carry-overs. Clinton had Carter carry-overs. Carter had LBJ carry-overs. JFK/LBJ had FDR carry-overs. And some of those administrations had guys that had White House time going back 40 years.
When a President enters office, he wants some seasoned hands with him. That means people that have served in previous administrations. There's nothing sinister or conspiratorial about that. That's just common sense. One of the things Clinton suffered from his first two years was having more green rookies than guys like Lloyd Bentsen who actually knew what the hell was going on. Plus, since Republicans have won more often than Democrats in the White House since 1970, there's a lot more guys with experience working there on the GOP side. You want to bring in some fresh blood, but at that level, it's more important to have experience.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Soldiers always want more war - that is not what is always wanted by society at large.
In 11 years of posting here, that's one of the dumbest things I've ever read here. If you really believe that, then you don't know a damn thing about soldiers.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The fixation on "doing the right thing" is amusing, because as far as Wikileaks is concerned, that is exactly what they are doing. It's not like they are profiting from an act that they agree is immoral. They do this because they believe it is right.
Regardless of whether one supports the disclosure (I do), the logic of this demand is pretty shaky.
(Naturally, it is not expected to be followed. It's probably more of a warning that Wikileaks' redundantly decentralized server infrastructure will be put to the test soon.)
>>>The people behind Nixon were the same people behind Reagan, and Bush1, and Bush2. You can look at group pictures and litterally see these same people standing behind the frontman.
That's interesting. Republicans are all the same puppets. Wow. I guess that's why the mods gave you a +1 insightful mod.
I had taken one example centered around one specific individual, but go ahead and make zany generalizations if that makes you feel better.
The majority of the Democrats (like KKK Wizard Robert Byrd) voted against the 1950s and 60s Civil Rights Legislation. They don't teach you that in history books, do they?
Fascinating. WTF does that have to do about the distribution of power between the private and public sector?
Oh, it had absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand? You're just spouting partisan bullshit? I see...
You can't take the sky from me...
Trivia
- The majority of the Democrats (like KKK Wizard Robert Byrd) voted against the 1950s and 60s Civil Rights Legislation. They don't teach you that in history books, do they?
Awww, you left out the ending of that story! How d'you expect the young'uns to learn if you're gonna truncate shit like that?
Pssst, kids: That 'majority' of Democrats who voted against civil rights legislation decided the Democratic party wasn't racist enough so they crossed the aisle and joined the Republicans instead.
In fact, kids, those fuckheads are the major reason why the GOP turned from the party of personal responsibility and fiscal prudence to the "blowjobs-for-the-rich, reach-arounds-for-the-fundies" party. I say it's time to kick the fuckheads out a second time. Let them make their own party instead of taking over another this time.
Holy crap, they listened to me!
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
That's that, now I'm downloading the whole thing.
Prior to this I really had little interest in it.
The only winning move is not to play. W fed the trolls.
They don't teach that (except maybe in Texas) because it's not true.
A majority of Democrats voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Bill. A majority of Southern Democrats voted against it, but some voted for it. No Southern Republicans voted for it..
And the Democrats controlled both the House and Senate when the 1960 and 1957 Civil Rights Acts were passed. Though I can't find vote breakdowns, with control of both chambers, Democrats could have squashed the bill if that was the desire of the majority of them.
Nor was Robert Byrd ever a "Wizard" of the KKK. He was a member, and was elected to the position of "Exalted Cyclops" of his local chapter, but was never a Wizard and had quit entirely before he ever ran for Congress. Throughout his career he repeatedly and very publicly apologized and recanted for his mistake, and came to be lauded by the NAACP. He stands as a shining example for everyone who believes that human beings are possible of reform. (Which of course makes his story anathema to the black-and-white, good-versus-evil sort of thinking that dominates the American conservative movement these days.)
A few minutes with Google could have saved you from looking like an ass. You owe Mr. Byrd a posthumous apology.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood