Echelon: Specific, probative transcripts available for Fitzgerald Grand Jury

Sometimes it's worse to suppress a secret. The court action simply draws attention to the larger alleged criminal conspiracy.

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A British Court issued gag order on a discussion between Bush and Blair.

Attorney Fitzgerald has another piece of information. There are transcripts which confirm discussions between Bush and Blair over the issues of Iraq and WMD. The Grand Jury may have been led to believe something contrary to what is in other transcripts.

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There may be another reason why the Official Secrets Act was invoked in re the discussion between Bush and Blair over bombing AlJazeera.

Take a look at this:

When they were charged, newspapers reported that the memo contained a transcript of a discussion between Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush.

The conversation was understood to have taken place during a meeting in the US. It is believed to reveal that Mr. Blair disagreed with Mr. Bush about aspects of the Iraq war.

But that's not the only thing confirming recordings:

Sir Christopher, who supported the war, sat in on the crucial meetings between Mr Blair and Mr Bush, reading transcripts of their private phone calls and regularly meeting figures such as Dick Cheney, the vice-president, and Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary.Ref

Another memo discussed earlier.

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This means there are a couple of things that are of interest to the Grand Jury:

A. There are recordings of discussions between the leaders

B. Someone has access to the recordings and transcripts

C. Discussions that occur in the United States are then available to the United Kingdom staff

D. Someone has to make the recordings; verify the recordings are suitable; transcribe the information; then present it in a final copy.

E. There had to be a method to transmit the information from the United States [point of recording] to the United Kingdom [point of receipt, disclosure]

F. The only way that the court would issue a gag order was if the information existed, meaning: We know the there are other possible documents which would over the years of interest travel the same route both from the US to UK, and also from the UK to the US.

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Let's consider the "problems" Libby has had:

A. What was said doesn't match what the FBI has learned

B. The actual reasons for the discussions are still not clear

C. Fitzgerald is still trying to put the pieces together

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We also know, through Bolton’s confirmation, that Echelon does spy on Americans.

It remains to be understood what specific conversations, dates, and subjects were recorded, occurred, or would be of interest to the Grand Jury.

Yet, the targeted agency may attempt to convince the Grand Jury and/or investigators to narrow the scope of their inquiry.

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This also means that we would have [a] a proven link that [b] shows there is a document flow and [c] a reasonable basis to inquire about the other memos like PBD 21 Sep 2001, as it relates to a pattern of conduct:

Misrepresentations to Congress

Common unlawful objective [See Nuremburg Indictment]

That the information, because it was arguably unlawful, cannot be protected as a "state secret" in that it is evidence of a crime; therefore, arguably no "non disclosure agreement" is enforceable

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It remains to be understood whether the Court Ruling that the "disclosure of this transcript would violate the Official Secrets Act" could be enforced against someone who was lawfully investigating alleged war crimes, but the indictment hinged on evidence contained in the transcripts between the US and UK.

It remains to be understood whether the [a] original classification and [b] subsequent government request that the court intervene is actually a ruse to suppress something warranting review by a war crimes trial; and/or [c] what role, if any, the United States government and specific individuals who may become war crimes-trial-defendants had in getting the UK court to intervene.