ZAID

[esquirecomics]

Not intended to be a jab at you, I'm a big fan of yours. My introduction stating that the people interested in pursuing pressing who yet can't even put together something against Ewert was meant to generally imply that the whole pressing thing was impotent and unlikely to amount to any more than huge volumes of ineffective written stuff.

 

 

There is absolutely no correlation whatsoever between the two efforts. You can manufacture one in your mind if you wish, but it simply does not exist.

[esquirecomics]

Well, all I know is that my contribution check (as small as it was) to the legal fund did clear. So I hope it accomplished something.

 

For all those who sent money to me for the Ewert fund, it is being forwarded to FFB.

[Flaming_Telepath]

Well, all I know is that my contribution check (as small as it was) to the legal fund did clear. So I hope it accomplished something.

 

For all those who sent money to me for the Ewert fund, it is being forwarded to FFB.

 

[esquirecomics]

If anyone is wondering about this story's relevance to comics, as some formuites have taken umbrage with this thread (yea, as if dozens of other threads always have relevance ), it is a well known fact that numerous superheros and/or their alter egos held security clearances. For example, Wonder Woman's alter ego Diana Prince had classified access within the Army, and Superman held the highest clearances. Indeed, most likely all the JLA members did.

 

Now they know I am available to help them if they happen to access pornographic websites on their computers at work!

 

DOD Contractor Lays His Cards on the Table: Acquiring a security clearance proves tougher for contractors with foreign ties

 

Emma Schwartz

Legal Times

06-26-2006

 

 

When Chan Moon first landed a contract to run technology support for the Office of the Secretary of Defense nearly a decade ago, the South Korean-born businessman thought his small shop was finally ready to take off. With work for the U.S. Army, the Coast Guard, and the Patent & Trademark Office already lined up, the day when more contracts ‹ and cash started flowing in didn¹t seem far off.

 

After all, there were many fans among Moon¹s customers. ³Everybody gives me repeat business,² the dapper 56-year-old founder of Comint Systems Corp. likes to say.

 

But cracking the federal government market hasn¹t been quite as easy as he initially hoped. The challenge: getting a security clearance, something the federal government requires of contractors.

 

Moon has no criminal record and has been a U.S. citizen since 1988. But when Defense Department officials offered to sponsor him for a clearance in 2003, he began a three-year tug of war with the government. The government¹s principal concern was that Moon¹s two brothers, who live in Seoul, could be in a position someday to persuade Moon to divulge classified information.

 

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the United States has stiffened its requirements for security clearances, creating monumental problems for contractors at a time when their services are increasingly needed.

 

Although most Americans wouldn¹t object to a thorough investigation of someone seeking access to classified information, many attorneys who practice in this area say decisions on foreign association often contradict one another even when applicants have similar circumstances and countries of origin.

 

Attorneys say the decisions are particularly tough at the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA), the body that oversees all clearances for Defense Department employees and most federal contractors and the single largest office overseeing security clearances in the government.

 

³If you have any sort of foreign contact, especially relatives, you have an uphill battle, and it¹s a sad situation,² says Jon Roberts, an attorney representing clients who appear before DOHA.

 

Foreign influence and preference have always been grounds to deny someone a clearance. But things have gotten so tough that government officials and contractors who¹ve had clearances for years are being denied renewals because of concerns about family members abroad.

 

Those seeking clearance are charged with proving that they won¹t disclose classified information to family members who live overseas, a burden of proof that can be nearly impossible for those originally from countries in East Asia and the Middle East.

 

The more rigorous process has created something of a paradox for government employers and contractors whose foreign-born employees, with sought-after technology and language skills, are being denied or held up for years in the clearance process.

 

The problem is so pervasive that a number of companies have retained attorneys such as Elizabeth Newman to counsel their employees ahead of time on their prospects for getting a clearance. ³They don¹t want to lose good employees. At the same time, they don¹t want to put them in a position where they won¹t pass,² says Newman, who wrote a book on security-clearance procedure.

 

The situation is exacerbated by a huge governmentwide backlog of security-clearance cases. A spokesperson for the Office of Personnel Management, which investigates all background checks, put its current backlog at 161,235. A process that once took a few months now takes an average of a year. And differing standards among agencies can often lead to individuals being cleared by one department but denied by another.

 

Defense Department officials would not provide statistics about DOHA¹s caseload. (Only redacted appeals decisions are publicly available, and attorneys say that record is not complete.) But according to a forthcoming study by Sheldon Cohen, a solo attorney who regularly practices before DOHA, appeals alone have increased more than 400 percent since 2000. Those based on foreign association have been key among that jump, increasing to 66 last year from just 8 in 2000.

 

And according to an article by Robert Gales, DOHA¹s chief administrative judge, published by the D.C. Bar in December, more than half of all applicants lose at the administrative hearing level. Among those who don¹t hire an attorney, the chance of a favorable ruling drops to just 12 percent.

 

In December the government issued new guidelines stating that foreign contacts are only grounds for denying a clearance when they create a "heightened risk," but the Defense Department has yet to enforce the new standard, attorneys say. And with the increased scrutiny Congress is giving to foreign influence in businesses involving national security (think Dubai Ports), the more stringent attitude seems unlikely to loosen anytime soon.

 

"In some ways it sort of cuts against the American dream where we are a country of immigrants, a melting pot," says Leslie McAdoo, a former security-clearance investigator for the government and now a private practice attorney before DOHA. "But it¹s based on the rational perspective that people who have a connection to a foreign country are more susceptible of being approached by agents of those countries and may be vulnerable to coercion because of the connection."

 

CHASING THE DREAM

 

It was the American dream that first brought Moon to the United States, in 1981.

 

His father was a schoolteacher, and his mother a homemaker. Though his family had the wherewithal to send Moon, the first of four boys, to college, he says he often went hungry as a child in Korea. After receiving a degree in electrical engineering from Hang Yang University in Seoul, Moon landed his first job as a computer technician at the now-defunct Prime Computers Inc. in Seoul. A few years later, Moon¹s father died.

 

As is the custom in many Asian countries, after his father¹s death, Moon, the oldest male, assumed the role of breadwinner and helped put his younger brothers through college.

 

Soon his company sent him to work in Saudi Arabia, where Moon saved enough money to buy tickets to the United States for himself and his wife. Though he never expected to be a millionaire, he thought America would be a place where he could seek out a better living. They chose Northern Virginia, where his wife had family.

 

Moon landed a job, once again, with Prime Computers. The next year, the company asked him to return to Saudi Arabia to help sell mainframe hardware. His wife didn¹t want to go, but the money was too good to pass up, with a package that included free housing, transportation, and commissions on sales. Moon went on his own, but in December 1982 he returned to the United States for the birth of his first daughter. "As soon as I saw the brand-new baby, I didn¹t want to go back," Moon says.

 

It was then that he decided to go out on his own, building a company that offered tech support for mainframe systems then the backbone of the emerging computer industry. But as players such as Bill Gates' Microsoft entered the computer market, the older mainframe business began to decline.To bolster revenue, Moon began selling used computer parts to his old contacts in the Middle East and Asia, where the new technology had yet to catch up.

 

Realizing he needed a new business model, he focused on government contracting and was successful in landing work for the Defense Department, including installing the computer network for DOHA¹s Arlington courtrooms (a fact not lost on the DOHA judge that would later review his case).

 

But there was a catch: The pool of work he could bid on was limited. In order to compete for the bigger and more lucrative jobs, he¹d need a security clearance.

 

Over the years, Moon had built up trust within the department. So in 2003 a small group of Defense Department officials (whom Moon declines to name) agreed to sponsor him for a clearance. With his two daughters hitting college age, the timing couldn¹t have been better.

 

AND THE WINNER IS . . .

 

But it soon became apparent that the process would not go quickly or smoothly. About a year after the review began, Moon received a letter stating that government investigators had concerns about giving him a security clearance.

 

First, they were troubled that sections of his company's Web site were in Japanese and Korean and advertised a defunct export business. Second, they were worried about Moon¹s relationship with his two brothers still living in South Korea (another brother and Moon¹s mother had immigrated here during the 1990s.)

 

Moon wasn¹t surprised that his roots raised security concerns. National security had risen to the top of the political agenda in the post-9/11 world. But Moon knew he had nothing to hide, so he vowed to fight. It couldn¹t take that long, he thought.

 

The world of security clearances, however, was in the midst of upheaval. Delays were frequent, and recent rule changes had stiffened requirements for naturalized citizens.

 

At DOHA, the tightened standards dated back to March 2000, when an appeals panel had upheld the security clearance of a person holding dual citizenship. The next day the director of DOHA put an indefinite hold on all cases involving dual citizens, leaving many applicants in limbo, according to a study by Cohen, the solo attorney.

 

Then, in 2002, Arthur Money, assistant secretary of defense, barred virtually anyone with a foreign passport from getting a clearance.

 

This decision generated a wave of rejections, especially among those whose clearances were coming up for regular review. Some attorneys objected to the directive. Part of the problem, says attorney Philip Cave, is that "everyone is worried about making a mistake. They don¹t want to let someone in with secret clearance and then the person turns out to be al-Qaeda."

 

Many applicants found an easy out by renouncing their home citizenship and giving up their foreign passport. But that decision can have its own consequences, notes attorney Anthony Vergnetti. For instance, if Iranians surrender their passport, it effectively means they forfeit ever being able to travel to Iran to visit family. That's because Iranian-born U.S. citizens face difficulties entering the country with a U.S. passport. "Our own State Department tells our Iranian-born U.S. citizens to travel on their Iranian passport," Vergnetti says.

 

Against this backdrop, in May 2005, Moon's attorney, Mark Zaid, lined up a stellar list of witnesses for the administrative hearing on Moon's clearance, including three Defense Department officials, one of whom was from the department¹s Office of General Counsel. Zaid showed that Moon no longer did any foreign business and had gotten rid of any references to it on his Web site. He also showed that Moon had little contact with his brothers back in South Korea beyond telephone conversations a couple of times a year. As for Moon himself, he hasn¹t visited South Korea since January 1993. The hearing was only three and a half hours long, but that was enough time to persuade Administrative Law Judge Christopher Graham to rule in Moon¹s favor.

 

The government, however, wasn¹t convinced and appealed Moon¹s case. It was an ominous development. According to Cohen¹s statistics, of the 41 security-clearance grants the government has appealed since 2000, it has won a reversal in every single case.

 

Moon, however, got a break. In April a three-judge panel remanded his case, saying the administrative law judge needed to look more closely at Moon¹s family ties. In May, Graham came back with another affirmative decision. Within days, government lawyers told Moon they would seek another appeal.

 

Aggravated and exhausted, Moon couldn¹t help but take the decision personally. He opened up nearly ever facet of his past. What more did his adopted country want?

 

Then, just after 9 p.m. on June 14, Moon¹s phone rang. It was his lawyer, Zaid, and his voice couldn¹t hide his excitement. The government had just informed him it was dropping its appeal. Moon was cleared.

 

Make it 41-1.

[maxstuf]

I see that our friend Mark has made the news again. Good Job Sir. Keep up the good work. Always a treat to see your name in print.

 

I hope the Washington Post does not mind.

 

 

Marine Names Murtha in Defamation Suit

Congressman Discussed Killings Involving Serviceman's Squad in Haditha, Iraq

 

By Josh White

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, August 2, 2006; A05

 

 

 

A Marine Corps staff sergeant who led the squad accused of killing two dozen civilians in Haditha, Iraq, will file a lawsuit today in federal court in Washington claiming that Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) defamed him when the congressman made public comments about the incident earlier this year.

 

Attorneys for Frank D. Wuterich, 26, argue in court papers that Murtha tarnished the Marine's reputation by telling news organizations in May that the Marine unit cracked after a roadside bomb killed one of its members and that the troops "killed innocent civilians in cold blood." Murtha also said repeatedly that the incident was covered up.

 

Murtha argued that the questionable deaths of 24 civilians were indicative of the difficulties and overpowering stress that U.S. troops are facing. The congressman, a former Marine, has been a leading advocate for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq.

 

In the court filing, obtained by The Washington Post, the lawyers say that Murtha made the comments after being briefed by Defense Department officials who "deliberately provided him with inaccurate and false information." Neal A. Puckett and Mark S. Zaid, suing for libel and invasion of privacy, also wrote that Murtha made the comments outside of his official scope as a congressman.

 

Telephone calls yesterday to Murtha's office in Washington were referred to his district office in Pennsylvania, and calls there were not returned. A Marine Corps spokesman declined to comment yesterday on the Haditha investigation or the lawsuit.

 

The suit could have interesting legal ramifications because Wuterich and the other members of his squad have not been charged and have not received any official investigative documentation about the Nov. 19 incident. A Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation is expected to determine possible charges this summer, said officials familiar with the case.

 

Zaid said the filing is designed partly to force Murtha to disclose what information he received from the Defense Department and the Marine Corps commandant to form his opinion, essentially trying to speed up the discovery process in a potential criminal trial.

 

"This case is not about money; it's about clearing Frank Wuterich's name, and part of that is to identify where these leaks are coming from," Zaid said in an interview. "Congressman Murtha has created this atmosphere that has already concluded guilt. He's created this environment that really smells, and he's the only one who has done that."

 

The move by Wuterich is rare, as statements made by members of Congress generally are protected under the "speech or debate" clause in Article I, Section 6, of the Constitution. But legal experts said the clause grants immunity only for what lawmakers say in legislative proceedings and does not apply to news releases, speeches and other public comments.

 

Rodney A. Smolla, dean of the University of Richmond Law School and a libel expert, said yesterday that Wuterich would have the burden of proving that he is innocent and that Murtha's statements were false, but he added that the quotations appear to be actionable in court. He said the suit shows that Wuterich probably thinks he did nothing wrong.

 

"Part of the subtext of this is it's a showing of confidence and a preemptive strike of sorts," Smolla said. "The congressman's statement does not sound as if it is merely hyperbole or opinion or name-calling. Instead, it conveys the idea that the Marines violated professional standards and perhaps the law."

 

Wuterich, through his attorneys, has maintained his innocence and has said that the Marines killed two dozen people that day because they were engaged in a firefight with suspected insurgents. He told his lawyers that he and other Marines used grenades and rifles to clear two houses they thought were hostile. Another Marine's detailed account of the incident, obtained by The Post, corroborates Wuterich's version.

 

Donald Ritchie, associate historian in the Senate Historical Office, said that such defamation suits happen from time to time but that they tend not to go anywhere because of the constitutional protections members have. He said the most famous case was in 1979, when the Supreme Court ruled that Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wis.) was not protected when he made defamatory statements to constituents in a newsletter.

 

"The Supreme Court has suggested that speech and debate has limits to it, and that makes people vulnerable in certain areas," Ritchie said.