A note to John Negroponte

Dear Mr. Negroponte,

I have noted recently that you are interfering with the rights of the Executive to provide the American People with documents currently under your purview. As the Director of National Intelligence, when the President in his role of Head of Government and Command in Chief gives you an order to release documents, you may do many things to ensure National Security. However, as those things would only cover sources and methods of the United States and these involve captured documents from Iraq under Saddam, one expects that there should be NONE of those.

You may *not* use foreign policy reasons to say why you will not release them. That is a sole Article II power given to the Executive by the People.

You may *not* argue that they are of historical interest only, as then you MUST provide them to the National Archives. Non-actionable, historical documents go to THEM.

You may *not* then turn around and claim them to have *actionable* intelligence. If you do so, then you may redact such areas as will imperil US Citizens or US Armed Forces, of which, if they are *historical* there will not be much.

If you feel the Executive is putting the Republic at *peril* you MUST go to Congress and tell them so.

And if you are impeding intelligence documents under military purview from being released, you are then working to subborn the Commander in Chief power of the Executive which is solely given to that office.

If redaction is total pages and blank tapes, you will find yourself at the pointy end of the stick as you are *not* above an Inspector General, you are *not* above the Executive and you are *not* above Congress.

You may *not* set foreign policy, give military orders contrary to the CinC, nor bypass the laws of historical documents, nor set up the Intelligence Community to act independently of oversight by the duly elected Representatives of the People of the United States.

Mr. Negroponte: you have not been elected to hold your office. You *must* obey orders or suffer the consequences. Contradiction of the Executive in this arena is an act against the Republic of the United States, even if each and every argument you give is 100% CORRECT.

It is not YOUR DECISION TO MAKE.

Because when the FBI Counter-Intelligence people come for YOU, they are going to ask who, exactly, you work FOR.

Release the documents and let the chips fall where they may.

That is your duty.

Or turning big rocks into small rocks if you choose otherwise.

Good day.

A Jacksonian