Implications of Executive Order 13489
What are the chances of a president who has all his pre-presidential records sealed winning re-election to a second term? At the moment, because of Executive Order 13489, the public and press have virtually no way to independently verify much of what Obama tells us of his early life. Moreover some of the claims in his books – for example, about his father being a goat herder – are blatantly untrue.
Many on the right and left complain about the erosion of democratic government and civil liberties in the US. However for the most part, the US still qualifies as an “open” society, in contrast to Russia, China and many Middle East and African countries. Moreover Fox News, unlike the uncritically fawning New York Times and Washington Post, has already demonstrated its willingness to make an issue of the President’s past. Thus in my view, Obama either needs to reverse 13489 or provide selective access to documents presently denied to journalists and researchers. Otherwise the Democrats need to find themselves a new candidate.
Executive Order 13489: Signed January 21, 2009
Except for Fox News, the mainstream media has virtually ignored Executive Order 13489 (http://www.fas.org/sgp/obama/presidential.html) Obama signed immediately on assuming the presidency. 13489 effectively closes off all official records of Obama’s past from public scrutiny. Among records declared “sealed” when the press has asked to see them are (see http://tinyurl.com/2g3k5vp)
- All college records from Occidental College, Columbia University or Harvard Law School.
- All Harvard Law Review articles and University of Chicago scholarly articles
- Obama’s client list from the law firm he worked for in Chicago
- His Illinois state senate records and schedules (which are supposedly lost)
- His passport records.
- His parents’ marriage license and divorce decree.
- His mother’s marriage license from her second marriage.
- His adoption and kindergarten records
- Obama’s original 1961 birth certificate from the State of Hawaii
What is Obama Hiding?
Except for a few reactionary birthers, who believe the president was secretly born in Kenya (with an American mother, he would still be a US citizen under current law), the most popular theory is that Obama spent the early part of his adult life working for US intelligence. The Russians apparently had their suspicions when they detained Senators Obama and Lugar in 2004, following a three day fact finding mission related to disarmament talks, and demanded to search his aircraft (as he was leaving, not entering, the country). See http://tinyurl.com/43tgu28
It’s also a matter of public record that Business International Corporation (BIC), which employed Obama for one year after he graduated from Columbia University in 1983 was a front company the CIA (see New York Times 12/27/77) used for economic intelligence gathering. According to the Times, BIC used journalists as non-official cover (NOC) agents in a number of foreign countries. A NOC (Valerie Plame is the best example) is an intelligence operative who assumes a covert role in an organization with no official ties to the government they are spying for. Obama’s job was to do research and to write for two BIC publications, Financing Foreign Operations and Business International Money Report (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_International_Corporation)
To be continued, with a critical look at evidence offered by Harlem pastor James David Manning, Wayne Madsen and Webster Tarpley regarding Obama’s alleged CIA past.
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