ATF Project Gunrunner

It seems the two articles you linked rely very heavily on Detty, both for things he says he did or saw, and for hearsay.

Did you ever find the promised follow-up by the Examiner?
 
thallub:

Re the "ATF", more properly these days, the BATFE, there have been serious problems with that agency, throughout it's entire life span, under several different names, under different administrations both Democratic and Republican.

Part of the problem lies in and with overly loosely written legislation, which included such phraseology as " and The Secretary, or his delegate shall promulgate ...", verbiage that has seemingly served to authorize law/rule by bureaucratic decree, shame on The Congress.

I could site other problematic situations with the law, things that have been spoken of at great length in the past, failings that The Congress refused to correct, though it has had many opportunities to so do.
 
I don't know about you guys, but I am running out of energy for all of this stuff. Everyday there is something new. It is exhausting. With so much of this going on, and so few people concerned about these things.... I just don't see how we can tackle it all. We need more informed free thinking individuals. :(
 
Well, we're back. In a way. In a 44-page opinion [pdf], the Washington District Court has refused the DOJ's motion to dismiss the case brought by the House Oversight Committee:

The motion to dismiss will be denied. The fact that this case arises out of a dispute between two branches of government does not make it non-justiciable; Supreme Court precedent establishes that the third branch has an equally fundamental role to play, and that judges not only may, but sometimes must, exercise their responsibility to interpret the Constitution and determine whether another branch has exceeded its power. In the Court’s view, endorsing the proposition that the executive may assert an unreviewable right to withhold materials from the legislature would offend the Constitution more than undertaking to resolve the specific dispute that has been presented here. After all, the Constitution contemplates not only a separation, but a balance, of powers.
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Essentially, yes, the courts do have a role to play in this matter. Darryl Issa has a statement on the matter here.
 
Good decision, though I haven't read the opinion. :) It will undoubtedly be appealed.

Added: After a quick (30 second glance), the opinion is not appealable yet. There is not yet an accompanying order. More importantly, the opinion only resolves the question of jurisdiction of the district court which means it is not appealable because it does not resolve any actual claims.
 
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John Dodson, one of the original ATF whistleblowers, has authored a book on the whole incident. However, the ATF is attempting to block publication on the grounds that it "would have a negative impact on morale in the Phoenix FD and would have a detrimental effect on our relationships with DEA and FBI."

Right. Because running over 2000 guns to Mexican cartels, threatening agents who came forward, and lying to Congress did none of those things.
 
from Glenn's wiki link:

The Court wrote that its "precedents do not support the existence of a constitutional cause of action behind every statement a public employee makes in the course of doing his or her job." Instead, public employees are not speaking as citizens when they are speaking to fulfill a responsibility of their job.
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The argument would be that Dodson is writing the book "in the course of doing his job" so he has no first amendment protection?

The two are obviously related, but the book seems separate from his job. The government is not paying him to write it, nor is it anywhere in his duties. If anything, it's within his duties as a citizen, not as a LEO, to tell his story.
 
The argument would be that Dodson is writing the book "in the course of doing his job" so he has no first amendment protection?

The two are obviously related, but the book seems separate from his job. The government is not paying him to write it, nor is it anywhere in his duties. If anything, it's within his duties as a citizen, not as a LEO, to tell his story.
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The Government can restrict you from doing activities closely related to you job duties. Writing about the ATF while working at the ATF would certainly fall under this regulation. This happened in my organization, one of the engineers wanted to take a job as a consultant in his area of expertise, also the area he work in at the Gov, the boss said no. This is part of the ethics standards to keep persons from earning outside income while doing government work and being paid by the taxpayers. Of course there is a lot of discretion involved in these type of decisions. If the boss determines the duties are beneficial for the Government they can permit a lot of outside activities even if they have conflicts. I had to get permission to serve as treasurer of the local high school band boosters, because, even though it was for no pay, I was an official of a corporation.

If the contract is worth a lot of money, he can quit and publish the book, assuming no confidential/secret information is included. My engineering friend quit his job because he could get better money elsewhere.
 
Of course they want to block the book, as they are sure it will not paint them in the way they want to be seen.

As Wally626 mentioned, the tactic they are using to block it is not a First Amendment issue. It is a contractual issue, involving conflict of interest and intellectual property rights. It just looks like a 1st Amendment issue on the surface.

Nowdays, when you work for anyone above the mom & pop business level, there is almost always some kind of conflict of interest/intellectual property policy or agreement involved. Abiding by it is a condition of employment.

Anything that you do outside of your job duties that could be, or could create the appearance of a conflict of interest must be reviewed and approved by the company before you do it. Otherwise the company can take legal action against you for doing it. Most of the time, they can also terminate your employment for doing it, aside from any other actions they could take.

Say I worked for Westinghouse (for example), making appliances. I want to write a book about the history of the US Marine battles on Guadalcanal during WWII. Even though it has NO relationship to my employer I still have to get their approval (because of the employment contract I work under) before I can publish it. Otherwise they can take action against me.

If I wanted to write a book about the ATF, I could, and would not need to get their approval. I don't work for them.

But if I did work for them, I would have to get their approval. No matter what the subject matter was.

While it is a free speech issue, it is NOT a 1st Amendment free speech issue. ITs a contractual matter that he voluntarily entered into, when he took the job.

On the surface, its a simple solution, terminate employment with the ATF, and then publish. That will knock the legs out of their argument.

IF he does that, I think they will still try to block the book, but they will have to use a different argument. Essentially they would have to prove that he used classified, sensitive, or proprietary information, without authorization. OR that he used company (in this case govt) resources in writing the book.

Better hope he never had so much as one page of draft on any govt computer...otherwise, they have standing for that argument.
 
Re this book written by a BATFE employee/agent, and the agencies attempts to block publication, mentioned in several posts hered, the following point comes to mind re government attermpts to block publication. Might this be yet anothert exapmple of what Obama promised, but has failed to deliver, that being the most open and honest administration? I think that "transparent was mentioned too.

BTW, as I recall, others might too if they think back to John Ross's book Unintended Consequences, the BATF, as it was then called, tried to block publication/distribution of that work too.
 
Did we think that guns were the only think being moved "fast and furiously" into Mexico? Really?

Of course the tell is if any other "news agencies" pick up this latest development.
 
Looks like Sheryl Attkisson was the first of the MSM to break the story. The rest will probably ignore it or minimize it. It's really 2 years old, but just now getting some scrutiny.

For the record, David Codrea wrote about "Project Bombwalker" in his Sept 5, 2011 Examiner column.
 
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Allowing grenades to go across the border wouldn't help the anti-gun agenda.

Making a claim that loose American gun laws are killing Mexicans and then showing a table full of those guns - ya, and they certainly tried that.

Showing a table of grenades - eh - not so much.

I do think that Burke, and the administration wanted to rack up a body count and a big gun count of American firearms at Mexican crime scenes to plead their case to the American public that stricter gun laws were needed to end the carnage.

But this grenade thing just looks like your typical BATFE stupidity.
 
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