Mitch Daniels Response To State Of The Union: Text & Video

Below, Daniels' remarks as prepared for delivery, which were posted on House Speaker John Boehner's website ahead of the governor's speech.

"The status of 'loyal opposition' imposes on those out of power some serious responsibilities: to show respect for the Presidency and its occupant, to express agreement where it exists. Republicans tonight salute our President, for instance, for his aggressive pursuit of the murderers of 9/11, and for bravely backing long overdue changes in public education. I personally would add to that list admiration for the strong family commitment that he and the First Lady have displayed to a nation sorely needing such examples.

"On these evenings, Presidents naturally seek to find the sunny side of our national condition. But when President Obama claims that the state of our union is anything but grave, he must know in his heart that this is not true.

"The President did not cause the economic and fiscal crises that continue in America tonight. But he was elected on a promise to fix them, and he cannot claim that the last three years have made things anything but worse: the percentage of Americans with a job is at the lowest in decades. One in five men of prime working age, and nearly half of all persons under 30, did not go to work today.

"In three short years, an unprecedented explosion of spending, with borrowed money, has added trillions to an already unaffordable national debt. And yet, the President has put us on a course to make it radically worse in the years ahead. The federal government now spends one of every four dollars in the entire economy; it borrows one of every three dollars it spends. No nation, no entity, large or small, public or private, can thrive, or survive intact, with debts as huge as ours.

"The President's grand experiment in trickle-down government has held back rather than sped economic recovery. He seems to sincerely believe we can build a middle class out of government jobs paid for with borrowed dollars. In fact, it works the other way: a government as big and bossy as this one is maintained on the backs of the middle class, and those who hope to join it.

"Those punished most by the wrong turns of the last three years are those unemployed or underemployed tonight, and those so discouraged that they have abandoned the search for work altogether. And no one has been more tragically harmed than the young people of this country, the first generation in memory to face a future less promising than their parents did.

"As Republicans our first concern is for those waiting tonight to begin or resume the climb up life's ladder. We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have nots; we must always be a nation of haves and soon to haves.

"In our economic stagnation and indebtedness, we are only a short distance behind Greece, Spain, and other European countries now facing economic catastrophe. But ours is a fortunate land. Because the world uses our dollar for trade, we have a short grace period to deal with our dangers. But time is running out, if we are to avoid the fate of Europe, and those once-great nations of history that fell from the position of world leadership.

"So 2012 is a year of true opportunity, maybe our last, to restore an America of hope and upward mobility, and greater equality. The challenges aren't matters of ideology, or party preference; the problems are simply mathematical, and the answers are purely practical.

"An opposition that would earn its way back to leadership must offer not just criticism of failures that anyone can see, but a positive and credible plan to make life better, particularly for those aspiring to make a better life for themselves. Republicans accept this duty, gratefully.

"The routes back to an America of promise, and to a solvent America that can pay its bills and protect its vulnerable, start in the same place. The only way up for those suffering tonight, and the only way out of the dead end of debt into which we have driven, is a private economy that begins to grow and create jobs, real jobs, at a much faster rate than today.

"Contrary to the President's constant disparagement of people in business, it's one of the noblest of human pursuits. The late Steve Jobs - what a fitting name he had - created more of them than all those stimulus dollars the President borrowed and blew. Out here in Indiana, when a businessperson asks me what he can do for our state, I say 'First, make money. Be successful. If you make a profit, you'll have something left to hire someone else, and some to donate to the good causes we love.'

"The extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy, or cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands, or jacks up consumer utility bills for no improvement in either human health or world temperature, is a pro-poverty policy. It must be replaced by a passionate pro-growth approach that breaks all ties and calls all close ones in favor of private sector jobs that restore opportunity for all and generate the public revenues to pay our bills.

"That means a dramatically simpler tax system of fewer loopholes and lower rates. A pause in the mindless piling on of expensive new regulations that devour dollars that otherwise could be used to hire somebody. It means maximizing on the new domestic energy technologies that are the best break our economy has gotten in years.

"There is a second item on our national must-do list: we must unite to save the safety net. Medicare and Social Security have served us well, and that must continue. But after half and three quarters of a century respectively, it's not surprising that they need some repairs. We can preserve them unchanged and untouched for those now in or near retirement, but we must fashion a new, affordable safety net so future Americans are protected, too.

"Decades ago, for instance, we could afford to send millionaires pension checks and pay medical bills for even the wealthiest among us. Now, we can't, so the dollars we have should be devoted to those who need them most.

"The mortal enemies of Social Security and Medicare are those who, in contempt of the plain arithmetic, continue to mislead Americans that we should change nothing. Listening to them much longer will mean that these proud programs implode, and take the American economy with them. It will mean that coming generations are denied the jobs they need in their youth and the protection they deserve in their later years.

"It's absolutely so that everyone should contribute to our national recovery, including of course the most affluent among us. There are smart ways and dumb ways to do this: the dumb way is to raise rates in a broken, grossly complex tax system, choking off growth without bringing in the revenues we need to meet our debts. The better course is to stop sending the wealthy benefits they do not need, and stop providing them so many tax preferences that distort our economy and do little or nothing to foster growth.

"It's not fair and it's not true for the President to attack Republicans in Congress as obstacles on these questions. They and they alone have passed bills to reduce borrowing, reform entitlements, and encourage new job creation, only to be shot down time and time again by the President and his Democratic Senate allies.

"This year, it falls to Republicans to level with our fellow citizens about this reality: if we fail to act to grow the private sector and save the safety net, nothing else will matter much. But to make such action happen, we also must work, in ways we Republicans have not always practiced, to bring Americans together.

"No feature of the Obama Presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others. As in previous moments of national danger, we Americans are all in the same boat. If we drift, quarreling and paralyzed, over a Niagara of debt, we will all suffer, regardless of income, race, gender, or other category. If we fail to shift to a pro-jobs, pro-growth economic policy, there will never be enough public revenue to pay for our safety net, national security, or whatever size government we decide to have.

"As a loyal opposition, who put patriotism and national success ahead of party or ideology or any self-interest, we say that anyone who will join us in the cause of growth and solvency is our ally, and our friend. We will speak the language of unity. Let us rebuild our finances, and the safety net, and reopen the door to the stairway upward; any other disagreements we may have can wait.

"You know, the most troubling contention in our national life these days isn't about economics, or policy at all. It's about us, as a free people. In two alarming ways, that contention is that we Americans just can't cut it anymore.

"In word and deed, the President and his allies tell us that we just cannot handle ourselves in this complex, perilous world without their benevolent protection. Left to ourselves, we might pick the wrong health insurance, the wrong mortgage, the wrong school for our kids; why, unless they stop us, we might pick the wrong light bulb!

"A second view, which I admit some Republicans also seem to hold, is that we Americans are no longer up to the job of self-government. We can't do the simple math that proves the unaffordability of today's safety net programs, or all the government we now have. We will fall for the con job that says we can just plow ahead and someone else will pick up the tab. We will allow ourselves to be pitted one against the other, blaming our neighbor for troubles worldwide trends or our own government has caused.

"2012 must be the year we prove the doubters wrong. The year we strike out boldly not merely to avert national bankruptcy but to say to a new generation that America is still the world's premier land of opportunity. Republicans will speak for those who believe in the dignity and capacity of the individual citizen; who believe that government is meant to serve the people rather than supervise them; who trust Americans enough to tell them the plain truth about the fix we are in, and to lay before them a specific, credible program of change big enough to meet the emergency we are facing.

"We will advance our positive suggestions with confidence, because we know that Americans are still a people born to liberty. There is nothing wrong with the state of our Union that the American people, addressed as free-born, mature citizens, cannot set right. Republicans in 2012 welcome all our countrymen to a program of renewal that rebuilds the dream for all, and makes our 'city on a hill' shine once again."

PR Week: MSLGroup's Chamberlin returns to Edelman as GM

DALLAS: David Chamberlin is leaving MSLGroup to rejoin Edelman as EVP and GM of its Dallas office, effective February 13.

Chamberlin will replace Teresa Henderson, former GM of the Dallas office, who left Edelman earlier this month to join Pierpont Communications. He will report to Helen Vollmer, president of Edelman's Southwest region.

Chamberlin most recently served as SVP and director of issues and crisis management for North America at MSLGroup, where he worked with clients such as Citigroup, Proctor & Gamble, United Technologies, and Heineken USA.

Chamberlin previously worked at Edelman from 2006 to 2007 as GM of its Shanghai unit. He has also served as head of PR for JP Morgan Chase's credit card business, and has worked at Nortel Networks and Burson-Marsteller.

David Chamberlin Rejoins Edelman as Dallas General Manager

January 26, 2012 -- DALLAS --Edelman, the world’s largest independent public relations firm, announced today that David Chamberlin will join as executive vice president and general manager of its Dallas office. He will report to Helen Vollmer, president of the Southwest region, beginning February 13.

“David’s broad public relations expertise, particularly in the corporate sector, and his hands-on proactive approach makes him ideal to manage our Dallas office and drive continued success for Edelman’s clients and staff,” said Vollmer.

Chamberlin is rejoining Edelman from MSL Group where he most recently served as senior vice president and director of issues & crisis management, North America. While there he provided strategic counsel and support to such blue chip companies as Citi, World Gold Council, P&G, United Technologies, U.S. Cellular, Huawei and Heineken USA. In 2007, he opened a MSL office in Dallas after returning to the states from Shanghai where he served as General Manager of Edelman’s office.

Previously, Chamberlin served as the head of public relations for the credit card business at JP Morgan Chase where he led and integrated strategic communications initiatives for Chase with partners such as Visa, Mastercard and the American Bankers Association as well as Starbucks, Disney, Sony, Amazon.com, and United Airlines. Earlier in his career, he held positions with Nortel Networks and Burson-Marsteller.

“I’m honored to be coming back to Edelman and to have the opportunity to join such an impressive leadership team,” said Chamberlin. “I look forward to leveraging Edelman’s strong global reputation and network capabilities in the Dallas-Fort Worth market to help our clients maximize their business results.”

Chamberlin holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Taylor University. He is on the Responsible Information Management Council of the Poneman Institute, a privacy, data protection and information security policy think tank. In 2010, he was named to PRWeek’s 40 Under 40.

About Edelman

Edelman is the world’s largest independent public relations firm, with offices in 60 cities and 4,000 employees worldwide, as well as affiliates in more than 30 cities. Edelman was named Advertising Age’s top-ranked PR firm of the decade and one of its “2010 A-List Agencies” and “2010 Best Places to Work;” PRWeek’s “2011 Large PR Agency of the Year” and “2011 Large UK Consultancy of the Year; “European Excellence Awards’ “2010 Agency of the Year;” Holmes Report’s “2011 Global Agency of the Year,” “Agency of the Decade” and “2009 Asia Pacific Consultancy of the Year;” and among Glassdoor’s top five “2011 Best Places to Work.” Edelman owns specialty firms Blue (advertising), StrategyOne (research), Ruth (integrated marketing), DJE Science (medical education/publishing and science communications), and MATTER (sports, sponsorship, and entertainment). Visit http://www.edelman.com for more information.

Authors@Google: Tim Keller Talks on the Meaning of Marriage

A question of transparency How is the threat of WikiLeaks changing corporate reporting?

In a post-WikiLeaks world, has the concept of confidential information become redundant? Serge Debrebant examines the issues facing companies whose secrets could become public knowledge at any moment

In July 2009, when Iceland was in the midst of a financial crisis, local television reporters discovered a cache of potentially explosive documents. The paperwork suggested that major shareholders of Kaupthing, the country’s biggest bank, had borrowed large sums of money unsecured by any significant assets shortly before the bank collapsed. Although the records did not indicate any wrongdoing, they revealed a potential conflict of interest.

The reporters worked intensively on a feature for the evening news, but five minutes before the start of the show, the authorities intervened and forbade the station to air the report. The station complied, but, by way of protest, the anchorman advised viewers to take a look at the documents themselves. For several minutes of live airtime, he showed the name of the website on which they could be found: wikileaks.org

The information will come out, it seems. But, as businesses are quickly learning, WikiLeaks speeds upthat process — and often skirts the old obstacles that companies used to be able to throw up.

Founded by Julian Assange and other activists in 2006, the website states that its purpose is to uncoverunethical behavior in governments and corporations. It does so by enabling whistle-blowers to send it internal documents anonymously and without fear of being detected. The most widely read scoops to result from this enterprise have been about international affairs — notably the Afghanistan files and us diplomatic cables — but the goings-on of the business world have also been a focus. In recent years, WikiLeaks has targeted large companies, with a particular focus on the banking sector.

Last November, Assange told Forbes magazine that about half of the documents that WikiLeaks possesses relate to the private sector. in the same interview, he announced that the next target would be “a big us bank.”

WHISTLE BLOWING MADE EASY

Whistle-blowing is neither a new phenomenon, nor is it restricted to WikiLeaks. However, the website has made it easier for disgruntled employees to reveal company data. In addition, the digitization of theworkplace plays into the hands of those with a mind to steal sensitive data and share it online.

For companies, the probability that internal documents might show up in the public domain has increased exponentially in the space of a decade. “Every company is a potential target,” says David Chamberlin, Director of issues & Crisis management at us public relations agency MSLGROUP.

Those who don’t recognize this learn it the hard way.

In 2008, Swiss bank Julius Baer discovered that Rudolf Elmer, a former employee, had published on WikiLeaks internal documents from a subsidiary based in the Cayman islands. Elmer worked there from 1994 to 2002, when he was fired. There ensued a long fight with his former employer. He accused Julius Baer of helping wealthy clients to avoid taxes by transferring money offshore. The bank quickly tried to obtain an injunction, and a judge in California complied, ordering that WikiLeaks’ domain name be shut down. it was — but, almost instantly, mirror sites appeared, and with them the very material Julius baer had wanted to suppress. Two weeks later, the judge vacated the injunction.

Julius Baer’s decision to take legal action had backfired. Not only were the documents still accessible, but the injunction had also raised the profile of the case at a time when American and European governments were trying to crack down on tax evasion. The US media published the numeric address of WikiLeaks, allowing readers to access it directly, and several press and civil rights organizations defended the website in the name of freedom of speech. Without Julius Baer’s intervention, the spat with Elmer might have gone unnoticed. Instead, it became the victim of one of WikiLeaks’ first big scoops.

The bank had experienced what technology journalist mike masnick christened the “streisand effect.” in 2003, actress barbra streisand tried to suppress the publication of photographs of her house in California, only to discover that the public outrage over her legal intervention led half a million viewers to the website on which they were posted. As Philip Gawith, managing Partner at the London-based communications agency Stockwell Group, puts it: “There will always be a place for a legal response,

but in a digital world, you need to be more careful.”

STOPPING THE LEAK

How, then, are companies supposed to deal with WikiLeaks? The most obvious step is to try to prevent the leak in the first place. A survey conducted for the software company SailPoint in 2009 showed that only 14% of organizations felt they had adequate controls in place to prevent leaks. Grady summers, who leads Information Security Program Management Services at Ernst & Young, observes that many companies do not pay enough attention to data security. He lists inappropriate access control, understaffing and outdated crisis response plans as the main issues — issues that are getting an ever-higher profile. “WikiLeaks has made IT security a boardroom issue,” he says.

When Summers advises companies, he outlines a four-step plan. First, he helps the company to identify sensitive data. Then, he helps it to come up with a data governance policy with appropriate access control and proper training of employees. Data loss prevention tools that control data movements help to enforce the policy. Finally, a crisis response plan empowers executives to react quickly in case a data breach occurs.

But proper IT security doesn’t rule out leaks. “Nothing is secure,” says Chamberlin, and a look at the data WikiLeaks has published so far confirms this view. It includes not only highly sensitive data such as customer details or secret reports, but also emails, phone transcripts and other material that would not necessarily be considered highly confidential, yet could still embarrass a company or government.

In Chamberlin’s view, it is important to tackle the root causes of unethical behavior and think about the values of a company and the way they play out in what executives do and say. “If there isn’t a level of integrity and consistency, it’s likely to lead to significant problems, because everybody’s watching,” he says.

RESPONSE STRATEGIES

All the professionals interviewed for this article agree that when a leak occurs, the response has be to swift and precise. Companies such as Ernst & Young offer exercises to test how well a crisis plan works. “It has to involve all relevant departments: iT and legal, but also human resources and public relations,” says Summers.

Although often overlooked, PR plays a key role. “You need to get your version of events out,” says Gawith. Even if a company is still trying to verify the accuracy of the leaked documents, it should quickly start communicating. “When people think you live in denial, they respond badly,” he adds. “Sometimes, the mere act of communication matters more than precisely what you say.”

A close look at the documents might also lead to a response strategy. In the case of Julius Baer, the bank was able to show that Elmer had forged a few of the published documents, which helped the bank to question his credibility.

If the leaked documents turn out to be real, and point to real problems, it is better to acknowledge the revelations and explain how the company wants to improve its operations, than to blame WikiLeaks or smear the whistle-blower. “You have to explain how to fix things so that they don’t happen again,” Chamberlin says. And of course, in the aftermath, a company has to turn words into actions in order to rebuild trust.

HELPING THE MARKETS FUNCTION

Such an outcome would be exactly what Assange and his collaborators hoped for when they founded WikiLeaks. In the Forbes interview in November 2010, he explained that he “loves markets” and that “in order for there to be a market, there has to be information.” From his point of view, WikiLeaks acts as a beneficial corrective to company secrecy and enables markets to function properly. Transparency enables stakeholders and consumers to make an informed decision that ultimately leads to more ethical business practices than before. “WikiLeaks means it’s easier to run a good business and harder to run a bad business,” he said.

In the long run, the work of WikiLeaks and other whistle-blower websites may prompt companies to communicate more openly with the public, shareholders and customers. “It‘s a tendency that i had observed before WikiLeaks,” says Gawith. “People take a greater interest in how businesses are run than they did 10 years ago.”

Ethical consumerism is the most prominent example of this trend. Fair trade certification systems guarantee transparent supply chains, while NGOs such as the environmental investigation Agency, with its investigations into illegal logging, have forced companies to change their behavior. in that respect, WikiLeaks is just one of a number of factors that are contributing to a trend toward greater transparency in business.

Comms team, trustees must work closely in Penn State crisis response

STATE COLLEGE, PA: Penn State University's crisis situation may only worsen if its communications team and board of trustees don't work closely together to respond to the sexual abuse scandal rocking the college.

The university and several high-profile employees, including head football coach Joe Paterno, came under fire this week after a grand jury indicted former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky for allegedly sexually molesting multiple young boys over a period of years.

Paterno and university president Graham Spanier were ousted by the school's board of trustees on Wednesday. The grand jury report alleges that Paterno was informed years ago by an assistant coach that he had witnessed the sexual abuse of a minor by Sandusky.

David Chamberlin, SVP and director of the issues and crisis unit at MSLGroup, said the university's communications team must understand the entire business of the school, including administration, operations, and finance to be able to adequately advise the board.

“Whenever you get in this type of situation, the communications side can only counsel, and at the end of the day, the buck stops with the president or the board,” he said. “They're going to find at times that when they give counsel, that the board of trustees isn't going to follow for whatever reason, and that's their prerogative.”

Gene Grabowski, SVP of Levick Strategic Communications, said Paterno's name is what makes the scandal a national story. Moving forward, Penn State should tout the coach's replacement or a search process, versus yesterday's announcement of an interim president, he said.

“I think that's far more important right now than having a new university president, quite honestly, because nobody knew who the president of Penn State was across the country, but everyone knew who Joe Paterno was,” he said. “The first thing they need to do is get a coach with an impeccable record for running a clean program, then they can worry about the president, although that is important as well, but not as important as the coach.”

Yet because many details about the situation are unknown, some industry experts said they can only speculate on how well the university's communications team handled the crisis.

“As it stands right now, this is going to significantly damage the image and everything [Paterno] has accomplished,” said Chamberlin. “He basically is Penn State, but wins and losses in football pale in comparison to what's happened to the individuals that were allegedly assaulted.”

And while industry experts agree that Paterno should have been sacked, the way in which Penn State distributed the news received mixed reactions.

“The university needed to be seen doing something – really, anything – decisively, even it was unpopular,” said Matt Barkett, MD and head of Dix & Eaton's crisis communications practice. “Some may suggest he should have been fired earlier in the week, but we're dealing with an icon here, and it was probably better to see if he would do it on his own first, given the many legal issues that will certainly follow in the coming weeks and months. When he made his choice, then the university could act in response if they felt his solution was insufficient, which obviously they did.”

Barker added that it appears the school lacked forward thinking and did not have a plan to deal with such a crisis.

“Clearly, at least the possibility of a major firestorm was there, and they should have been ready with clear messaging and action steps to be taken in any eventuality,” he said. “They seem to have been caught flat-footed – or at least indecisive, with the way they scheduled and then hastily canceled press conferences. There's really no excuse for not being ready for this event that they all knew was coming at some point. That's certainly another lesson for other university presidents today.”

However, Chamberlin said he believes the university did what it could with the information it had at the time.

“I think they made the only decision they could, which was to let the various individuals go,” he said. “I think this is the first step. I don't know if they let people know as quickly as they could have, but they did let people know in a decent window of time. I think a lot of people will quibble that it could have been done on Tuesday, or they could have done this as soon as the charges came out, and all kinds of other things, given the circumstances.”

Meanwhile, Bill Stuart, an associate professor of communications studies at Longwood University in Virginia, said despite the student body's negative portrayal in the media following Wednesday night's riots, it too has a significant role to play in the conversation.

“I really think the students have a huge opportunity and perhaps obligation to take a leadership role in defining the perceptions people have of Penn State in reaction to this crisis, and that will probably start with the student leadership or student government association," he said.

Stuart said the students should approach it like an issues campaign, focusing on support efforts to end the abuse of children versus whether or not they love Paterno.

Penn State's students are reportedly planning a candlelight vigil on Friday night, and a group of alumni are collecting money for RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) via Twitter.

Penn State did not return requests for comment.

SCOTT REDD APPOINTED FIRST PRESIDENT FOR REFORMED THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY IN WASHINGTON D.C.

(JACKSON, MS) September 19, 2011 —The executive committee of the Reformed Theological Seminary Board of Trustees has appointed Professor Scott Redd, Jr., as the first president of RTS/Washington D.C., effective June 2012. Redd is currently an assistant professor of Old Testament and dean of students at RTS/Orlando.

In addition to teaching at RTS/Orlando, Redd is a graduate of The College of William and Mary and RTS/Orlando, where he received his Master of Divinity degree. During his doctoral studies, he taught at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, Md., and later ministered at Christ the King Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, N.C. Redd also taught at Catholic University and the Augustine Theological Institute in Malta, a theological training center operated by the Arab World Evangelical Ministers Association. Redd currently belongs to the board of the International Training Institute, an organization dedicated to the training of pastors in the Arab world.

He and his wife Jennifer have four daughters: Naomi, Mary, Charlotte and Catherine. Scott Redd, Jr. is also the son of The Honorable and Mrs. John Scott Redd, Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy (Ret.)

Chancellor Ric said of Redd, “I am thrilled about the appointment of Scott Redd, Jr. as the new president for RTS/Washington D.C. Scott caught the attention of many of us as a student and later as a faculty and staff member at RTS/Orlando. He will bring enthusiasm and vigor as well as leadership and vision to this strategic campus in the capital of our country. Scott is just the right man ‘for such a time as this’.”

Michael Milton, chancellor-elect said, “I am so thankful for the appointment of Professor Scott Redd to become president of RTS/Washington D.C. His background in business, pastoral ministry, campus leadership, and his passion to preach and cast a biblical vision is a tremendous blessing to RTS as a whole and to our nation's capital in particular.”

Redd will continue to teach through this academic year in his current position at the RTS/Orlando campus. During this time, he plans to complete his Doctor of Philosophy degree in Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures from The Catholic University of America in Washington D.C.

What the Secret Neighbors Do: Look for Terrorist Threats, Share the Information to Thwart Them

Three times a day officials sit in a windowless secure video conference room in one of McLean's most secure buildings and give other high-ranking officials around the government a rundown of the most prominent terrorist threats facing the U.S.

The first briefing of the day occurs at 1 am. The biggest occurs at 8 am. The last at 3 pm. The building works like a factory with three shifts a day.

These briefings are central to the job description of the National Counterterrorism Center, one of McLean's newest secret neighbors, spawned directly from the ashes of 9-11.

Sunday we told you the story we pieced together of how the NCTC and the Director of National Intelligence became our neighbors. Today we'll tell you what they say they do.

Within the sprawling intelligence community, the National Counterterrorism Center
(NCTC) was formally established in 2004 to bring together all available information on
terrorism, analyze the information, and warn of potential attacks on the U.S.

One of the most painful findings after 9-11, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies didn't talk to each other.

What they don't do: The Center’s work excludes terror that is exclusively domestic. The FBI does that. NCTC says they don't do operations. They simply collect data, analyze and share it.

They also create the "watch lists" also called No Fly lists.

"We are one of the bright shining stars in the post-9-11 environment," said NCTC spokesman Carl Kropf.

The Washington Post reported last year that some blamed the NCTC for failing to undercover a man before he boarded a Northwest Airlines flight and attempted to blow it up as it was landing in Detroit on Christmas Day.

The NCTC and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), were created to force the 16-agency intelligence community to share information in ways that eluded it leading up to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

As the central repository for "all-source" intelligence on international terrorism, the NCTC is supposed to find the important dots, connect the dots and advise the government on threats, the Postexplained.

"We are to connect and make sense of an unbelievable amount of information we receive about plots and threats" from foreign intelligence sources, from the military, and a myriad of other sources," Kropf explained.

"There is an unbelievable amount of data in our world and the ability to understand what is relevant and important and to make those judgements as quickly as possible," is what the agency does, he said.

The NCTC command center brings together staffers from the FBI, the Department of Defense, the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, Homeland Security, etc.

In a large two-story room filled with 16-20 desks arranged in pods of four, analysts watch information flowing into the three screens on their desk. The room looks like a sound stage with "movie" lights hanging from the ceiling. That's because it was designed by a set director from the Disney company, McLean Patch was told during a recent tour.

A huge TV screen dominates the front of room. When visitors come the screen shows CNN.

The folks sitting at the desks come from the "partner" agencies. "This is part of breaking down the walls . . . they are really in the same room. . . You walk to your (intelligence) colleagues 20 feet over there," said the command center administrator. "This is a real example of how the barriers have broken down on counter terror."

Who's in Charge

The director of the NCTC reports to both the President of the United States and to their next-door neighbor, the Director of National Intelligence.

Vice Adm. John Redd was the first director of the National Counterterrorism Center, in August 2005. He resigned in November 2007 because he needed replacement surgery on both knees, which would require a prolonged absence if he were to stay as director, Carl Kropf was quoted as saying.

He was succeeded by his deputy Michael Leiter, who was confirmed in 2008 and departed this summer.

Matthew G. Olsen was sworn in as the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) in August following his confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

Olsen is the top attorney at the National Security Agency, which is responsible for cracking enemy communications and encrypting ours, and he’s also a law professor at Georgetown University, according to the New York Daily News. He's now our new neighbor.

James R. Clapper, Jr. was sworn in as the fourth Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on August 9, 2010. He is a retired lieutenant-general of the U.S. Air Force.

As DNI, Mr. Clapper oversees the United States Intelligence Community and serves as the principal intelligence advisor to the President.

Remembering Their Roots

The NCTC contains a permanent 9-11 Memorial.

A glass case on the first floor holds a large piece of limestone from the Pentagon. A flag that flew over the ashes of the World Trade Center. A piece of twisted stell from the World Trade Center.

"We do this for our families, our community and for our nation," said Kropf.

We pray that they succeed.

Related Topics: Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, Matthew G. Olsen, mclean VA, andnational counterterrorism center

Colin Powell’s cheap shot

By Jennifer Rubin

On “Face the Nation” yesterday, former secretary of state Colin Powell accused former vice president Dick Cheney of taking “cheap shots” in his about-to-be released memoirs. However, in taking on Cheney’s account of the Valerie Plame matter, Powell is the one who misleads and distorts.

Powell had this to say in response to Cheney’s book, which lays blame on Powell’s deputy Richard Armitage as the real leaker who revealed Plame’s identity as a CIA employee, setting off the appointment of a special prosecutor and the eventual conviction of Scooter Libby. Powell says this:

Then he goes on to talk about the Valerie Plame affair, and tries to lay it all off on Mister Rich Armitage in the State Department and me. But the fact of the matter is when Mister Armitage realized that he was the source for Bob Novak’s column that caused all the difficulty and he called me immediately, two days after the President launched the investigation and what we did was we called the Justice Department. They sent it over the FBI. The FBI had all the information that Mister Armitage’s participation in this immediately. And we called Al Gonzalez, the President’s counsel, and told him that we had information. The FBI asked us not to share any of this with anyone else, as did Mister Gonzalez. And so, if the White House operatives had come forward as readily as Mister Armitage had done, then we wouldn’t have gone on for two more months with the FBI trying to find out what happened in the White House. There wouldn’t have been special counsel appointed by the Justice Department who spent two years trying to get to the bottom of it. And we wouldn’t have the mess that we subsequently had. And so if the White House and the operatives in the White House and Mister Cheney’s staff and elsewhere in the White House had been as forthcoming with the FBI as Mister Armitage was, this problem would not have reached the dimensions that it reached.

Let’s count the ways in which this is inaccurate or misleading. To begin with, Powell leaves out the critical fact: He and Armitage never told the president what Armitage had done. Instead, they sat silent as the investigation played out and others, including Karl Rove and Libby, were ensnared in an investigation for a crime that, if committed at all, was one for which Armitage should rightly have been prosecuted. Powell on Sunday slyly said they informed the attorney general that they “had information.” But they most definitely did not tell him, the president or the country that the leaker was Armitage.

The best account of this comes from Michael Isikoff, hardly a Cheney or Libby apologist. In his book, he explained what unfolded after Armitage told Powell about his role in the leak:

The next day, a team of FBI agents and Justice prosecutors investigating the leak questioned the deputy secretary. Armitage acknowledged that he had passed along to Novak information contained in a classified State Department memo: that [ Joe] Wilson’s wife worked on weapons-of-mass-destruction issues at the CIA... [William Howard Taft IV, the State Department’s legal adviser] felt obligated to inform White House counsel Alberto Gonzales. But Powell and his aides feared the White House would then leak that Armitage had been Novak’s source — possibly to embarrass State Department officials who had been unenthusiastic about Bush’s Iraq policy. So Taft told Gonzales the bare minimum: that the State Department had passed some information about the case to Justice. He didn’t mention Armitage. Taft asked if Gonzales wanted to know the details. The president’s lawyer, playing the case by the book, said no, and Taft told him nothing more. Armitage’s role thus remained that rarest of Washington phenomena: a hot secret that never leaked. [Emphasis added.]

Notice that in Isikoff’s account the FBI never told Armitage and Powell to keep quiet. No, the secrecy was their idea. Moreover, Powell states that White House aides were not “forthcoming.” We know, of course, this is false. Numerous aides were dragged into FBI interview and grand jury rooms, required to pay for counsel and, in the case of Libby, prosecuted and convicted while the actual leaker’s identity remained secret. Talk about cheap shots.

Recall how all of this played out. Armitage and Powell allowed the entire country and troops in the field to believe a lie, namely that the White House had “outed” Plame. This, aside from the galling display of moral cowardice, also put the president’s reelection in jeopardy since Democrats were all too intent on making this into a huge scandal.

The extent of the dishonesty is quite stunning. In a Cabinet meeting on October 7, 2003, the White House press corps bombarded President George W. Bush with questions about who the leaker was. Bush said he didn’t know, but there would be an investigation to get to the bottom of it. Powell, who had been told by Armitage just days earlier that Armitage was the leaker, sat there next to the president, stone silent. Not very loyal or honest, was it?

Moreover, the notion that Armitage’s slip was somehow inadvertent is belied by Bob Woodward’s taped interview in which Armitage repeatedlymentions Joe Wilson’s wife, evidently doing his best to get Plame’s identity out there. This was no slip of the tongue. Woodward testified that when he spoke to Libby sometime later that Libby never said anything about Plame.

At issue here is not simply Powell and Armitage’s deception and undermining of their commander in chief. There was a victim, one whom neither Powell or Armitage has ever apologized to. The person who ultimately paid the price for this was Scooter Libby. Had the president and the country known about Armitage, a special prosecutor would never have been appointed. Libby was eventually convicted on the basis of a he-said-he-said dispute between his recollection and that of the late Tim Russert. (Charges concerning Libby’s alleged comments to Judy Miller were dismissed, and he was acquitted on the count involving Matt Cooper.) A compelling case for Libby’s innocence can be found in this account by Stan Crock.

Powell may be peeved at being fingered by Cheney. But on this one Cheney has him dead to rights. The Plame is a blot on his record and that of Armitage. Maybe it is time to own up and make amends rather than bristling at Libby’s former boss.

By Jennifer Rubin | 11:00 AM ET, 08/29/2011