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All the entries posted on December 19, 2006.
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Home > Window on Washington > Archives > 2006 > December > 19
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
FLASH: Black Cohosh Won’t Prevent One
Black cohosh, sometimes known as black snake root, is sold in health food stores and over the Internet as a “natural remedy” for many complaints, including menopausal “hot flashes.”
But, a new study funded by the National Institutes of Health indicates that millions of dollars American women spend on the herbal remedy every year are dollars wasted.
A “double-blind” study by scientists at the University of Washington compared black cohosh to a placebo pill and menopausal hormone therapy, containing estrogen and progestin.
Results: Women who received any of three different combinations of black cohosh and other herbals, including alfalfa, boron, dong quai and licorice, reported the same postmenopausal symptoms as those who got the placebo.
Hormonal therapy — which some scientists believe may play a role in breast cancer – resulted in a significant reduction in hot flashes and night sweats, the researchers said.
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Live in The Situation Room
The remodeled White House Situation Room should be open for business later this month after a major overhaul.
This week, Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin is serving as tour guide as reporters, in small groups, are being shown the new digs where presidents and top advisers will huddle for situations.
Demolition of the old space began last July. Construction began in August.
It’s all part of an “end-to-end” presidential communications review that began in March 2001. Communications problems were highlighted on 9/11, a situation Bush has discussed with some frustration.
The new Situation Room is heavy on secure video communications capability, which has become a major part of presidential communications.
Hagin, during a Tuesday tour, said the remodeled Situation Room will be part of the Bush administration’s “great legacy of modernizing” White House infrastructure. Work continues on the major remodeling of the White House Briefing Room and adjoining press working area, all of which should be ready - more or less - by May.
Also underway is a three-phase redo of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to The White House. And presidential travel will get an upgrade with the arrival of a new fleet of Marine One helicopters. Those won’t be in until the next president is on the job.
Despite being a cordial tour guide, there was some stuff Hagin wouldn’t talk about.
Cost of the project: “It’s classified.”
How secure and safe is the room (which actually is a suite of rooms): “It’s a pretty safe place … It’s classified.”
Numbers: Forty miles of communications cable. Twenty miles of electrical cable. In the main conference room, four 50-inch flat screens, two 42-inch flat screens. Two cameras for videoconferencing. “You can get six NFL games,” Hagin said.
Small video displays on the wall display the security level of the meeting. During Tuesday’s tour, it said, “Top Security/SCI.” SCI is “sensitive compartmentalized information.”
And, in something of a quaint reminder of times gone by, there are two phone booths. These are for when somebody needs to talk privately. Nifty glass doors. No coins needed.
A smaller conference room also has full whiz-bang capability. During the tour, the big-screen TV in that room displayed the news that basketball star Allen Iverson had been traded from Philadelphia to Denver. ESPN seemed to be the test signal of choice on many of the screens, though one carried “National Treasure” with Nicholas Cage.
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DHS Sued Over Alleged Data Mining
The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a lawsuit in federal court today against the Department of Homeland Security to obtain information about a data-mining system it uses on travelers.
The Automated Targeting System reportedly creates and assigns “risk assessments” to citizens as they enter and leave the country. The foundation filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act to find out more about how the system collects data on citizens.
The Department of Homeland Security announced this fall that the program would start this month. But Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff later said that the program had already been in operation for several years.
“The news of this secret program sparked a nationwide uproar,” said David Sobel, senior counsel of at the foundation.
“DHS needs to provide answers, and provide them quickly, to the millions of law-abiding citizens who are worried about this ‘risk assessment’ score that will follow them throughout their lives,” Sobel said.
The department has not responded to the lawsuit.
Under the system, individuals have no way to access information about their “risk assessment” scores or to correct any false information about them, the foundation states in its lawsuit. But while you cannot see your score, it will be made readily available to untold numbers of federal, state, local, and foreign agencies. The government will retain the data for 40 years, according to the foundation.
The foundation’s lawsuit demands an urgent response to its FOIA request, including all privacy impact assessments and all records for individuals who believe the system includes inaccurate information and all records that discuss potential consequences for travelers as a result of the system.
For the FOIA complaint filed against the Department of Homeland Security: http://www.eff.org/Privacy/ats/ats_complaint.pdf
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She’s Doing Fine. Thanks for Asking
The short version, and Tony Snow says it a lot nicer than this, is that Laura Bush’s skin cancer is none of your business.
Mrs. Bush’s office now confirms that she had a cancerous squamus cell lesion removed from her leg in November. That confirmation came only after a reporter noticed a Band-Aid on her leg at a Monday evening event.
“It’s no big deal and we knew it was no big deal at the time,” Mrs. Bush said in a comment relayed through Snow.
“Frankly,” said Snow, “I don’t think anybody thought it was the sort of thing that occasioned a need for public disclosure. Furthermore, she’s got the same right to medical privacy that you do. She’s a private citizen. She’s not an elected official. And so for that reason she didn’t disclose it.”
“She’s doing fine and and thank you for your concern,” Snow told reporters who questioned the decision not to disclose the medical procedure when it happened.
That’s Mrs. Bush, above, conducting a tour of White House Christmas decorations this month.
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Henry Likes John
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger thinks Arizona Sen. John McCain should be the next president of the United States.
This is gleaned from the latest in a series of releases from the McCain Presidential Exploratory Committee, which seems to be exploring its way toward an inevitable announcement that McCain, again, will run for the White House.
Kissinger’s name turned up today among a long list of folks on McCain’s New York Area Finance Team (so official that it is capitalized in the release). The good Dr. Kissinger is listed as an honorary New York co-chair.
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Secret, Secret,
It’s no secret that the federal government has been stashing away a treasure trove of public documents into secret categories of information that are not technically classified, just inaccessible to the public.
One would think that the information would be of the 007-caliber to make it into one of the some 60 categories of secret information with names like Sensitive Security Information (SSI) and Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU). Federal officials like to use these categories instead of the traditional classification route because the document doesn’t have to undergo the scrutiny and expensive oversight of the formal classification process and it does the same thing: removes information from the public domain.
But the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group, has unearthed a startling example of what sort of documents are being hidden. The Justice Department, according to the group, redacted part of a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving electronic surveillance. Why? It’s not clear. No one seems to know why.
POGO has worked closely with other open government groups to rein in government officials who needless remove documents from public scrutiny. This year they had a small victory. The 2007 Homeland Security Appropriations bill contains a provision that allows the government to release information in the SSI category after three years.
“POGO recognizes the need to keep some types of information secret,” states the POGO annual report, which highlights the Justice Department’s redaction of the high court ruling. “However, SSI and other secrecy markings are often abused to cover up innocuous information or information that reveals fraud or other wrongful acts within an agency—all of which should be available for public scrutiny.”
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Tony Questions Tone
White House spokesman Tony Snow, shown above selecting a chip at the White House press corps’ recent holiday reception, today took the not-confirming, not-denying route when questioned about a Washington Post story quoting sources as saying President Bush and the Joint Chiefs of Staff disagree on whether to send more troops to Iraq.
Bush wants to. The joint chiefs, not so much, according to the report.
“People are trying to create a fight between the White House and the joint chiefs where one does not exist,” said Snow.
“Tonally, it’s wrong,” he said of the Post story.
“We are getting way into the weeds here,” he said when reporters pushed for more information.
“The president has not decided on the way forward,” Snow said.
But he did assure reporters that any story about Bush “locking horns with the joint chiefs is tonally inaccurate.”
His overall advice on the subject: “Everybody take a deep cleaning breath here.”
Could be more to come. The Post has an interview with the president today.
Stand by for news.
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Everything You Wanted to Know About Xmas at The White House
You ask. They answer.
Here’s the latest from “Ask the White House,” an online feature in which administration officials reply to questions of the day. Monday’s guest answerer was Lea Berman, White House social secretary.
Among Monday’s q’s and a’s with Ms. Berman:
Ron, from Denton, TX writes: What is your favorite part about the holidays at the White House? Hope you have a Merry Christmas
Lea Berman: Thank you, Ron. I hope you have a happy Christmas also. My favorite part of the holidays (and any other time of year) at the White House is watching the reactions of people who have never been to the White House before, as they enter the State Floor. Some people stop and stare in awe, and others are gleeful, but many become emotional as they feel the sense of history here. It is an intensely joyful and patriotic moment for many people.
Ruth, from Iowa writes: Lea, How many Cristmas trees are put up in the White House during the holiday season? Thank you
Lea Berman: The number of Christmas trees in the White House varies from year to year, depending upon the decorations, however this year there are 8 evergreen trees and one tree made entirely of red glass ornaments. The largest tree is found in the Blue Room.
Sandy, from Paramus, NJ writes: In past years I have seen on C-SPAN a Chanukah lighting ceremony in White House and was wondering if and when it will be this year.
Lea Berman: Sandy, there is a Hanukkah celebration each year at the White House - and as it happens, it is tonight - Dec. 18th. There is a menorah-lighting ceremony prior to the reception, and this fourth night of Hanukkah will be marked at the White House by Ariel Cohen, a 14-year old young woman from Virginia, whom Mrs. Bush met while visiting the National Children’s Medical Center last year.
There will be a performance by the University of Indiana’s Hillel A Capella group, and then the doors of the East Entrance will be thrown open to welcome 600 guests for the Hanukkah reception. The food provided at the reception is all kosher; earlier today Mrs. Bush visited the White House kitchen as it was prepared to receive the specially-catered meal.
Cynthia, from Sacramento, CA writes: May I send a Christmas Card to the President and his wife?
Lea Berman: Cynthia, you can send your cards to the President and Mrs. Bush at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington DC, 20502, and if you do, you will be in good company! They receive thousands of holiday greetings at this time of year and the White House Correspondence Office relies on its helpful army of volunteers to sort and open the cards.
No questions were asked about how one gets to be the White House social secretary. Ms. Berman has had the gig since December 2004. Prior to that she worked in the coalitions and finance divisions of the Bush-Cheney campaign. And before that she had been chief of staff and social secretary for Lynne Cheney. In the private sector, she had owned an event planning business in Washington.
Her husband is Wayne Berman, a successful Washington lobbyist and high-dollar fundraiser for the Bush presidential campaigns
(Sidenote about the White House holiday receptions: The president attends two on most days. Does that make him bipartisan?)
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