{"id":1497456,"date":"2024-10-21T02:10:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-21T06:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1497456"},"modified":"2024-10-21T02:10:00","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T06:10:00","slug":"west-point-selectively-censors-information-in-violation-of-federal-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/west-point-selectively-censors-information-in-violation-of-federal-law\/1497456\/","title":{"rendered":"West Point Selectively Censors Information In Violation Of Federal Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

West Point Selectively Censors Information In Violation Of Federal Law<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Tony Lentini via RealClearDefense<\/a>,<\/em><\/p>\n

Military.com<\/a> recently carried a story on a West Point cadet facing charges for sexual harassment and sexual assault.<\/strong> The article named names, not just of this one cadet, but also of another cadet charged with sexual misconduct, an officer faculty member facing conduct-related charges and the garrison commander who was acquitted of impaired driving charges.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Yet, after then-Superintendent Robert S. Caslen promised an investigation into why West Point permitted insubordinate communist cadet Spenser Rapone to graduate in 2016, the Army refused to release its findings on the spurious grounds of protecting Rapone\u2019s privacy.<\/strong> This, despite the cadet\u2019s public flouting of his Marxist political sympathies. Moreover, the promised but undelivered investigation was to be not of Rapone himself but of Caslen\u2019s leadership or lack thereof in allowing an avowed communist to graduate. (Caslen subsequently resigned from his post-West-Point civilian job as president of the University of South Carolina for allegedly plagiarizing parts of a speech.)<\/p>\n

In another case, the fate of several cadets who overdosed on cocaine laced with fentanyl on Spring Break two years ago has never been publicly released, again on privacy grounds<\/strong>.\u00a0 I have an outstanding Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to determine their final disposition that has been pending for over a year now, despite federal law requiring a response within 20 working days.\u00a0 West Point\u2019s public affairs officer cited privacy laws as the reason for the Academy\u2019s stonewalling, even though I specifically did not ask for their names, only their punishment.\u00a0 But their names should be<\/em> released, as well as their fate, since drug abuse is a serious offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the cadets\u2019 actions publicly discredited the United States Military Academy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Something rotten is going on at West Point and within our military.\u00a0 Why are some names released while others are not?\u00a0 Why are sexual misconduct allegations and related court filings publicly disseminated while cadet drug abuse and West Point administrative failures are covered up?<\/p>\n

My own FOIA request is now languishing in the \u201cInitial Denial Authority\u201d office of the Secretary of the Army at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia.\u00a0<\/strong> Repeated calls and emails to expedite the release of information as to the cocaine-fentanyl cadets\u2019 final disposition have gone unanswered.\u00a0 A classmate\u2019s five-month-old FOIA request to obtain West Point documents related to the Superintendent\u2019s stated intention to make the Cadet Honor Code \u201cmore aspirational\u201d was summarily dismissed by that same office for clearly bogus reasons:\u00a0 1) That the Academy\u2019s FOIA office had supplied the requested materials (they had not, providing only non-germane items); and 2) That a document search had uncovered no such documents.\u00a0 By \u201ccompletely bogus,\u201d I mean that they lied.<\/strong><\/p>\n

West Point is a federally funded institution.<\/strong>\u00a0 The Academy, and the military in general, are subject to federal laws, just as the rest of us are.\u00a0 In fact, even more so, because the U.S. military traditionally and by law is subject to civilian control.\u00a0 So, why are they permitted to pick and choose which laws to obey and which to willfully ignore?\u00a0 Why are they permitted to ignore legitimate taxpayer requests for information?\u00a0 Why the disparity between releasing names in sexual assault cases but not in drug cases and administrative failures?<\/p>\n

What is West Point covering up and why?\u00a0<\/strong> When and how will these lawbreaking officials be held to account?\u00a0 And when is this once proud and honorable institution finally going to come clean?<\/p>\n

Tony Lentini<\/strong> is a 1971 West Point graduate and a founding board member of the <\/em>MacArthur Society of West Point Graduates<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 He served five years in the Army, attaining the rank of captain, and then spent his civilian career in the energy industry, ultimately serving as vice president of public and international affairs for two independent oil and gas exploration and production companies.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nSun, 10\/20\/2024 – 22:10<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/west-point-selectively-censors-information-violation-federal-law<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

West Point Selectively Censors Information In Violation Of Federal Law Authored by Tony Lentini via RealClearDefense, Military.com recently carried a story on a West Point…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1497457,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1497456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1497456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1497457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1497456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1497456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1497456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}