B-316443, Department of Defense--Retired Military Officers as Media Analysts, July 21, 2009
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the U.S.
House of Representatives
The Honorable Robert C.
Byrd
President Pro Tempore
United States Senate
The Honorable Carl
Levin
Chairman
The Honorable John
McCain
Ranking Member
Committee on Armed
Services
United States Senate
The Honorable Ike
Skelton
Chairman
The Honorable John M.
McHugh
Ranking Member
Committee on Armed Services
U.S. House of Representatives
The Honorable Russell
D. Feingold
United States Senate
Subject:
Department of Defense--Retired Military Officers as Media Analysts
Section 1056 of the
Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009 directs
the Comptroller General to issue a legal opinion to Congress on whether the
Department of Defense violated appropriations prohibitions on publicity or
propaganda activities by offering special access to prominent persons in the
private sector who serve as media analysts.
Pub. L. No. 110-417, sect. 1056(c), 122 Stat. 4356, 4610–11 (Oct. 14, 2008). Department of Defense (DOD) appropriations
acts for fiscal years 2002 through 2008 provide, "No part of any appropriation
contained in this Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes not
authorized by the Congress." See, e.g., Pub. L. No. 110-116, sect. 8001,
121 Stat. 1295, 1313 (Nov. 13, 2007).[1] This opinion addresses whether DOD's funding
of public affairs activities involving retired military officers (RMO) who served as media analysts violated the
prohibition.[2]
Among other things, the prohibition restricts agency communications
that are covert as to their source, that is, when an agency disseminates
information, or pays someone else to disseminate information for the agency,
without disclosing that the agency paid for the communications. B-302504, Mar. 10, 2004. Application of the prohibition is necessarily
balanced against an agency's responsibility to inform the public about its
activities and programs, explain its policies and priorities, and defend its
policies, priorities, and point of view.
B-302992, Sept. 10, 2004. In our
efforts to strike the right balance, our decisions have set out a clear
standard for agencies to apply: unless
otherwise authorized by law, an agency may not use appropriations to fund any
communication, or to contract with someone else to communicate on behalf of the
agency, unless the communication clearly identifies the agency as the source of
the communication.
Clearly, DOD attempted
to favorably influence public opinion with respect to the Administration's war
policies in Iraq and Afghanistan through the RMOs. However, as we discuss below, and based on
the record before us in this case, we conclude that DOD's public affairs outreach
program to RMOs did not violate the prohibition. We found no evidence that DOD attempted to
conceal from the public its outreach to RMOs or its role in providing RMOs with
information, materials, access to department officials, travel, and luncheons. Moreover, we found no evidence that DOD
contracted with or paid RMOs for positive commentary or analysis. Consequently, DOD's public affairs activities
involving RMOs, in our opinion, did not violate the publicity or propaganda
prohibition.
This opinion does not examine whether the RMO outreach program resulted in a competitive advantage for RMOs or compromised DOD procurement with RMO-affiliated defense contractors. In April 2008, the New York Times reported that DOD used RMOs who had relationships with DOD contractors to generate favorable news coverage of the Bush administration's wartime performance.[3] David Barstow, Message Machine: Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand, N.Y. Times, Apr. 20, 2008, at A-1. While the New York Times' allegations generated legitimate scrutiny of the relationship between RMOs and DOD and raised questions about potential competitive advantage, compromised procurement processes, and the RMOs' commercial ties, those questions do not, in our view, implicate the prohibition on the use of appropriations for publicity or propaganda purposes and they are therefore outside the scope of this opinion. For similar reasons, this opinion also does not examine whether the RMOs disclosed to the viewing public or the networks whether they had commercial ties to DOD contractors or other possible conflicts of interests.[4]
Our practice when
rendering legal opinions is to obtain the views of the relevant agency to
establish a factual record and to elicit the agency's legal position in the matter.[5] In this case, we wrote to the then-Acting
General Counsel of DOD to solicit DOD's legal views and additional facts
related to allegations raised by the New
York Times article, and we asked the Acting General Counsel to respond to
those allegations.[6] The Office of the General Counsel, instead,
directed us to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public
Affairs (OASD-PA) and to the Office of the Under Secretary of
Defense-Comptroller to obtain documents and the factual information we
requested. Although DOD did not provide
us with its legal views, the publicly available record,[7]
as well as additional information that we learned in meetings with DOD staff,
provide a basis for us to opine on whether DOD violated the publicity or
propaganda prohibition.
BACKGROUND
The publicly available
record indicates that DOD's RMO outreach program began in October 2002 with a
roundtable meeting with the Secretary of Defense.[8] The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public
Affairs (ASD-PA) had explained to the Secretary of Defense that RMOs were active
within national politics and policy-making institutions, and their stature
within senior levels of government and commerce ensured a broad distribution of
information regarding DOD's war on terrorism.[9] Their input on key issues, the ASD-PA explained,
would provide the Secretary with additional insight into ensuring effective
outreach to communities around the nation.
Clarke Memo.
A 2006 document
explains that DOD hosted monthly, sometimes weekly, conference calls, and at
least 16 roundtable meetings for RMOs with senior defense officials. Mar. 20, 2006 E‑mail. Topics included the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan and the war on terrorism; the Defense Base Closure and Realignment
Commission; operations at the Guantanamo Detention Facility; veterans health care;
DOD budget requests and requests for supplemental appropriations; body armor
for service members; the insurgency and counter-insurgency in Iraq; the
civilian Iraqi leadership; the status of Iraqi security forces; improvised explosive
devices; and the 2006 so-called "Generals' Revolt," where former military
leaders called publicly for the Secretary of Defense to resign.[10]
A "trip schedule" that
DOD included in its FOIA release identified nine trips that DOD arranged for
RMOs, often accompanied by OASD-PA staff.
The trip schedule lists four trips to Iraq: January 9–12, 2005; October 5–10, 2005;
December 6–11, 2005; and September 16–18, 2006; and five to Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba: June 12, 2005; June 24,
2005; September 29, 2005; June 21, 2006; and June 28, 2006.[11] In some documents, OASD-PA staff described
these trips as paying "huge dividends" with regard to media access, and
suggested that future planned travel be limited to those RMOs with the greatest
ability to serve as "message force multipliers."[12]
OASD-PA staff planned
RMO conference calls, meetings, and travel to coincide with significant
events. For example, OASD-PA staff scheduled
conference calls with RMOs to coincide with the release of the President's
budget request to Congress, and DOD reports to Congress on Iraq, and to coincide
with congressional hearings on troop readiness.[13] These conference calls were variously
scheduled before or after regular DOD press briefings or in advance of an upcoming evening news cycle.[14]
Also, DOD hired Omnitec
Solutions, Inc., to provide reports on media coverage of DOD.[15] Omnitec's media reports were derived from
publicly available sources, such as print
newspapers, television, radio, online news sources, blogs, and media coverage
of public opinion polls. See Omnitec Contract at 15–16. The contract provided that Omnitec would
report how coverage reflected, or failed to reflect, DOD's stated policies or
views. Id. Typical Omnitec reports
list names of RMOs who provided commentary during a given period of time,
summarize the commentary, and provide excerpts of transcripts of the RMOs'
comments.[16]
We learned from DOD
Comptroller's office that between November 2004 and October 2007, DOD paid
Omnitec Solutions $1,837,989. We also identified
19 civilian public affairs staff and 3 active military personnel involved in
the RMO outreach program at various times between fiscal years 2002 and 2008,
including two assistant secretaries and one Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Public Affairs. The
Comptroller's Office, however, advised us that it did not have information
permitting it to calculate the total cost to DOD of the RMO outreach program,
including total RMO travel costs. Although
DOD did not formally respond to our letter requesting additional information, in
our discussions with the Comptroller's Office, OASD-PA, and the Office of the
General Counsel, we were advised that DOD did not have contracts with RMOs for
their commentary. Also, the documents
released under court order in the FOIA litigation did not include any such
contracts. See supra n. 7.
ANALYSIS
The question before us
is whether DOD's use of appropriations for its RMO outreach program violated
prohibitions on the use of appropriated funds for publicity or propaganda
activities. As mentioned above, DOD
Appropriations Acts for fiscal years 2002 through 2008 provide, "No part of any
appropriation contained in this Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda
purposes not authorized by the Congress."
See, e.g., Pub. L. No.
110-116, sect. 8001; Pub. L. No. 107-117, sect.
8001, 115 Stat. 2230, 2247 (Jan. 10, 2002). DOD, and OASD-PA in
particular, restate the prohibition in an internal directive. DOD Directive No. 5122.05, Enclosure 2, Principles of Information, sect. e ("[P]ropaganda
has no place in DOD public affairs programs.").
The prohibition applies to appropriations for Operation and Maintenance,
Defense-Wide, which funds OASD-PA and its outreach programs.
See DOD Directive No. 5410.18,
sect. 4.2.1.
Although the
prohibition on the use of appropriated funds for publicity or propaganda has
been in effect, in one form or another, for decades, we have rarely found
violations of the prohibition.[17] This reflects the wide discretion that we
have historically recognized agencies have in their informational activities
and defense of their policies. See B-302504, Mar. 10, 2004 (HHS flyer
and print and television advertisements did not violate the prohibition);
B-212069, Oct. 6, 1983 (OPM press releases did not violate the prohibition);
B-147578, Nov. 8, 1962 (White House regional conferences did not violate the
prohibition). Federal agencies have a
responsibility to inform the public about their activities and programs,
explain their policies, and disseminate information in defense of those
policies or an administration's point of view.
B-302992, Sept. 10, 2004. Moreover,
federal agencies may wish to explain the basis for, or even the philosophical
underpinnings of, policies advanced by elected officials and their staff in
order for the public to evaluate and form opinions on those policies. B-302504, Mar. 10, 2004. Thus, activities such as meetings, conference
calls, luncheons with agency leadership, and travel do not implicate the
publicity or propaganda prohibition where those activities are reasonably
related to the agency's duty to inform the public of agency actions, programs,
and policies, or justify and rebut attacks upon its policies. B-302992, Sept. 10, 2004; B-302504, Mar.
10, 2004; B-212069, Oct. 6, 1983; B-147578, Nov. 8, 1962.
We have identified
three categories of agency communications or agency-disseminated materials that
are restricted by the prohibition: (1)
covert; (2) purely partisan; [18]
and (3) those constituting self-aggrandizement.
We have found violations when agency communications or
agency-disseminated materials are (1) covert as to their
source or (2) purely partisan in nature.
See, e.g., B-304228, Sept. 30, 2005, at 9 (purely partisan); B-302710,
May 19, 2004 (covert as to source). Referring
to the legislative history of the first prohibition enacted in 1951, we have
stated that a third target of the prohibition is "self-aggrandizement" or
"puffery."
B-302504, Mar. 10, 2004, at 6-7. For
example, materials that emphasize the importance of the agency or one of its
officials may be considered puffery and constitute self-aggrandizement in
violation of the prohibition. Id.
Our review of the record available to us here found no evidence that the
RMO outreach program was purely partisan in nature or self-aggrandizing. In this opinion, therefore, we focus on
whether DOD engaged in communications that were covert as to their source.
Agency communications
are considered covert and violate the prohibition if they are misleading as to
their origin, B-302504, Mar. 10, 2004; B-223098, B-223098.2, Oct. 10, 1986, or
if the agency conceals its role in sponsoring the materials, B-302710, May 19,
2004; B-229257, June 10, 1988.
Concealing the agency's role in a communication goes beyond the range of
acceptable agency public information activities. B-223098, B-223098.2, Oct. 10, 1986. To avoid
violating the prohibition, an agency must identify itself as the source of the information
it distributes. Id. We view the failure to
do so, that is, the covert nature of the agency's communication, as indicating
a "publicity or propaganda purpose" as that phrase is used in the
prohibition. Otherwise, to the public it
may appear that an independent party endorses the agency's position. Hence, materials prepared by an agency or agency
contractors and circulated by them as the ostensible position of parties
outside the agency constitute covert propaganda and violate the
prohibition.
In 1987, for example,
the State Department engaged in a public relations campaign to influence the
public and Congress to support increased funding for the administration's
Central American policy. 66 Comp. Gen.
707 (1987). As part of that campaign,
the Department contracted with consultants and writers to publish articles,
editorials, and op-ed pieces in support of the administration's position. Id. Those articles and editorials, however, did
not acknowledge that the State Department had paid for them and they appeared
to have been prepared by writers not associated with the government. Id. We concluded that the State Department
violated the publicity or propaganda prohibition.
In 2004, the Centers
for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency in the Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS), contracted with a public relations firm to
produce prepackaged news stories that appeared to be actual television news
stories for stations to use to disseminate information regarding changes to
Medicare. B-302710, May 19, 2004. As part of the prepackaged news stories, CMS
provided anchor lead-in scripts to facilitate television stations' unaltered
use of the news stories. Id.
CMS violated the prohibition because neither the stories nor scripts
identified HHS or CMS as the source of the communication to the targeted
television audience, and the content of the news reports was attributed to individuals
purporting to be reporters, but who were actually hired by an HHS
subcontractor. Id. See also B-304228, Sept. 30, 2005 (Department of Education
prepackaged news story); B-303495, Jan. 4, 2005 (Office of National Drug
Control Policy prepackaged news stories).
The prohibition applies
not just to agency-prepared materials but to agency communication efforts generally,
including communications prepared by contractors at the behest of the agency. For example, the Department of Education
violated the prohibition when it contracted with a syndicated columnist and television
and radio commentator to provide positive commentary on the No Child Left
Behind program without requiring him to disclose to his audience that the
Education Department had retained him specifically to provide positive comments
on the program. B-305368, Sept. 30,
2005.
Our case law
establishes that an agency is engaging in covert communications and thus violating
the publicity or propaganda prohibition when it uses its appropriations to fund
communications that do not disclose that the agency paid for those
communications. Here, unlike the State
Department's contracts for articles and commentary and the contract between the
Education Department and the syndicated columnist, we found no evidence, nor
was it alleged, that DOD contracted with, or otherwise paid, RMOs for positive
commentary. (We discuss below the
travel, luncheons, and access to senior DOD officials that DOD provided to
RMOs.) While DOD did provide talking
points and other information to RMOs, and some DOD staff referred to the RMOs
as "surrogates," [19] RMOs
clearly were not paid by DOD to be news readers or otherwise to deliver text
provided to them by DOD. Moreover, we found no
evidence that DOD concealed from the public its outreach to RMOs or its role in
providing them with information and materials.
Indeed, it appears that the public was aware of the program. See,
e.g., Mark Mazzetti and Jim Rutenberg, Pentagon
Memo Aims to Counter Rumsfeld Critics, N.Y. Times, Apr. 16, 2006, at
A-1. Materials that OASD-PA made
available to RMOs were clearly identified as DOD products.[20] We also found no evidence that DOD asked RMOs
to conceal the outreach program or the source of their information. The only restriction we found that DOD
imposed on RMOs was that they not identify by name any particular individual as
a source.[21]
Further, DOD's contract
with Omnitec, Inc., to track RMO commentary and report on the media appearances
does not violate the publicity or propaganda prohibition. As a general matter, an agency may use
appropriations to engage in information gathering and related activities such
as analyzing media reports of agency programs, policies, and positions to
further its legitimate interest in providing information to the public. B-305349, Dec. 20, 2005 (Social Security
Administration contract with the Gallup Organization to survey the public on
the Social Security program).
There is no doubt that DOD attempted to favorably influence
public opinion with respect to the Administration's war policies in Iraq and
Afghanistan through the RMOs with conference calls, meetings, travel, and
access to senior DOD officials. For the
reasons set out above, however, we conclude that these activities did not
violate the publicity or propaganda prohibition. Nevertheless, we believe that legitimate
questions were raised by Members of Congress and the press regarding the
intersection of DOD's public affairs activities and the possibility of
compromised procurements resulting from potential competitive advantages for defense
contractors with commercial ties
to RMOs. DOD apparently had no policies
specific to RMO outreach, even though it has guidance with regard to outreach
to other groups and guidance regarding credentialed media representatives.[22] Moreover, there is no indication that DOD
recognized the multiple roles of RMOs, or the potential implications of those
multiple roles, as media representatives, members of an outreach group, and
affiliates of defense contractors. While DOD understandably values its ties
with retired military officers, we believe that, before undertaking anything
along the lines of the now-terminated program at issue in this decision, DOD
should consider whether it needs to have additional policies and procedures in
place to protect the integrity of, and public confidence in, its public affairs
efforts and to ensure the transparency of its public relations activities. To that end, we are sending copies of this
opinion to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and DOD's
General Counsel.
Sincerely yours,
Acting General Counsel
[1] The prohibition is now permanently applicable to all
DOD appropriations. Pub. L. No. 110-417,
sect. 1056(a), reprinted at 10 U.S.C. sect.
2241 note.
[2] Prior to enactment of the National Defense
Authorization Act, Senator Feingold had requested our legal views on whether
DOD's RMO program violated the prohibition.
Letter from the Honorable Russell D. Feingold, U.S. Senate, to Gene L.
Dodaro, Acting Comptroller General, GAO, May 1, 2008.
[3] Subsequently, 41 members of Congress asked the DOD
Inspector General to investigate whether the outreach program resulted in a
competitive advantage for RMO-affiliated
contractors. Letter from the Honorable
Rosa L. DeLauro, et al., U.S. House of
Representatives, to the Honorable
Claude M. Kicklighter, Inspector General, Department of Defense, May 2,
2008 (DeLauro Letter), available
at www.delauro.house.gov/release.cfm?id=568 (last visited July 16,
2009). In October 2008, the National
Defense Authorization Act directed the Inspector General to report to Congress
on his investigation of the RMO program.
Pub. L. No. 110-417, sect. 1056(b).
The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) issued a report on January 14,
2009 that found no competitive advantage for RMO-affiliated contractors. The New
York Times, however, questioned the number of RMOs identified in the report
as having no affiliations with defense contractors. David Barstow, Inspector General Sees No Misdeeds in Pentagon's Effort to Make Use of
TV Analysts, N.Y. Times, Jan. 16, 2009, at A-15. On May 5, 2009, OIG withdrew its report, stating
that its conclusions should not be relied on.
Department of Defense, Inspector General, Memorandum for Distribution
from Donald M. Horstman, Deputy Inspector General for Policy and Oversight, Inspector General of the Department of
Defense Report No. IE-2009-004, "Examination of Allegations Involving DOD
Office of Public Affairs Outreach Program, January 14, 2009 (May 5,
2009). The Deputy Inspector General
explained that the methodology OIG used to examine the RMOs' relationships with
DOD contractors would not reasonably yield evidence needed to address whether
participation in the outreach program conveyed a financial advantage to those
who participated. Id. The Deputy Inspector
General stated that OIG would not undertake additional investigative work on
the matter because DOD had terminated the RMO outreach program and senior
officials responsible for the program were no longer employed by DOD. Id.
[4] We have been advised that the Enforcement Bureau of
the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is reviewing potential violations
of the Communications Act of 1934, specifically whether analysts broadcasted information without proper disclosure, 47 U.S.C.
sections 317, 508. Telephone Conversation between Matthew B. Berry, then-General
Counsel, FCC, and Pedro E. Briones, Senior Attorney, GAO, Feb. 10, 2009.
[5] GAO, Procedures
and Practices for Legal Decisions and Opinions, GAO-06-1064SP (Washington,
D.C.: Sept. 2006), at 7, available at www.gao.gov/legal/resources.html.
[6] Letter from Gary L. Kepplinger, General
Counsel, GAO, to Daniel J. Dell'Orto, Acting General Counsel, Department of
Defense, Department of Defense--Retired
MilitaryOfficers as Media Analysts, May 30, 2008. We provided
copies of the letter to the DOD Inspector General, the Office of the Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and the Office of the Under Secretary
of Defense (Comptroller).
[7] The publicly available record consists of
approximately 12,000 pages of documents and electronic audio and pictorial
files that DOD released in response to a suit brought by the New York Times pursuant to the Freedom
of Information Act (FOIA), New York Times
Co. v. United States Department of Defense, Civ. A. No. 07 Civ 7481 (RJS)
(S.D.N.Y. Aug. 23, 2007). The
various FOIA documents are available at www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/
(last visited July 16, 2009). DOD
provided us with copies of these same documents. Because OIG withdrew its report, neither the
report nor its supporting documents and work papers are part of the public
record, and we do not rely on them in this opinion.
[8] E-mail from [REDACTED], to [OASD-PA staff member], Subject: di rita/[RMO] request, Mar. 20, 2006, available at www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/28Dec07/28Dec07E-mailRelease_Barstow.pdf, at 69–70 (overview of the RMO outreach program) (last visited July 16, 2009) (Mar. 20, 2006 E‑mail). DOD redacted names of certain individuals in its release of documents under FOIA, and in this opinion we omit names of DOD staff below the level of Assistant Secretary of Defense and insert in brackets either their title or "staff member." We also generally omit names of individuals outside of the government, but insert "RMO" in brackets.
[9] Action Memo for Secretary of Defense, from Torie
Clarke, ASD-PA, Mar. 7, 2002, available
at www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/29Nov07/BarstowRelease11-29-07.pdf,
at 97 (last visited July 16, 2009) (Clarke Memo).
[10] See www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/,
Apr. 13, 2007 FOIA release to the New
York Times, Document Nos. 01-23 (transcripts of RMO conference calls from
January 25, 2005 to July 1, 2006); Apr. 23, 2008 release (audio files of RMO
meetings) (last visited July 16, 2009).
[11] See Mar.
22, 2007 FOIA release to the New York
Times, 06-F-1532 Trip Vol. 1, available at
www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/22Mar07/06-F-1532TripVolI.pdf (last
visited July 16, 2009). OASD-PA staff
also provided us with this same list of nine trips in response to our request
for information on RMO travel, but could not confirm whether this was a
complete list of DOD-sponsored travel for RMOs.
Interview of Director of Administration and Management, OASD-PA, and Program
Support Specialist, OASD-PA, with Susan A. Poling, GAO, Managing Associate
General Counsel, Thomas H. Armstrong, Assistant General Counsel, and Pedro E.
Briones, Senior Attorney, July 23, 2008, at 2.
[12] E-mail from [Director, Office of Community Relations and Public Liaison] to Col. [REDACTED], Subject: Media Analyst Trip to Afghanistan, Aug. 11, 2005, available at www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/23Apr08/BarstowRelease23Apr08/7138-7263.pdf, at 83–84; Memorandum from [OASD-PA staff member] to Dorrance Smith, ASD-PA, Proposal for Analyst Trip to Iraq, May 25, 2006, available at www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/22Mar07/06-F-1532TripVolII.pdf, at 109. See also E-mail from [REDACTED], CIV OASD-PA, to [OASD-PA staff members], Subject: Dillon op-ed on Gitmo in National Review Online, July 1, 2005, available at www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/23Apr08/BarstowRelease23Apr08/7388-7512.pdf, at 22–23 (Internet sites last visited July 16, 2009).
[13] See, e.g., E-mail from [OASD-PA staff member] to Gordon England, Secretary of the Navy, et al., Subject: FY06 budget roll out, Jan. 25, 2005, available at www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/30Apr08/BarstowReleaseof30Apr08.pdf, at 10; see E-mail from [OASD-PA staff member] to [OASD-PA staff member], Subject: readiness hearing, Dec. 29, 2006, available at www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/14Apr08/BarstowRelease4702-4868.pdf, at 85; Transcript of Military Analysts Call, Jan. 12, 2006, available at www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/13Apr07/06-F-01532doc20.pdf; Strategic Communication Plan, 5th Stability and Security Report to Congress, as of Aug. 29, 2006, available at www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/25Jan08/TaraJonesE-mails1200-1700.pdf, at 427, 430 (Internet sites last visited July 16, 2009).
[14] E-mail from [REDACTED], LTC, MNC-I V CORPS PAO, to
[REDACTED], OASD-PA, Subject: conference
call with mil analysts, Dec. 7, 2006,
available at www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/16Jan08/TaraJonesE-mails200-699.pdf,
at 297; E-mail from [Defense Press Officer, OASD-PA], to [REDACTED], CIV OASD-PA,
Subject: Military Analysts, Sept. 18,
2006, available at www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/16Jan08/TaraJonesE-mails700-1199.pdf, at 425; E‑mail from [REDACTED], CIV OASD-PA,
to [Defense Press Officer, OASD-PA], Subject:
MG Durbin's Media Event, July 5, 2006,
available at www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/1Feb08/JonesE-mailRelease_1701-2841.pdf, at 661; E-mail from [Director, Office of Community
Relations and Public Liaison], to [OASD-PA staff members], Subject: military analysts, May 16, 2006, available at www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/13Feb08/BarstowE-mailRelease3154-3777.pdfhttp://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/30Apr08/BarstowReleaseof30Apr08.pdf, at 453 (Internet sites last visited
July 16, 2009).
[15] See Solicitation
for Commercial Items, Contract No. GS-06F-0267Z, Sept. 27, 2004, available at
www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/Omnitec/20Nov07LetterandRelease.pdf (last visited July 16, 2009) (Omnitec Contract).
[16] See, e.g.,
OSD Public Affairs Research and Analysis, Retired Military Analysts in the
Media, Feb. 9–16, available at www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/6Aug07/06-F-1532PAResearchandAnalysis.pdf, at 242 (last visited July 16, 2009).
[17] For more about the history of this prohibition, see
B-302504, Mar. 10, 2004.
[18] Materials are considered to be purely partisan in
nature if they were designed to aid a political party or candidate. B-304228, Sept. 30, 2005, at 9.
[19] It is unclear from the record who introduced the term
"surrogates" to OASD-PA activities or when the term was introduced. An early use of that term that we were able to identify
appears in a memorandum from ASD-PA Dorrance Smith. Memorandum for all OASD-PA Personnel, from Dorrance
Smith, ASD, Subject: Public
[20] See www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/, October 19, 2006 release, Documents 2–4 (last visited July 16, 2009) (examples
of informational materials such as talking points, Pentagon briefings, and
other DOD-prepared public affairs documents).
[21] See, e.g.,
Office of the Secretary of Defense, Public Affairs, Secretary of Defense
[22] Compare Directive No. 5122.05, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs (ASD(PA)), (Sept. 5, 2008) with Department of Defense Directive No. 5410.18, Public Affairs Community Relations Policy (Nov. 20, 2001). See also Joint Civilian Orientation Conference at www.jcoc.dod.mil/home.jsf (last visited July 16, 2009).