Please tell me under what provision of the Constitution the government is entitled to have a secret interpretation of a public law.
While in theory ignorance of the law is not considered an excuse for its violation, that presumes that the law itself is known.
if the interpretation of the law is not available to all, how then can anyone know what the law is?
There may truly be scary things in the world. But it is far scary to think that our government operates without meaningful oversight.
There is a reducto ad absurdum to the rationalization for all the secrecy about what is now coming out. Perhaps it can be phrased with a simple question: could we be headed to a case where the interpretation of the Constitution by the Supreme Court of the United States would require briefs and oral arguments to be classified, and even possibly part or all of the ruling on the issue in the Court's opinion? Is not that the logical end point of the notion of secret interpretations?
There are so many things that are bothersome about what we are now learning, started under the Bush administration, and carried forth by this administration.
Since it involves the FBI, perhaps the Senate will demand a more complete explanation from the man nominated to run that agency, who has some experience with the issues at hand, James Comey.
I hope it will do so in open session, so the American people can hear and understand.
I have some further thoughts.
I am preparing to step back into the classroom, where my responsibilities will include class on US Government and on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Policy. Both courses intersect with the recent news. Take the latter- what ethical, legal and moral concerns are there about how we use technology, or have we now reached a point where when the technology exists there will be those who will justify its use to themselves even without disclosing completely either to the people or the elected representatives.
Elected representatives - we know that at least Senators Wyden of Oregon and Udall of Colorado raised red flags. We know that members of the Intelligence Committees are read in, but if they object they have little ability to stop the Executive branch. Perhaps they could defund or refuse to fund certain activities, but is it possible to do in a public law without disclosing the particular activity, and if not, do we not come back to the same point as we now find ourselves?
If an administration can operate on the basis of secret interpretations of all or part of a law intended to define operational parameters, and the Congress cannot publicly object, how then does law in any way restrict what an executive wants to do? Remember that the previous administration operated by signing statements on its interpretation of laws, which meant it chose not to be bound by clear intent of legislative actions by the people's elected representatives. Is it possible that there are secret signing statements as well?
How are we the people supposed to decide if the actions of either our legislators or our executive are what we support if we are not informed of what they are?
Here I come back to words from a movie, in a courtroom, spoken by Jack Nicholson as Col. Nathan Jessup:
Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.
How easy it would be to rewrite that speech using the facts now coming out to make clear why so many of us are horrified.
The existence of this program is grotesque and incomprehensible even if justified on the grounds that its saves lives.
The mindset that underlies such words thinks it is entitled on its own to justify and rationalize, and thus easily concludes with I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.
And when that mindset is allowed to operate, in the shadows, without meaningful oversight, without the right of the public to debate and object, the Constitution becomes a shell.
When any attempt to oppose such actions winds up either with the government able to shut down judicial oversight with claims of state secrets or to prosecute those who are attempting to inform us of what is being done in our name under the Espionage Act, where then is there any legal control of what the government does?
The Constitution grants rights to persons - not just American citizens.
When we begin down the slippery slope of rationalization of denial of due process, where does it stop?
The Congress of the United States, both parties, has failed the American people and abandoned the Constitution.
It did so when it passed the USA Patriot Act.
It did so when it passed the Military Commissions Act.
It did so when it retroactively gave immunity to major corporations for their violations of the Telecommunications Act.
It did so when after banning Poindexter from directly running Total Information Awareness it failed to prevent the backdoor of private corporations accumulating the information and thereby still allowing the military and intelligence apparatus to accumulate it.
It continues to do so by failing to rein in administrations in their misuse and abuse of state secrets and of the Espionage Act.
If we are to be a government of laws and not of men, we should not be merely dependent upon the good will and reasoned judgment of people operating in a fashion we cannot observe and thus to which we cannot object.
In my lifetime we have experienced a number of times when the continuation of our democratic republic seemed in some jeopardy.
I would argue that the rampages of Joe McCarthy, until checked by members of his own party (Margaret Chase Smith and Prescott Bush immediately come to mind), represented a real threat - a populace and a government operating in that kind of fear cannot remain democratic.
Clearly things like the Huston plan and some of the other horrors disclosed in the aftermath of Watergate rise to that level.
We know quite a few examples from the last administration, although it should now be evident how little we actually knew.
We voted for something different - in 2008 and again in 2012. What we are now beginning to understand is that the national security apparatus is out of control, that the power accrued to an executive without effective control by the other branches is contrary to the principles under which this nation is established.
What's next, a modern day equivalent of the abuses of the Star Chamber?
Will we seesSecret assassinations of the persons or the reputations of those who refuse to go along? Oh wait, did not we already see executives of one or more telecomms that refused to cooperate with the Bush administration get prosecuted on other grounds?
For once, at least a few of the media organizations are functioning as intended, to inform the American people.
Had they done so in 2004 perhaps we could have stopped these abuses before they became so entrenched.
The question is now in OUR hands, those of the American people.
Will we reclaim the kind of government we are supposed to have, or is it already too late?
I wonder.