Secrecy in Bush administration

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-07-2004
Secrecy in Bush administration
1
Sat, 09-18-2004 - 12:43pm
This is a quote from a speech by Bill Moyers. The speech is long & really about journalism in general, worth the read.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0917-02.htm

"Secrecy is hardly a new or surprising story. But we are witnessing new barriers imposed to public access to information and a rapid mutation of America’s political culture in favor of the secret rule of government. I urge you to read the special report (Keeping Secrets) published recently by the American Society of Newspaper Editors (for a copy send an e-mail to publications@knightfdn.org). You will find laid out there what the editors call a “zeal for secrecy” pulsating through government at every level, shutting off the flow of information from sources such as routine hospital reports to what one United States Senator calls the “single greatest rollback of the Freedom of Information Act in history.” "

and

"But never has there been an administration like the one in power today – so disciplined in secrecy, so precisely in lockstep in keeping information from the people at large and, in defiance of the Constitution, from their representatives in Congress. The litany is long: The President’s chief of staff orders a review that leads to at least 6000 documents being pulled from government websites. The Defense Department bans photos of military caskets being returned to the U.S. To hide the influence of Kenneth Lay, Enron, and other energy moguls the Vice President stonewalls his energy task force records with the help of his duck-hunting pal on the Supreme Court. The CIA adds a new question to its standard employer polygraph exam asking, “Do you have friends in the media?” There have been more than 1200 presumably terrorist-related arrests and 750 people deported, and no one outside the government knows their names, or how many court docket entries have been erased or never entered. Secret federal court hearings have been held with no public record of when or where or who is being tried.

Secrecy is contagious. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has announced that “certain security information included in the reactor oversight process” will no longer be publicly available, and no longer be updated on the agency’s website.

One of the authors of the ASNE report, Pete Weitzel, former managing editor of The Miami (Fla.) Herald and now coordinator for the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government, describes how Section 2l4 of the Homeland Security Act makes it possible for a company to tell Homeland Security about an eroding chemical tank on the bank of a river, but DHS could not disclose this information publicly or, for that matter, even report it to the Environmental Protection Agency. And if there were a spill and people were injured, the information given DHS could not be used in court!

Secrecy is contagious – and scandalous. The Washington Post reports that nearly 600 times in recent years a judicial committee acting in private has stripped information from reports intended to alert the public to conflicts of interest involving federal judges.

Secrecy is contagious, scandalous -- and toxic. According to the ASNE report, curtains are falling at the state and local levels, too. The tiny South Alabama town of Notasulga decided to allow citizens to see records only one hour a month. It had to rescind the decision but now you have to make a request in writing, make an appointment, and state a reason for wanting to see any document. The State Legislature in Florida has adopted l4 new exemptions to its sunshine and public record laws. Over the objections of law enforcement officials and Freedom of Information advocates, they passed a new law prohibiting police from making lists of gun owners even as it sets a fine of $5 million for violation.

Secrecy is contagious, scandalous, toxic – and costly. Pete Weitzel estimates that the price tag for secrecy today is more than $5 billion annual (I have seen other estimates up to $6.5 billion a year,)

This “zeal for secrecy” I am talking about – and I have barely touched the surface – adds up to a victory for the terrorists. When they plunged those hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon three years ago this morning, they were out to hijack our Gross National Psychology. If they could fill our psyche with fear -- as if the imagination of each one of us were Afghanistan and they were the Taliban -- they could deprive us of the trust and confidence required for a free society to work. They could prevent us from ever again believing in a safe, decent, or just world and from working to bring it about. By pillaging and plundering our peace of mind they could panic us into abandoning those unique freedoms – freedom of speech, freedom of the press – that constitute the ability of democracy to self-correct and turn the ship of state before it hits the iceberg. "


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2003
Sat, 09-18-2004 - 3:27pm
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This is the kind of thing that really scares me. When I read that we were actually hiding "phantom" prisoners from the Red Cross at Abu Ghriab I got really depressed. We're supposed to be the good guys...the shining city on the hill...what happened? Oh yeah. Bush happened.