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Politics : The Castle -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (256)	11/11/2002 1:51:56 PM
From: MSI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7936

I suspect this military information builds up into a substantial, USELESS database, and rather than taking the time to decide which of this USELESS data should be released, we just classify it all. Frankly, that seems like a more sensible approach than the alternative, which would be to arbitrarily declassify information that may or may not be sensitive. I'd agree to the former, strongly disagree on the latter. There needs to be a reason to keep it classified, not a reason to declassify it. The government, especially the military, works exclusively for the taxpaying citizens, not the other way around. This is often confused by those doing the talking in government. Government information is not private but is thought to be so by the dwellers in the caves of government, the insiders and beneficiaries. The less gov't officials are accountable to the people, the more they start thinking the gov't is their plaything, such as the occasional tip of the iceburg story about Ollie North, Poindexter and Casey stealing gov't resources to set up their own offshore enterprises, smuggling drugs and weapons and having a great time. Illegal and treasonous in general, and specifically against Congressional law as well, but they saw, and see, nothing wrong. That's typical -- secrecy breeds both contempt and the inevitable criminality that goes with it. This is the antithesis of PRIVATE information. All information belongs to the people that paid for it. The only exception are bona-fide military secrets of which there are little. PRIVATE information belongs to individuals. Ashcroft's DOJ has turned that around, arrogating privacy to government, and peepholes into citizens. Some term that the definition of fascism is when gov't arrogates to itself those powers which it denies to citizens. That's incomplete but convenient shorthand. The FOIA is designed to provide means by which such information can be requested. Of course, this law is subject to subversion by those who stand to lose, and the more they stand to lose the more desperate the measures they'll take to conceal or destroy such information. The Clinton administration stonewalled some, but the Bush administration has gone to Soviet-style lengths to hide the past 20 years' presidential papers going back to Reagan, and even George Junior's government papers are being withheld, subject now to court action for release, who knows why, but skeptics think it's likely related to meetings with Saudis, Enron executives and other potential felonies. I've dealt w. both private and military information for two decades, and even a cursory look at subsequent FOIA releases show that most classification is designed as you say for laziness, or to hide criminal negligence, or criminal acts, or both. My opinion that the quantity of bona-fide classification is tiny compared to the CYA classification comes from inevitable declassification and FOIA, as compared with current practices. The trend in government power is to classify, keep secret, deceive or destroy increasing quantities of information, with the inevitable excuse of "national security", when it simple "party" or "individual" security. The more that happens the less citizens know, and the more likely we have gov't run amok.