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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (22497)	6/28/2006 10:16:00 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541572

It's classified because the government doesn't want me to know they are looking at my bank accounts. I want to know that. AQ already knows money trails are being followed. They aren't dumb. But we are. (I grew up in the 60's; I expect them to be looking at everything about all of us, but that's me. Just cuz I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't. Or was I paranoid?) They have no business looking at my bank account, e-mails, net postings, or phone calls. And "me" is generic for every one of us. We might still be in Nam if the classified Pentagon Papers weren't published,.

To: Lane3 who wrote (22497)	6/28/2006 10:22:25 AM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541572

We definitely have different defaults. When there is an ongoing series of issues involving questionable actions and questionable justifications, all draped behind a veil of secrecy, I want it out in the open. If a subsequent Democratic president declared a war on homicide in the US because it kills thousands of Americans every year (far more than terrorism ever has or will), used these measures and said the whole thing is classified so don't you dare question what we are doing, much less publish it in the open, the press and the Republicans would be after them like a pack of Georgia hounds. When the executive reaches too far, this is how we keep them from going over the edge and possibly taking us with them. I know you don't see the same threat from these intrusions, but many of us do and value the press as a check on unbridled power.

To: Lane3 who wrote (22497)	6/28/2006 11:01:31 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541572

Perhaps you and I just have different defaults. Mine is to not publish classified material. Karen, if I might just butt in to this conversation. My problem with that formulation is twofold. First, this administration's propensity to just plow through routine checks and balances that other administrations have honored needs to be as well publicized as possible. It's the only way that will be rectified. Without it, it will become common practice for admins to do so, of whatever political stripe. So, that tilts toward publishing. Second, this admin has pushed the envelope beyond all boundaries with classifying information, unless it wished to leak it on its own. So, the fact of information being classified raises the honest suspicion that admin self interest, namely political, is being served rather than something as abstract and, possibly, pressing as the national interest.