Bush’s Fetish for Secrecy
Even in the midst of his invasion of Iraq, George W. took time to deal with one domestic matter that is dear to his heart: creating more secrecy in the executive branch of government.
On the night of March 25, with none of the usual presidential fanfare and photo-ops that usually accompany a major policy announcement, Bush issued a 10,000-word executive decree that: 1) gives the government more discretion to keep information secret indefinitely, as long as they say it’s for “national security”; 2) for the first time, gives the vice-president power to classify government information as secret; 3) treats all material sent to American officials by foreign governments — no matter how routine — as secret; 4) expands the ability of the CIA to keep its records secret; and 5) delays the release of old presidential records that would have been declassified automatically after 25 years.
Of course, in issuing his order for more secrecy, Bush used his usual, deceptive tactic of declaring one thing while doing the opposite. In the formal statement introducing the decree, George claimed that he was acting to make government more open, even as he was locking it down: “Our nation’s progress depends on the free flow of information,” he declared, apparently hoping that such high-minded rhetoric at the top would deter anyone from reading deeper into this insidious document.
Like autocrats everywhere, the Bushites are haughty executives, who don’t want anyone questioning their actions, so they routinely try to hide public records from the public — ranging from names of corporate executives that Dick Cheney met with in designing Bush’s energy policy to John Ashcroft’s directive to all agencies instructing them to fight freedom-of-information requests from We the People.
To battle Bush’s anti-democratic lockdown, contact the Project on Government Secrecy of the Federation of American Scientists at www.fas.org.
Rebellious Patriots
I know I’m not the brightest penny in the change drawer, but explain to me again why it is that we’re supposed to surrender our freedoms in the name of protecting freedom.
The latest assault is on the right of dissent — the first and most basic of our liberties. After all, it was the dissent of Jefferson, Paine, Adams, and the rest of the rebels against King George III that established America, which is why the founders treasured dissident voices and carved the right of dissent into the top of our Bill of Rights.
Yet, 227 years after the Declaration of Independence, we have the regime of King George the W. not only asserting autocratic power to stifle dissent, but also unleashing their political minions and such toadies as Rush Limbaugh to assail the patriotism of all who question the regime — as though dissent itself, the very essence of democracy, is unpatriotic!
In particular, they’ve piled on people like the Dixie Chicks, Tim Robbins, and Susan Sarandon — who’ve had the guts to put their public reputations behind their deeply held beliefs. The Bushites snarl at these “celebrities,” screeching that they know nothing about government and wars, so they should just shut up. Excuse me, but they know at least as much as your typical right-wing radio talk-show yakker.
Besides, they’re merely expressing their opinions, which is what America is all about — citizens speaking up, questioning authority … dissenting! But that’s the nub of what offends the Bushites. They’re going after dissent itself, pummeling high-profile dissenters as a chilling way of saying to the rest of us, “You don’t stand a chance, so be quiet; fall in step.”
But, of course, we won’t fall in step, because America was born in patriotic rebellion and is rebellious yet! Freedom doesn’t come from conformity, but from asserting our freedoms — especially including the freedom of democratic dissent. Thank you, dissenters, for standing up for the American way.
This article appears in April 18 • 2003.