Hope your dad lives somewhere safe from our nation's freedom producing bombs and liberty promoting prisons! And if you're a dad, hope your kids aren't locked up or six feet under.
Oh wait, sorry, that's not a Hallmark-approved Father's Day Card. Let's return to our regular programming:
Yay for dads, they're awesome, and we as a society are totally supportive of healthy families! We believe in promoting our values all over the world, from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli...in the air, on land, and sea.
Showing posts with label transparency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transparency. Show all posts
6/19/2011
5/24/2011
one year later
Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.
We're all flawed human beings. We have our individual problems/challenges/hubris/sins/whatever.
Transparency in our institutions is one of the best tools we have to allow us to function collectively in a civilized fashion.
6/07/2010
will manning serve more jail time than libby?
There are some fascinating angles to this story at Wired. What is classified information? What should be classified? Who gets to determine what is classified? Is it ever okay to leak something? What should happen to whistleblowers? How does the public conduct oversight of classification?
And perhaps most interestingly, what is the military smoking to give a 22 year old the keys to the kingdom? Is this what our military has become? We're so far removed from dealing with actual national security matters that an army specialist deemed by our own government as barely competent to drink a beer has access to sensitive diplomatic cables that have nothing to do with his assignment in Iraq?
Or maybe, they do have something to do with Iraq, and they would be quite embarrassing for our political leadership. But of course, how can we know what they are when the government classifies them and prevents We the People from seeing them? This is particularly intriguing as it involves the Wikileaks video Collateral Murder to which my reaction is basically ho hum.
You see, unlike when, say, the Bush Administration destroyed an actual national security asset, and most ironically, one working on WMDs, stuff like this carries no military value. None. Zero. It's political, and there are no reasons to classify politics. In fact, secrecy is pretty much exactly how We the People get screwed.
But remember, no senior Bush official served jail time for revealing undercover agent Valerie Plame (Wilson). None. Zero. Wanna bet 22 year old Manning gets more than that?
And perhaps most interestingly, what is the military smoking to give a 22 year old the keys to the kingdom? Is this what our military has become? We're so far removed from dealing with actual national security matters that an army specialist deemed by our own government as barely competent to drink a beer has access to sensitive diplomatic cables that have nothing to do with his assignment in Iraq?
Or maybe, they do have something to do with Iraq, and they would be quite embarrassing for our political leadership. But of course, how can we know what they are when the government classifies them and prevents We the People from seeing them? This is particularly intriguing as it involves the Wikileaks video Collateral Murder to which my reaction is basically ho hum.
You see, unlike when, say, the Bush Administration destroyed an actual national security asset, and most ironically, one working on WMDs, stuff like this carries no military value. None. Zero. It's political, and there are no reasons to classify politics. In fact, secrecy is pretty much exactly how We the People get screwed.
But remember, no senior Bush official served jail time for revealing undercover agent Valerie Plame (Wilson). None. Zero. Wanna bet 22 year old Manning gets more than that?
8/28/2009
the disgustingness continues
(P) This week, the ACLU put up another document that the government has belatedly released regarding the criminal (er, heroic, terrorist-stopping, manly, beer-drinking) acts of the senior officials of the Bush Administration.
As the document bureaucratically explains:
What I think is going to surprise a lot of people as more and more of the details trickle out is how cold and calculated everything is. One of the features of a large organization is that bureaucracy involves lots of decision-makers, and in order to disseminate information among the various groups, there is lots of information sent back and forth. The nature of this process thus can almost hilariously contrast with the particular subject matter at hand. Our nation's leaders discussed war crimes, treaty violations, and felonies as if they were discussing where to build a new highway interchange or quarterly projections for GDP growth.
This process is precisely why transparency, openness, 'sunshine', is a core element of good governance. Decision-makers have to know at the time of their decisions that their deliberations will become public, that there will be social and legal consequences for blatantly improper courses of action.
The PDF for this document from 2004 sent to the Office of Legal Counsel from the Central Intelligence Agency can be downloaded here. It's been clear for awhile that this is no group of 'bad apples' or 'rogue agents' or other nonsense. The dedicated staff at the CIA, NSA, DIA, INR, etc, etc, who are monitoring my blog, your email, your mom's phone conversations, your dad's credit history, your neighbor's political contributions, your kid's internet postings, your grandma's participation in peace groups, etc, etc, are not the people who designed these policies. And to a great extent, it's the bureaucracy itself, the countless professional civil servants, who are able to apply the brakes internally, to slow down inappropriate, counterproductive, illegal programs.
But that only stops so much. When a group of our leaders is committed to ignoring the law, there is only one group of people that can stand up to them, and that is us, We the People. Seven years after we first started this particular bit of horrific, counterproductive, illicit behavior, we have yet to stop it completely, let alone hold the architects accountable for their creation.
But hey, at least we've been able to arrest millions of other Americans over the past seven years for grave allegations like shoplifting, prostitution, and marijuana possession. It's good we've got our 'tough on crime' priorities in order.
As the document bureaucratically explains:
Note: This paper provides further background information and details on High Value Detainee (HVD) interrogation techniques to support documents CIA has previously provided the Department of Justice.
This paper focuses strictly on the topic of combined uses of interrogation techniques.
What I think is going to surprise a lot of people as more and more of the details trickle out is how cold and calculated everything is. One of the features of a large organization is that bureaucracy involves lots of decision-makers, and in order to disseminate information among the various groups, there is lots of information sent back and forth. The nature of this process thus can almost hilariously contrast with the particular subject matter at hand. Our nation's leaders discussed war crimes, treaty violations, and felonies as if they were discussing where to build a new highway interchange or quarterly projections for GDP growth.
This process is precisely why transparency, openness, 'sunshine', is a core element of good governance. Decision-makers have to know at the time of their decisions that their deliberations will become public, that there will be social and legal consequences for blatantly improper courses of action.
The PDF for this document from 2004 sent to the Office of Legal Counsel from the Central Intelligence Agency can be downloaded here. It's been clear for awhile that this is no group of 'bad apples' or 'rogue agents' or other nonsense. The dedicated staff at the CIA, NSA, DIA, INR, etc, etc, who are monitoring my blog, your email, your mom's phone conversations, your dad's credit history, your neighbor's political contributions, your kid's internet postings, your grandma's participation in peace groups, etc, etc, are not the people who designed these policies. And to a great extent, it's the bureaucracy itself, the countless professional civil servants, who are able to apply the brakes internally, to slow down inappropriate, counterproductive, illegal programs.
But that only stops so much. When a group of our leaders is committed to ignoring the law, there is only one group of people that can stand up to them, and that is us, We the People. Seven years after we first started this particular bit of horrific, counterproductive, illicit behavior, we have yet to stop it completely, let alone hold the architects accountable for their creation.
But hey, at least we've been able to arrest millions of other Americans over the past seven years for grave allegations like shoplifting, prostitution, and marijuana possession. It's good we've got our 'tough on crime' priorities in order.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)