This morning the NYTimes and WashPo have both run pieces on Republicans who are dissenting from the Bush administration line and voicing concern about the possible illegality of the NSA wiretaps.  The about face by the White House which produced better and longer briefings to more members of Congress on the matter of the wiretaps has resulted in more questions than it has put to rest.  It is encouraging that these Republicans are doing their job and that they have put loyalty to the Constitution and their constituents above loyalty to their party. 

President Wilson issued an executive order with respect to loyalty and secrecy that remains. 

Confidential

In the exercise of the power vested in the President by the Constitution and the resolution of Congress of April 6, 1917, the following order is issued:

The head of a department or independent office may forthwith remove any employee when he has ground for believing that the retention of such employee would be inimical to the public welfare by reason of his conduct, sympathies, or utterances, or because of other reasons growing out of the war. Such removal may be made without other formality than that the reasons shall be made a matter of confidential record, subject, however, to inspection by the Civil Service Commission.

This order is issued solely because of the present international situation, and will be withdrawn when the emergency is passed.

Woodrow Wilson

The White House
7 April 1917 49

 

From the Moynihan Commission on Government Secrets 1997 

Every bureaucracy seeks to increase the superiority of the professionally informed by keeping their knowledge and intentions secret. ....  The concept of the ‘official secret’ is the specific invention of bureaucracy, and nothing is so fanatically defended by the bureaucracy as this attitude, which cannot be substantially justified beyond these specifically qualified areas. In facing a parliament, the bureaucracy, out of a sure power instinct, fights every attempt of the parliament to gain knowledge by means of its own experts or from interest groups. The so-called right of parliamentary investigation is one of the means by which parliament seeks such knowledge. Bureaucracy naturally welcomes a poorly informed and hence a powerless parliament—at least in so far as ignorance somehow agrees with the bureaucracy’s interests.51

Does this ring a bell?  Congressional oversight is the job we hired all those Senators and Representatives to do -- Democrats and Republicans.  Isn't it?

The National Journal reports that "...Cheney authorized Libby to release additional classified information, including details of the NIE, ...".  Take a look at this and then take a look at the Moynihan report on government secrecy. 

The point I want to raise at this time is use and abuse by elected administrative officials and senior staff in government of secrecy under color of law by classifying information at will.

The Moynihan Commission in 1997 issued a remarkable document that identified when and how the classification of secrets most benefits the people of the U.S.  It is a difficult report to read - long and detailed.  But its value is undeniable:   the difference between a legitimate classification of information as secret and an illegitimate use.   This seems to me to be most applicable to the currrent administration's use of secrecy to promote its foreign policy at the very least.

Secrecy is a form of government regulation. Americans are familiar with the tendency to over-regulate in other areas. What is different with secrecy is that the public cannot know the extent or the content of the regulation.

 "Whether it's the comments about the plantation or the worst administration in history, Hillary Clinton seems to have a lot of anger."

That's what misogynist Mehlman said a few days ago on television. I hold no brief for the junior Senator from New York, but coming from a man who doesn't like women -- that's a hoot.   Hate her or love her, the Senator from New York gets a lot of attention.  Her megaphone is almost as big as W's and she doesn't abstain.

I suspect we are in for some serious politics of personal destruction after what happened yesterday at the King funeral.  There was W sitting there, taking  bullets, slings and arrows and unable to get up and leave.  Chris Matthews and Kate O'Beirne were apoplectic.  

The RNC is just revving up and with Rove leading the charge against the Republicans who are raising questions about NSA domestic spying, we are in for a rough ride. If Rove withholds money from Republicans running for re-election this fall, who will he support?

All we need in the mix is an indictment of Rove by Fitzgerald with this headline: Political Advisor to the President Indicted for Perjury.  Right on the money, I'd say.