Two quotes from Eisenhower spring to mind.<p><i>"It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear. While such an economy may produce a sense of seeming prosperity for the moment, it rests on an illusionary [sic] foundation of complete unreliability and renders among our political leaders almost a greater fear of peace than is their fear of war."</i> (D.W. Eisenhower)<p><i>"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."</i> (D.W. Eisenhower)<p>He was absolutely right, and I'm not sure that there's a realistic way out of the decades-deep hole we've been digging for ourselves. Especially when you consider that we appear to switch our brains off in the wake of any significant terror attack, it seems hopeless.
> When President Obama issued procedures and standards for using lethal force against suspected terrorists overseas, agency officials were bound to follow them.<p>It's a perpetual, boundless war fought on our behalf. It's too bad Congress can't find a way to permit this activity in some limited fashion without just ignoring it (congress please RTFM: Article I, Section 8, Clause 11). This sets a horrible precedent for future presidents. We have ceded enormous discretion to the executive here. It seems prudent to have a ton of oversight and disclosure surrounding programs that allow for execution of individuals, regardless of where they live.<p>Footnote: Rep. Lincoln (regarding conflict w/Mexico over disputed Texas): "The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood."
Secret Laws<p>Secret Interpretations of Laws<p>Secret Courts<p>Secret Warrants<p>Secret Court Orders<p>Secret Arrests<p>Secret Trials<p>Secret Evidence (not made available to the defense)<p>Secret Convictions<p>Secret Prisons<p>Secret "enhanced interrogation" programs<p>Gee, it sounds like we've become everything we were fighting against in the previous century.<p>But it keeps the money flowing.<p>Next after the military industrial complex is the for-profit prisons. Vacant cells mean lower revenue and thus degrade profits, executive bonuses and shareholder value. Our education system needs to be geared to produce just enough inmates to occupy the for profit prisons, and enough productive workers to pay for both the for profit prisons and military industrial complex.
It's even worse than having secret law -- it's secret analysis and interpretation of law.<p>In some cases, if a statute says: "All pens must be blue", and the administration's attorneys study the statute and determine "When the congress said that pens must be blue, we understand that they meant to say black", and they then make that determination secret. The outcome isn't secret law, but secret meta-law.
Secret law is no law at all. Law is a contract between a people and the government. Contracts where only one party has any knowledge are by definition not contracts. Instead, this body of secret law operates completely outside of public oversight, and generally grants the government powers that public, bonafide law would ban or tightly restrict. Secret law is _always_ a violation of the social contract, and we must reject it and punish actors in government who justify it, no matter the specious ends they pursue.
The problem is larger than secret laws. Once the culture of paying lip service to fundamental principles is set within government it becomes systemic as has already happened in the US government.<p>The danger then is a large number of individuals within government acquire a sense of self righteous purpose convinced of an existential threat that allows them to morally ride roughshod over the basic principles of the state, for instance to run surveillance systems.<p>For them citizens become ignoramuses who have to be kept in the dark, so there is no scope for debate. And who would not protest so much if only they knew all this is just to keep them 'safe'. Of course its not. A shift from accountability towards secrecy is always about the accumulation and abuse of power.<p>Unless they are prosecuted and held accountable in courts where their world view can be challenged in the open the culture will not change. It's important for citizens to nip this in the bud before its too late.
<i>"In this election year, as we honor our right to govern ourselves, those in power and those seeking it should affirm that a regime of secret law has no place in a democracy."</i><p>This was a darkly amusing way to finish the article. Both major candidates have openly endorsed expanding government surveillance and reducing legal protections for privacy and access to law. There's no plausible election outcome that would scale back secret law.
Perhaps the United States has secret law because it's one of a very small set of jurisdictions (read: pretty much only) that subjects the most classified actions to a comprehensive and deeply integrated legal framework. For some interesting reading, check out Intelligence Oversight, a toolkit, by the Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces[1]<p>[1] <a href="http://www.dcaf.ch/Publications/Overseeing-Intelligence-Services-A-Toolkit" rel="nofollow">http://www.dcaf.ch/Publications/Overseeing-Intelligence-Serv...</a>
I'm glad to see discussions like this that are looking beyond the election about how we can move forward to increase transparency, working to hopefully regain some of the public's trust. An open question is whether we as a nation can keep pressure on the officials to get changes made. Difficult to do in the best of circumstances and even more so in the current state of polarization and divisiveness.
Some of the things I remember from this past administration:<p>1. Secret global and domestic surveillance.<p>2. Secret application of war powers.<p>3. Secret assassination programs.<p>4. Secret courts with secret warrants.<p>5. Secret torture programs.<p>6. Secret prison systems and secret "extraordinary" rendition.<p>7. Secret compulsion letters for secret military and intelligence efforts.<p>8. Secret deportations with a public relations face saying the opposite.<p>9. Secret sabotage programs.<p>10. Secret intelligence involvement in the production of US
media.<p>11. Secret censorship of domestic protests.<p>12. Secret trade deals with secret foreign policy objectives.<p>13. Secret nuclear deals with historic US enemy states.<p>14. Secret transfers of money overseas.<p>15. Secret arms support overseas of groups in Syria.<p>16. Secret meeting in the Congress (the most of any president
in the history of the country).<p>17. Secret interpretations of law.<p>18. Secret investigations of civil and human rights allegations.
This part absolutely disgusts me:<p><i>Even when they have access, lawmakers often fail to push back against interpretations that go too far. After all, they have little incentive to take on the national security establishment when their constituents are not even aware that a problem exists.</i><p>As a representative, you are there to uphold the constitution and deal with all the issues that would otherwise swamp the general public. You are not micromanaged by the people. Your general representation has been elected. We do not elect you to sit on your butt and wait for "incentives". DO YOUR JOB.
'Secret law' is not law at all, and I consider it the duty of every American to expose and, if necessary, disobey it. Any legal professional participating in 'secret law' should be disbarred.
The article is ridiculous. Legal interpretations are only law when they have been adopted by a court. A private legal interpretation is not a "secret law." To the contrary, every organization of any substantial size has private interpretations of laws, and those interpretations are protected from disclosure by attorney-client privilege.
If this an option it's obvious why any administration would prefer to take it but it's an abdication of duty for Congress and the courts to do nothing about it.
What is the point of a law if it is kept secret? Doesn't secrecy defeat the purpose of the concept of having laws and of due process? How did they establish the concept of secret laws and how are these laws passed if not in secret?