Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Newsvine
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiShhhh ...This Is a 'Secretocracy'
Seeing as how the big time reporters and columnists like George Will can't seem to come up with questions to ask the presidential candidates that actually matter, I'm going to suggest a line of inquiry that doesn't frolic in the frivolity of flag pins and pastors.What do the candidates think about our "secretocracy?" And, if elected, will he or she work to strengthen the virtually toothless Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) -- the legal key to an open society?
Former staff writer for the Washington Post and Time magazine, Ted Gup uses the term "secretocracy" to describe our post-9/11 society. You may not have heard of this because reporters generally don't report on it, except maybe during Sunshine Week. Rarely are there stories about information journalists did not get. That's not sexy.
Over the weekend, Gup, who is now a journalism professor at Case Western Reserve University, explained to me what he means by "secretocracy."
First, noting that "secrecy is as old as power itself," Gup described the paradigmatic shift toward hyper-secrecy after 9/11, which should be fairly obvious to anyone who hasn't been in a coma since the dawn of the new millennium. But journalists, whose stock and trade is information, have come to know official secrecy intimately.
"Virtually everything was considered a target after 9/11 -- the entire infrastructure of the country. It brought out the opportunists who've always thought there was too much transparency."
For example, Homeland Security instructed state governments to take bridge maintenance reports off their Websites. After the Minneapolis bridge collapse, when reporters went to find out if other bridges were safe on behalf of those who drive over them everyday, they hit a wall of "security" secrecy, despite it being more likely for a bridge to collapse than for it to struck by terrorists.
The two bridges (built in the 1930s) that are the only vehicular way on and off Cape Cod are controlled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers -- perhaps the most secretive federal agency outside the traditional national security apparatus, as people seeking post-Katrina information about the Army Corps' role in the New Orleans levee failures learned.
Another alarming manifestation of our "secretocracy" can be found in the federal court system. Did you know that fewer than two percent of federal court cases go to a full and open trial, as more and more cases are settled through "alternative dispute resolutions" and are sealed?
In researching his latest book Nation of Secrets: The Threat to Democracy And The American Way of Life, Gup discovered that the software system used in all federal courts is specifically designed to spit out "No Such Case Exists" when a query is made of sealed cases. It's one thing for the courts to say: you can't have access to a particular case file but to deny that a case exists when it's actually sealed is officially-sanctioned lying by an institution that is supposed to be candor and fairness incarnate.
But, even aside from America's entire civilian infrastructure being drawn into the secretive military-industrial nexus, we've seen an opportunistic Bush administration, with the help of a compliant Congress and Supreme Court, consolidate power under the "unitary executive" theory. (Funny how Busheviks get all hot and bothered about the theory of evolution -- "it's just a theory; not an indisputable fact!" -- but apparently have no problem with a legal theory that undermines Constitutional checks-and-balances).
"The quickest way to consolidate power and disenfranchise those who would challenge it is to deprive people of information. Secrecy. You can't challenge something without good information," Gup rightly observed.
Though 9/11 is the symbolic start of America's "secretocracy," this creeping fascism is inextricably linked to deregulation, which, among other things, "reduced the reporting requirements (of private companies) and created a laissez-faire atmosphere where the government is seen, not as a regulator, but as a partner."
And some folks wonder why reports of contaminated human and animal food -- even toys -- have become regular news stories.
The most discouraging thing about all this is that because you can't sign a treaty with a non-state enemy in this so-called Global War on Terror, our "secretocracy" could be with us for an "indeterminate duration," Gup reminded me.
Does terrorism justify a closed-door, back-room, Ashcroftian, just-trust-us society or is it a delusion -- based on false promises of security, whereby fearful people lose the ability to think clearly about the real world, signaling to "the enemy" that we've already lost?
"There's an illusion of safety and a notion that somehow the more secretive we are the more secure we are. But the lesson of 9/11 and much of history is just the opposite of that," Gup notes, pointing to the bipartisan 9/11 commission (and most other analyses), concluding that 9/11 "surprised" us, not because there was a lack of information, but due to "a lack of connectivity of information already in hand, which is to say there was too much secrecy; not enough collaboration and cooperation. That makes us vastly more vulnerable."
Gup left me with a sobering thought: If you added up all the harm that's been done because people didn't have enough information, or because vital information was withheld, it would be staggering.
Before I got off the phone with Gup, he reminded me that "this is not about us (in the media). We are there are as proxies. We have no special powers. The public knows about the First Amendment but they sometimes interpret it to mean that the government has to cooperate with us. They don't."
"This isn't about the news media, it's about people needing information to make informed decisions. Every aspect of our lives is predicated on information. And the degree to which vital information is denied citizens is the degree to which they are exposed to unknown risk."
What to do? Here's a starter idea: ask your Congressional rep to give FIOA some real teeth. In the meantime, submit a FIOA or public records request to a federal or state agency, asking them to give you a list of everything you're not allowed to know.
Shoot me an email if you get a response.
Sean Gonsalves is a columnist and assistant news editor with the Cape Cod Times. He can be reached at sgonsalves@capecodonline.com
19 Comments so far
Show AllThe media is out of control this election has shown us just how far it has gone to dumb-down the public. The recent move by ABC to remove candidates from the debates was outrageous. They are trying to determine the fate of the country and the world being mouthpiece for special interests and the government and to silence dissent.
Media censure is unheard, the FCC should rule for the public but like the EPA its teeth are continually drawn. The media has no right to exclude any politician who is running for office as happened recently with the ABC debate. The only exclusion under the rules used by ABC should apply to a candidate not sitting in public office. The license of ABC would be lifted if the rules were changed but the congress, with the exception of a few pushes for more media conglomeration supported by special interests. I hope that someone picks up on this thought. We have seen the obsession by FOX and CNN, particularly in the form of Wolf Blitzer, and the FOX rabid journalists constantly referring to the Rev. Wright controversy.
Blitzer's bias is clear. He is quick to use every possible negative he can against Obama from the Flag Pin to anything else he could get his mouth around. His support for Clinton has been clear and inappropriate, for CNN to call itself a "fair and balanced" news network. I quote Mr. Nichols: 
" The media pretense of being a fly on the wall has often been preposterous. In the real world of politics — where power brokers and manipulators proceed with the cynical axiom that perception is reality — the fly on the wall is the wall. The political press corps is not observing reality as much as redefining it while obstructing outlooks and constraining public perceptions."
As usual, few are able to see the stampede of the public sheep created by media. I support the change that Obama represents! He is intelligent and wants America once again to be looked upon as a great nation that it could still be and once was. The present "lack of experience" cry of Clinton is preposterous. Could anyone having been near the White house as long as Bush done as badly for the USA? There is experience! However, the discovery of a job approval rating for him at about 28% of the American people speaks volumes about experience. No one could have been as bad as the Bush team! There is experience!
A flight from entrenched American politics is necessary . . .it has ruined this country and made greed the single value of importance. The young people once again embrace hope as a result of the Obama campaign. The Hillary political group and entrenched politics have virtually destroyed America with its policies and exclusive power clubs. She has believed this form government is America.
Clinton recently morphed to the Obama populist message, it was called, "finding her voice" while at the beginning of her stump showing her Madeline Albright, bomb the children image. 
Can anyone truly think that change is unnecessary? I guess not since all the politicos have adopted his message including McCain? The mistakes that Obama may make as president cannot be greater than those of the past seven years. It is also necessary to give him a democratic congress to make certain that the programs that Americans want can be enacted.
Mr. Gore Vidal, has pointedly criticized mainstream media as one of the major problems, and what is wrong with the USA. The corporate media conglomerates control the message and that message is perversely distorted and panders to its advertising portfolio! Wolf Blitzer one of the glaring examples of this criticism and shows clearly those distorted ideas with his reporting, which is nothing more than partially factual opinion dictated by his bosses.
He is a person who has no right to shape public opinion far from being the "fly on the wall" he espouses to be. We must remember flies morph from maggots. He displays ignorance as a virtue for the entire world to see, an example of what is considered, by many in America to be news reporting. If Blitzer were billed as a CNN commentator, at least the public would not be hoodwinked to believe his reporting to be the truth, while it is lack of concern for accuracy, rectitude and fairness to be considered to be news rather than opinion.
The people of the USA have been so ill informed as to what a change would really do and mean to this country and the change in leadership that is necessary, they have forgotten that no one could be worse than George Bush . . . No one, not even a dogcatcher, at least the dog catcher has compassion for
Animals!
The future leaders, Obama or McCain, should discuss the problems America and the world faces. The problem of public ignorance of the issues caused by the media is serious. In the heat of elections the media panders to voter ignorance. The emphasis, as we see on nightly, so-called news, is constant repetition of candidate's miscues. The result of the media sensationalism becomes, the wrong problem and the wrong message at a crucial time in world history. The emphasis on having the politicians address a credible platform of ideas based on an American and global interaction in the world is critical.
There is not enough time left for civilization to focus on rubbish. The energy and environmental issues for example or food and health care are the problems the media should be focusing upon. But to use the Rev, Wright issue for one week, to try and hurt the candidacy of Obama is a travesty. The issues most pressing are once again avoided, those really important issues that must be put before the congress; the environment, continued funding of Iraq, energy issues, education, health care and so many others not dealt with, all impacting upon the economy, the failure of public dialog is outrageous!
The issue of this election will impact on the environment, economy and the future of the USA as no others. Still, if more than 50% of eligible voters cast their votes it will be a miracle, as a result of regressive US election laws and media obfuscation. It is compulsory for everyone to vote in Australia it should be so in the USA as well. Few of the candidates are really talking about the major points, even those who are the most erudite. The environment in association with the economy or health care and elections reform, to name some, are kept out of public dialog as a result of the nonsense punditry hours on end. The world looks at America and its "star struck reality" in wonder.
The political discussion rests on the complete lack of talking points in isolation, such as, Clinton's health package or the nonsense gasoline tax rebate and it's cost, rather than what is really at stake with energy issues, human survival. The candidates for the US presidency rarely talk about the complete interrelated package of the issues combined. Obama alludes to this deficiency in the media and public issues. When he asks for this to occur it lands on deaf ears because the media and special interests do not want this to occur.
The media reduces the public debate to its most simplistic level with pundits arguing about one inconsequential issue or another rather than the truly important issues of our time. The American people are kept from hearing and understanding the relationship of the entire package of issues, which a true leader must address and deal with for the very survival of America in the world within a global economy. The costs for the war would pay for every single need from health care to American infrastructure repair and education, as well as the alleviation of world hunger and energy research this is what is what is at stake.
The media deals with Rev. Wright and American Flag lapel pins instead.
The media keeps the public dumbed down for obvious reasons they represent the moneyed people. As a result the public becomes unable to talk about moving radically toward change and the related issues affecting their very life and the future. The issues of climate change, energy issues and the global economy not only American economy is the part of the mortgage crisis created by the "free market" system. All the other issues like people losing their homes as a result of Wall Street manipulation are tied to these fundamental problems. These is the first and major issue which affects all other issues and is completely related to the economic changes which must take place.
The media board rooms instruct their so-called journalists (news/opinion readers) to stay clear of those subjects that would attack advertising, consumption, tied together in the media collusion with special interests to maintain the consumer system killing the world. Media in collusion with government does not want the change that would result in the decline of their hundreds of millions of dollars in profits.
All environmental problems are in one way or another associated with the Western world's consumption based lifestyle led by the USA. These issues are affected by consumer advertising much of it coming from the millions spent on advertising of irrelevant product and campaign advertising. The media should be dealing with true American and global issues in this campaign affecting the very basis of the so-called American Dream, fast becoming the global nightmare. This is what the next president of the USA must address!
Another alarming manifestation of our "secretocracy" can be seen in the government's decision to STOP releasing "key" economic indicators from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Perhaps they don't want us to know how badly this country is failing and quickly sinking under our present leadership.
John Freeman May 6th, 2008 12:08 pm - Nobody retires from The Company. Not even Ray McGovern. "…once you are in, you are in for life."
When the government fears the people, we've got Democracy.
When the people fear the government, we've got tyranny.
There is no difference between the Okhranka of the Romanovs, Felix Dzerzhinsky's CHEKA, Beria's Komityet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnostithe, the German Gestapo, the East German Stasi, and the FBCIA-HS complex (including the 170 unnamed black ops security groups in the Military Branches). Those groups always exist to terrorize the domestic population, to keep the current economic/political regime in power, while pretending to "protect" the helpless enraged ignorant peasants who see themselves as assaulted on all fronts. All these organizations follow the same trajectory and end in the same place. Boom. Any questions?
I have this nagging thought that the CIA may be akin to the Mob...once you are in, you are in for life. Hence Bin Laden's continuing presence in our national affairs.
Google CIA-Heroin-Cocaine, it sure opened my eyes as to what their real business is.
also read "Takeover" by Charlie Savage. Answers a whole lot of questions also.
bush Laden won.
Everything since 9/12 has been merely a mop-up operation.
This article outlines on of the best reasons libertarian philosophy: "privatize everything, let free trade bloom, kill taxes, kill government...etc" blows. Moving everything to the private sector moves everything to the secret sector. "Public" sector is that figuratively and literally, it is open to the public for examination. If we leave ourselves and our lives subject to the conspiracies of the private sector, we're all just fish in a barrel.
I forget who said 'Secrecy breeds Tyranny'.
...but they were right.
George Bush's cocaine possession arrest and the military records proving his wartime desertion mysteriously disappeared before the 2000 election, so should we be surprised? Dick Cheney set up offshore shell companies to evade sanctions and do business with his arch-enemy Saddam Hussain. White House emails vanished, Ohio ballots vanished, and executive privilege trumps the rule of law.
"You don't need to know that."
"That's none of your business."
"Maybe you'll understand when you're older."
"Finding that out will just make you unhappy."
"You ask too many questions."
"Curiosity killed the cat…"
Remember when you used to hear these all the time? Right, when you were a child. Even if such rejoinders were as well intended as they sometimes were, they also always had the effect of making me, anyway, feel even less mature, intelligent, and capable that I was. The comments encourage us to be more passive towards, more trusting of, and more dependent on "the big people" than we might otherwise be. These responses also train us to think of inquiry as an inappropriate intrusion in the affairs of our superiors, of curiosity as a dangerous character defect, of independence as a status we are granted when others decide we are "ready".
Now withholding information may be useful and appropriate—to some extent at least—when dealing with children. But what court appointed government institutions, military establishments, and especially (pardon the redundancy) sociopathic corporations our foster parents? (And if some court did, couldn't we charge them with child neglect if not abuse?)
Of course, the adults sensibly never let us in on what filled the ellipsis in the last response: "and satisfaction brought him/her back." Now that's dangerous stuff.
What is really going on in the press? It is and has always been controlled:
http://qwstnevrythg.blog-city.com/operation_mockingbird.htm
What is really going on in the schools? Whose info and what spin on it is being used to train each new generation?
And ALL campuses are being run by clandestine operators... not only looking for new recruits but insuring that the unwanted do not advance, to a teacher's podium or armed with a social credential/degree.
http://theunjustmedia.com/CIA/Spies%20on%20campus.htm
BTW, the CIA is NOT an 'American' agency. It may employ many American citizens, but its work is international in scope and its collaboration and management is also globally based.
Even "national security" is a euphemism for 'information and police control for the purpose of maintaining elite INTERNATIONAL/global dominance'.
The only hope for society is to embrace the 'Right to Know' principle upon which all the rest of nature operates. In fact, 'Right to Know' is Nature's First Law.
If you do not understand the reason for secret military projects, your understanding of the 'for whom' and 'for what reason' behind the reality in which you live is nothing but a deception script... written to keep you disarmed of the facts of your own existence so that you have no potentially reasonable (naturally intelligent) response to make within it.
Think about it... let's say you are actually an herbivore but you have always been taught that you were an omnivore and fed foods that would keep you predictably stupefied, ecologically disassociated, lethargic, and ultimately beset with bizarre and crippling illnesses... the better to control you. Now, let's consider that this situation remains unchanged for a few thousand years over the course of which... the basic knowledge of human ecology is completely lost...
So, the second phase of 'need to know' is accomplished… no one any longer even knows the facts... which is the MOST secure state of information control... there is no one any longer who can even express the info for it has become unknown throughout the entire fabric of the society!
This is the reality that underpins most (if not all) of our cultural precepts. Can't believe it? Sounds absurd?
Most of the fundamental assumptions upon which modern life is based can quite reliably be shown to be false! Consider these assumptions:
1) Over-population threatens all life and is the root cause of hunger.
2) Natural evolution (including human evolution) is a process, the result of which is 'survival of the fittest.' (Thus, a competitive nature is natural, desirable and necessary to optimum survival.)
And, it even turns out that humans are indeed herbivores! Didn't know it did you? Me neither!! So, how ignorant are we? Pretty nearly completely! Secretocracy? You ain't even seen the tip of the iceberg dear herbivore human monkey!
"When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings, who are natural herbivores. "
William C. Roberts, M.D., editor, American Journal of Cardiology
And that completely defining yet unknown fact, our herbivore ecological natures, has more to do with secret government than any could possibly imagine at first glance…
(And no, herbivore is not a term limited to 'granivore' – the bovine type of herbivore. Herbivore means predominantly plant eating… and it is an anatomical term, not a behavioral (determined by culture) one.)
Very funny video to help you exit the 'secretocracy' (deception culture) in which you have been raised: (http://youtube.com/watch?v=05zhL1YUd8Q )
http://allinharmony.org
Read Barry Zwicker's 'Towers of Deception'.
It answers a WHOOOOOOLE lotta questions...
[S]ubmit a FIOA or public records request to a federal or state agency, asking them to give you a list of everything you're not allowed to know.
Thank you for your inquiry. We regret to inform you that we are unable to comply with your request for information regarding what you are not allowed to know. Pursuant to section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, any information which may be relevant to "clandestine activities" cannot be disclosed.
Please note that this refusal must not be construed as either confirmation or denial that anything you are not permitted to know relates or does not relate to any clandestine activity of the Government of the United States of America, nor any of its agencies, services, and independent contracting parties and, without limiting the generality of the forgoing, most particularly creates no legitimate supposition concerning any private arrangements that may or may not have been made by the Vice-President of the United States of America the presumption of whose oversight by any person or institutional body whomsoever is deemed to be an improper subject of inquiry.
Governments like the public to be transparent to them but to be opaque to the public.
With control of information, you cataylze control, whether this is part compromise or full on tyranny isn't vigorously debated enough. Americans frequently have little control, and this is unacceptable if we're going to live in a Democracy.
Ellison (Oracle) started with the CIA project of the same name. Most certainly, some information on you is held captive in one of the corporation's proprietary software installs used variously by our Government. In this way (technology), and with the militant paranoid hostility the current administration has displayed in it's Imperial War, there's a strong need to *allow* our systems to improve our lives. A new era of transparency will prevent illegitimate bastards from gun slinging in the name of Freedom, anywhere in the world.
This didn't start with 9-11, it just was an excuse to make this worse. A lot of it dates back to the founding of the 'national security state' in the 1950's. For instance, a lot of the "Pentagon Papers" from around 1970 was Mr. Ellsberg seeing documents in the War Dept that he knew the American people needed to see.
Every govt official wants to keep everything secret. Even if they are honest, it means their mistakes can't be made public. And it opens up huge doors for corruption and dishonesty since they can hide anything they want to hide.
In the article:
Former staff writer for the Washington Post and Time magazine, Ted Gup uses the term "secretocracy" to describe our post-9/11 society. You may not have heard of this because reporters generally don't report on it, except maybe during Sunshine Week. Rarely are there stories about information journalists did not get. That's not sexy.
I am not convinced that the new emphasis on government secrecy is not "sexy." The corporate media reporters just try to avoid reporting on anything substantive, particularly if it implies there is something fundamentally askew about our corporate-dominated government and society. Since the amount of secrecy should greatly worry any informed citizen, it actually is "sexy" in that it should stir great interest if properly reported.
As for George Will, the bow-tied clown, he could come up with substantive questions if he were paid to do that, but he is not. The corporate clown media is as serious as the plague, but only about boosting profits and following the directives of its paymasters, not about informing the public.
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." "If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about."
Therefore the U.S. government must be guilty of quite a lot.