Bush Rationale For Absolute Secrecy Disproven

Bush’s argument is founded on the frightening assumption that a tyranny based on public ignorance is strength. Bush Rationale For Absolute Secrecy DisprovenBy Cliff Montgomery – Nov. 18th, 2007The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on Oct. 30th published the Fiscal Year 2007 budget total for America’s National Intelligence Program. It was $43.5 billion.That simple acknowledgment marks the end of decades of debate, advocacy and litigation. This simple, apparently innocent admission had been fiercely resisted by the bureaucrats in U.S. intelligence.And don’t be fooled by the disclosure–the Bush Administration has worked harder than most to keep you from knowing even the most basic activities it is doing in your name.But last July, Congress surprised everyone by actually growing a pair and staring down the Duce in the White House. It was a rare achievement for that group.It passed a disclosure requirement of the intelligence budget total–over White House objections, of course.”The Administration strongly opposes the requirement in the bill to publicly disclose sensitive information about the intelligence budget,” said a February 28th White House policy statement.But the disclosure requirement was part of congressional legislation to implement the popular recommendations of the famed 9/11 Commission.That bipartisan panel revealed the error of keeping the intel budget total from the American people. Far from protecting America, the budget secrecy helped to create a lack of intelligence oversight which ultimately made it easier for al-Qaeda to attack the United States, the panel declared.”The top-line figure by itself provides little insight into U.S. intelligence sources and methods…. But when even aggregate categorical numbers remain hidden, it is hard to judge priorities and foster accountability,” stated the 9/11 Commission report.Besides, the intelligence budget totals for fiscal years 1997 and 1998–$26.6 billion for 1997 and $26.7 billion for 1998, to be specific–were printed some years ago without causing the destruction of America.This most basic intelligence budget total covers all intel activities, with no elaboration. Hence it cannot possibly tell Osama bin Laden how much we’re spending along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border to bring him to justice, what methods we may or may not be using there, or how we plan to achieve this single aim.Still, top Bush intelligence officers literally have sworn in court that telling us how many of our hard-earned tax dollars currently is spent on intelligence-gathering activities would destroy “national security.””Information about the intelligence budget is of great interest to nations and non-state groups (e.g., terrorists and drug traffickers) wishing to calculate the strengths and weaknesses of the United States and their own points of vulnerability to U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies,” claimed then-CIA Director George Tenet during his April 2003 federal court testimony.He added that giving the American people the aggregate intelligence budget number would bring “serious damage” to America. But he apparently failed to explain how the 1997 and 1998 intelligence budget totals were released by President Clinton without causing any damage to national security.Even budget totals spanning back half a century “must be withheld from public disclosure…because its release would tend to reveal intelligence methods,” crowed then-acting CIA director John McLaughlin in his testimony during a 2004 lawsuit brought by the Federation of American Scientists, a government watchdog group fighting on behalf of the U.S. scientific community.Shamefully buying these arguments without questioning their lack of logic, such federal judges as Judge Thomas Hogan and Judge Ricardo Urbina gave up the judicial system’s historical oversight duties and ruled in the Bush Administration’s favor.But the very logic of the administration’s argument should make any American’s blood run cold. It is founded on the false assumption that during a time of war, democracy is a weakness and a tyranny based on public ignorance is our only strength.As the 9/11 Commission made clear, hiding the budget total harmed our national security, rather than helped it.The budget total disclosure is far too general to give away anything to a conceivable foe. But such extreme secrecy may clearly hide the incompetence and hubris of career politicians, who love power for its own sake.Now for the third time in 10 years, the intelligence budget has been revealed to Americans, and to the world. And for the third time in 10 years, America has not fallen to its foes after its release.Clearly such information was not so “sensitive” after all.This brings up an interesting question: If America’s top intelligence officers were wrong to keep this information from us, what else are they keeping secret for no valid reason?Like what you’re reading so far? 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