Thursday, July 11, 2013

William Pfaff — Secret Intelligence Court a Precursor to Tyranny


The justification for this secret court—as is usual in the development of 20th century secret police states—is national security. The American case differs from the prominent earlier examples of such states in Bolshevik Russia and Nazi Germany, in that this American secret court operates behind a screen of what seem to be guilty obfuscations, which their authors know will not stand up to serious examination. Such obfuscations simply provide the rationales for concealment of this legal mechanism from public, press, and all but a certain number of congressmen and senators, all willing to provide the simulacrum of oversight because of their personal commitment to the belief that the United States makes itself secure by walking on what former Vice President Richard Cheney melodramatically described as “the dark side.”
It is the public who gets left in the dark about this, so as to protect the system.
The “dark side” of international combat or security operations, such as political assassinations, kidnappings, use of torture, or secret and illegal sequestrations or imprisonments, has on the whole seemed to have produced more American national humiliation, disrepute,and political blowback than advantage. It also is not entirely new; it is a characteristic of bureaucracies.

Truthdig
Secret Intelligence Court a Precursor to Tyranny
William Pfaff

2 comments:

The Rombach Report said...

Oliver Stone on the surveillance state...

http://youtu.be/NIb0a6CUFMA

wilwon32 said...

@TRR,

Great Oliver Stone message!

My question is "from whom/where does one anticipate an answer?" It is obvious that any un-encrypted communication via the internet is not feasible. Thus, any discussion of a serious approach to stemming the suppression by a secret government is unrealistic. The current administration is captured by the deficit hawk mentality, thus, arguments proffered on behalf of MMT proponents have virtually zero chance of influencing the politicians in the forseeable future. And on and on...