Governmental Indescretion

The National Security Archive has just released new documents regarding governmental intrusion into our lives. They open their posting this way: The Central Intelligence Agency violated its charter for 25 years until revelations of illegal wiretapping, domestic surveillance, assassination plots, and human experimentation led to official investigations and reforms in the 1970s, according to declassified documents posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. Ouch. When we look at these documents, we see the same type of scheming and spinning that is (probably) going on today. From this document, we read: Secretary Schlesinger (James Schlesinger, Secretary of Defense) : Legally NSA is Spotless Secretary Kissinger (Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State): If they are only looking at illegal activities. Mr. Silberman (Martin Silberman, Deputy Attorney General): There aren't enough illegal activities for them to chew on. Director Colby (William Colby, CIA Director): This issue will be, did we do these things? Mr. Areoda (Philip Areoda, Deputy Counsel to the President): Church (the Church Committee) says he's going to look into the legal, moral, and political cost-effectiveness aspects of it. Secretary Kissinger: Then we are in trouble... Basically, we see the governmental leadership splitting hairs between what is "legal" and what is right. We know that this has been going on in the current administration for some time now, although in a somewhat more public setting. Colby's comment is the closest thing to decency that anyone utters: "Did we do these things?". The rest of the room, attempting to throw the shroud of legitimacy over the entire affair, tries to spin the event as "legal". My favorite part, however, is a strange inconsistency in the statements given by Michael Hayden and the information contained in the documents. Taken from the NSA intro: CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden announced today that the Agency is declassifying the full 693-page file amassed on CIA's illegal activities by order of then-CIA director James Schlesinger in 1973--the so-called "family jewels." Only a few dozen heavily-censored pages of this file have previously been declassified, although multiple Freedom of Information Act requests have been filed over the years for the documents. Gen. Hayden called today's release "a glimpse of a very different time and a very different Agency." Hayden's "very different Agency" is shown in this document, especially in the following excerpt: [Rumsfeld enters to talk about Rusk] Huh? The "very different Agency" still seems to have the very same people lurking around it. Is it at all reasonable to expect that Rumsfeld, having been educated this way in the 1970's did NOT bring the same mentality to the current administration. Not likely. I read this article just recently as well, which explains why the type of work the National Security Archive does is so important to what we call democracy. it is the thing that makes the government (somewhat) answerable to the people it purports to represent, because we know what they are doing. From this document: Helms said all these stories are just the tip of the iceberg. If they come out, blood will flow. (Abu Gharib, anyone?) For example, Robert Kennedy personally managed the operation o the assassination of Castro. How would many Americans feel if they had authoritative evidence that the CIA was trying to murder foreign leaders? Would Kennedy's involvement in it help explain later events in Kennedy's life? How do we decide if our leaders are worth re-electing if we do not have access to this type of information? Especially when there is true law-breaking occurring, like in this document: ...He mentions mail opening. We did have a New York and Los Angeles program in the 50's of opening first class mail from the USSR. For example, we have four to Jane Fonda. That is illegal, and we stopped it in 1973. (20 years too late...) Here, the CIA director is admitting to the President that the government has broken the law. Wouldn't the American public like to hear this in a timely fashion, and not 30+ years later?