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A Senator's Lonely Crusade to Learn the CIA's Secrets


               
2013 Jan 15, 6:30am   918 views  4 comments

by Dan8267   follow (4)  

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/01/a-senators-lonely-crusade-to-learn-the-cias-secrets/267180/

The body he sits on, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, is charged with providing "vigilant legislative oversight over the intelligence activities of the United States," to ensure "that they conform with the Constitution and U.S. law." There is no one in America more justified in demanding to know the official legal rationale behind actions like targeted killings. Obama isn't just keeping this information from the American people. He isn't just hiding his legal reasoning from the U.S. Congress. He is stonewalling one of 15 senators that federal law establishes as the most important check on secret abuses by the CIA.

Obama has created exactly the sort of secretive, unaccountable environment that led to many of the CIA's most egregious historic abuses. He ought to be held accountable for all abuses that result from his reckless imprudence. And he ought to be judged harshly, because he knows better.

#politics

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1   FortWayne   @   2013 Jan 15, 6:46am  

No government ever gave up it's power or given it's secrets without a fight. It's why founding fathers wanted a limited government, they knew how tyrannical human nature is, and they were afraid of it.

2   Dan8267   @   2013 Jan 15, 7:02am  

FortWayne says

No government ever gave up it's power or given it's secrets without a fight. It's why founding fathers wanted a limited government, they knew how tyrannical human nature is, and they were afraid of it.

The founding fathers expected the population to violently revolt every few generations.

What country ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure.

Thomas Jefferson

We're long overdue for a revolution, even if you count the Civil War -- which I don't because the South was revolting to keep slavery and strangle liberty.

But is a revolution really plausible today? We can't even keep the police from raping and torturing innocent people in broad daylight. If we can't bring those scumbags to justice, how the hell could we successfully revolt against the federal government?

3   FortWayne   @   2013 Jan 15, 7:11am  

We had a chance to do this peacefully last election with Ron Paul. I'm convinced he would reduce government, and let the society and courts work as they were intended to.

But now I really think we are past the breaking point, we are falling into the abyss which only a violent revolt will repair.

4   Dan8267   @   2013 Jan 16, 12:53am  

FortWayne says

We had a chance to do this peacefully last election with Ron Paul.

I liked Ron Paul, but he had no chance of getting elected because his own party actively campaigns against him, shuts him out of debates, and throws away votes cast for him. If he were nominated, his own party leaders would assassinate him before the election was over. The hate him more than Obama.

Even if he were elected, Congress would not cooperate at all with him. All his reforms would be blocked from coming up to a vote.

It's not sufficient to get a good person in the White House. We also have to get rid of all the assholes in Congress.

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