Het Beleid dat van de Geheimhouding van Bush de V.S. omzetten. Overheid
Door Sherwood Ross |
President George W. Bush heeft een open federale overheid in Washington in één van „doordringende geheimhouding omgezet,“ een voornaam gezag op mededelingen en de Eerste rechten van het Amendement zegt.
Sinds zijn inauguratie, heeft Bush op veranderingen die de „dramatische groei van overheidsgeheimhouding voorstellen, ver voorbij de geheimhouding die tijdens het Beleid Clinton voorkomt,“ schrijft Susan Dente Ross, (geen relatie) een Verwante Professor in Edward R. toezicht gehouden. De School van Murrow van Mededeling bij de Universiteit van de Staat van Washington in Pullman.
„Door uitvoerende agentschapadviezen, uitvoerende orden, statutaire veranderingen, en agressief proces, heeft het Beleid van Bush effectief de macht van FOIA (het Akte van de Vrijheid van Informatie) beperkt en het vermoeden omgekeerd dat de overheidsarchieven beschikbaar zouden moeten aan het openbare afwezige aantoonbare bewijs aantoont zijn dat dat de geheimhouding nodig is,“ Ross schrijft op lange termijn Mening, een dagboek van advies dat door de School van Massachusetts van Wet in Andover wordt gepubliceerd.
De „vegende uitbreiding van het beleid van de bevoegdheid van federale overheid om verslagen te classificeren, en zo hen te verbergen van openbare mening, verhoogt de waaier van informatie die kan worden geclassificeerd en het leven van dergelijke geheimhouding uitbreidt,“ Ross zegt. Zij merkte op dat:
# Heeft Bush het aantal federale agentschappen erkend verhoogd om informatie aan te wijzen als geheim en hen vrij te stellen van openbare onthulling.
# Verwijderde het Ministerie van de Veiligheid van het Geboorteland de volledige classificatie van het agentschap van informatieproces uit openbaar nauwkeurig onderzoek. De secretaresses' van Gezondheid en de Menselijke Diensten en Landbouw en de beheerder van het Agentschap van de Milieubescherming, zijn verleend het recht informatie „voor nationale veiligheid en nationale defensie te classificeren.“
# Heeft de Afdeling van de Defensie een nieuw beleid goedgekeurd dat strikte grenzen bij de bespreking van al zijn „kritiek onderzoek“ van de „voorwaartse ideefase“ oplegt.
# Heeft Bush zijn eigen documenten, en die van zijn vader, de vroegere voorzitter, „buiten het openbare oog geplaatst en gemachtigd om Congres in dark over intelligentiekwesties te houden.
# Heeft Bush het gezag van het Centrale Agentschap van de Intelligentie verhoogd om zijn directeur te machtigen om declassification van de informatie van de CIA te blokkeren tenzij de onthulling door de voorzitter wordt gemachtigd.
# Heeft Bush tijd uitgebreid dat de informatie die van 10 tot 25 jaar wordt geclassificeerd kan worden gehouden en deze periode kan nog langer worden uitgebreid.
“Blanket closures of INS(Immigration and Naturalization Service) proceedings and absolute gags on disclosure of related information eviscerate the time-honored constitutional protection of open public trials,” Ross writes.
She noted the federal government “arrested and refused to identify hundreds of aliens who either may be connected to terrorism as material witnesses or who may have visa or other INS infractions.”
An INS directive issued promptly after September 11, 2001, mandated absolute closure of all deportation hearings in cases the agency determined to be of “special interest” to the war on terrorism, Ross said.
The INS judges could gag aliens from disclosing anything learned in closed proceedings and an INS regulation requires states and localities housing federal detainees to withhold all information about them.
Ross noted, though, a U.S. Court of Appeals judge struck down the INS closures and a U.S. District Court Judge in Washington ordered the Justice Department to disclose the names of more than 1,100 non-U.S. citizens detained at some point in connection with terrorism.
Ross asserts, “Legislation championed as essential to protect the nation against terrorist threats allows the federal government to spy on its citizens, to detain them in secret without charges, to prosecute them based on secret evidence, and to prohibit parties to the trial from discussing related information.”
Ross writes the merest perusal of some Bush initiatives shows it has reversed the presumption of open government: “Although the now prevailing presumption of closed government is masked in subtle nuances of language and interpretive guidelines, we may liken the shift to the sea change that would occur in our criminal justice system if we moved from a presumption of innocent until proven guilty to an assumption of guilty until proven innocent.”
Granting the Bush administration has imposed its sweeping secrecy policies in the name of national security, Ross contends this exchange is “unacceptable.”
“The trade-off, secrecy for security, is a sham,” she writes. “The citizenry gives up its vital check on abuse of government power and gains little in return.”“A shadow government that operates in secrecy,” Ross continues, “does not advance the security of its citizens. Ignorance is not security. Safety is not increased when citizens are blinded by government deception and distortion. Government does not better serve its electorate when it operates with impunity.”
The Massachusetts School of Law, publishers of the Long Term View, is purposefully dedicated to the education of minorities, immigrants, and students from low- and middle-income backgrounds that would otherwise be unable to attend law school and enter the legal profession. Views expressed in the publication are not necessarily those of the law school.
(Sherwood Ross, media consultant to Massachusetts School of Law. Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com )
Sherwood Ross has worked as a publicist for the City of Chicago and Nassau County, N.Y., governments; as a news director for the National Urban League; as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News; as a workplace columnist for Reuters; as a media consultant to colleges, universities, law schools and more than 100 national magazines including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Business Week, and Foreign Policy; as a speechwriter for mayors, governors and presidential candidates, and as a radio news reporter and talk show host at WOL, Washington, D.C. He holds an award for “best spot news coverage” for Chicago radio stations in 1963. His degree from the University of Miami was in race relations and he has written a book, “Gruening of Alaska,” a number of national magazine articles and several plays, including “Baron Jiro,” produced at Live Arts Theatre, Charlottesville, Va., and “Yamamoto’s Decision,” read at the National Press Club, where he is a member. His favorite quotations are from the Sermon on The Mount.
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Here’s one Bush can ponder over:
VETERANS LAUNCH NATIONAL EDUCATION EFFORT ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
INDIANAPOLIS (April 28, 2008) – Crime, terrorism and dependency on scarce government dollars are some of the major reasons why the nation’s largest veterans organization is concerned about illegal immigration. So concerned, in fact, that The American Legion today began a nationwide outreach to alert Americans to the dangers posed by illegal aliens and the government’s reluctance to seriously address the issue.
“American Legion members have served in the U.S. Armed Forces throughout the world so that Americans can feel safe at home,” said Marty Conatser, national commander. “We have seen Third World countries. We have seen poverty, political instability, disease and war. Today we see the threat that open borders present to our homeland.
“With more than 14,000 posts and 2.7 million members, I am asking Legionnaires everywhere to start the national dialogue that needs to happen now,” Conatser said. “As a nation at war with operatives sworn to kill Americans, our government must shut down our open borders and take decisive action to address a crippling national problem.”
Unlike the “A” in ACLU, the “A” in American Legion actually stands for American!
Read the full story:
http://www.legion.org/vision/currentevents/2008/04/veterans_launch_national_educa.html