isn't being received.

In the same way, it's not OK to fix an election in a democracy, no matter who does it or why.

A briefly kept secret could be the difference between success or failure in an immediate situation.

But to keep secrets for any longer than say a year not having to do with a real war, is a bite out of democracy and should not be allowed.

The JFK secrets are one example of democracy being damaged.

I would agree with RobertEarl.

keeping violating the constitution a secret? no

Since we are not conducting a plebiscite on every matter, they are empowered to act without consulting with us. Many governmental activities require some secrecy, e.g. tax returns are kept private between the citizen and the government (although if we all got to scrutinize everyone else's return, there might be a lot less tax fraud).

the person you elected to represent you is not told the secret either. There are only a handful of Senators and 3 or 4 out of the House that are told. Is that a representative democracy?

Or if they are briefed, it is in a very cursory way and they are sworn to secrecy.

If everyone is being spied upon, and everyone's secrets is being held somewhere where they could be blackmailed, then even having "oversight" by a select few (but especially a "select" few) in this case is not adequate, as all of those "selected" could know and be kept in check from alerting the rest of of us there is a problem because in fact they are being blackmailed to do so. That is what is really ugly about this situation. The nature of the problem that is being kept secret is also the means to keep anyone from having a reasonable check on it's appropriateness and constitutionality as well.

That is why we need some real carefully crafted laws and publicly announced mechanisms for watching this sort of thing, and known punishments, etc. for violations of these laws to make sure that there isn't an ability to do blanket blackmail over everyone who could "blow a whistle" on them, so that we don't have to have people moving to Hong Kong in order to feel like they can escape the "blackmail arm" of the hidden government.

What does it say that citizens can feel more secure with a Hong Kong justice system rather than an American justice system? I would think that would be a hard decision to make?

They provide most of the oversight, while extremely sensitive matters are submitted to only the "gang of eight".

Congress could change how it does oversight, but bear in mind that there are some number of Representatives and Senators who could not obtain top secret clearance, so that necessarily limits participation in oversight of classified programs.

The NSA? The CIA?

Who is calling the shots?

A few sections do present situations with a lot of questions:

&quot 5) A finding may not authorize any action that would violate the Constitution or any statute of the United States. "

And only the President may present a finding, is that correct?

Also:

&quot 2) If the President determines that it is essential to limit access to the finding to meet extraordinary circumstances affecting vital interests of the United States, the finding may be reported to the chairmen and ranking minority members of the congressional intelligence committees, the Speaker and minority leader of the House of Representatives, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, and such other member or members of the congressional leadership as may be included by the President. "

So this is the small gang that is supposedly running our government? And who swears them to secrecy? Would that not be their superiors?

And:

&quot f) Prohibition on covert actions intended to influence United States political processes, etc.
No covert action may be conducted which is intended to influence United States political processes, public opinion, policies, or media. "

Prohibits from influencing public opinion? Really?

I have no idea when this part of the code was added or revised, but it assumes the President is aware of everything and must sign off on everything with a finding and report it to certain members of Congress. There is someone advising the President, I suppose? Who would that be? The CIA? The NSA?

If we decide to go into Syria, for example, is it because the President wishes to go or is it someone else demanding that the President do what is in the "national interest"? What makes them the experts?

to uphold and defend the Constiutution...if they don't do that, they're criminals and traitors

nt

With more of an authoritarian mindset than one that is more democratic.

Who knows? Maybe that is the most effective system of governing?

Keeping secrets from our elected representatives and senators generally in Congress isn't okay. They have the constitutional duty to oversee most of the Executive powers.

Keeping secrets from the courts - NEVER okay.

Sometimes for periods of times certain strategic info could be kept secret legitimately, such as strategic details of operations, but not after the operations are over, and this would usually concern military type ops.

However setting up a situation in which we decide details about surveillance of civilians are permanently "secret" cannot be okay in a democracy, because it means the people have no voting veto power, and that means it is no longer a democracy.

Unless you know what is in the "data", that cannot be said with any certainty.

There are certainly some reasons to keep secrets to protect us and those agents in the field in such.

Problem is the government now uses that to hide anything they don't WANT us to see because it might endanger some of their jobs.

There are, to quote a movie, 'Too Many Secrets'

Why are visitor logs kept hidden, etc and so on? Transparency scares the government because they see themselves now as the potential 'target' of we the people... i.e we are the ones they want to keep information from, not our enemies. Essentially we have become their enemies and if we have too much intel we might put a stop to their corruption.

I think such a democracy wouldn't NEED to keep any secrets.

And in a democracy the government and all that it does is the people's business.

And that it is unhealthy for our government and our citizens.

I think that is the main point, so the secrecy itself ought NEVER be secret, and secrecy ought always be subject to independent review.

The system is that they are keeping them on behalf of the people.

How can a modern nation exist without a security system? Are we really supposed to let all that information be out there for every foreign spy to see? Or every domestic discontent? Timothy McVeigh could have done a lot more damage, so could Al Qaeda.

But what you are describing is not a democracy, nor is it even a representative democracy.

How many people with security clearances in this "system"? 1.2 million? More?

And to think they missed the fall of the Soviet Union? They failed to predict the Berlin Wall coming down? Yes, every nation since ancient times have had intelligence. But it is a question of how much and what type? Is every covert operation about arming the opposing side to the one we do not like in power? Is every covert operation meant to enrich the big corporations of the world?

Could someone itemize the successes of our intelligence operations? Oh, they're secret?

Whether intelligence is of value is a different question. We can't expect them to predict everything that is going to happen. The idea was that the Russians and other foreigners now know everything we could do, had and were capable of. It's not like they are transparent to us about that information.

It's one thing if we're talking about nuclear codes or troop movements.

But we're not talking about any of that with Snowden.

The secret he leaked was details of a system that was spying on Americans in direct violation of America's highest law.

That shouldn't be a fucking secret at all.

They are not in it for public service or to protect our national security. They are in it to stuff their pockets and to claim some little corner of power for their egos. That has to be kept secret.

We can debate whether thier actions are justified but I believe that most people who go into the intelligence community do so out of a desire to serve.

I did not mean to include those analysts that sit at desks and cubes and do the heavy analysis, like Edward Snowden, and many others.

But I notice you did not include the politicians in your comments?

You know how it is, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely".

Obviously they do as they constantly remind us of, but...

In a democracy, do not we the people have a right to keep secrets from the government?