Most Popular
1. It’s a New Macro, the Gold Market Knows It, But Dead Men Walking Do Not (yet)- Gary_Tanashian
2.Stock Market Presidential Election Cycle Seasonal Trend Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
3. Bitcoin S&P Pattern - Nadeem_Walayat
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
4.U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - Raymond_Matison
5. How to Profit from the Global Warming ClImate Change Mega Death Trend - Part1 - Nadeem_Walayat
7.Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - Nadeem_Walayat
9.It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - Stephen_McBride
10.Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - Richard_Mills
Last 7 days
Nvidia Numero Uno in Count Down to President Donald Pump Election Victory - 5th Nov 24
Trump or Harris - Who Wins US Presidential Election 2024 Forecast Prediction - 5th Nov 24
Stock Market Brief in Count Down to US Election Result 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Gold Stocks’ Winter Rally 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Why Countdown to U.S. Recession is Underway - 3rd Nov 24
Stock Market Trend Forecast to Jan 2025 - 2nd Nov 24
President Donald PUMP Forecast to Win US Presidential Election 2024 - 1st Nov 24
At These Levels, Buying Silver Is Like Getting It At $5 In 2003 - 28th Oct 24
Nvidia Numero Uno Selling Shovels in the AI Gold Rush - 28th Oct 24
The Future of Online Casinos - 28th Oct 24
Panic in the Air As Stock Market Correction Delivers Deep Opps in AI Tech Stocks - 27th Oct 24
Stocks, Bitcoin, Crypto's Counting Down to President Donald Pump! - 27th Oct 24
UK Budget 2024 - What to do Before 30th Oct - Pensions and ISA's - 27th Oct 24
7 Days of Crypto Opportunities Starts NOW - 27th Oct 24
The Power Law in Venture Capital: How Visionary Investors Like Yuri Milner Have Shaped the Future - 27th Oct 24
This Points To Significantly Higher Silver Prices - 27th Oct 24
US House Prices Trend Forecast 2024 to 2026 - 11th Oct 24
US Housing Market Analysis - Immigration Drives House Prices Higher - 30th Sep 24
Stock Market October Correction - 30th Sep 24
The Folly of Tariffs and Trade Wars - 30th Sep 24
Gold: 5 principles to help you stay ahead of price turns - 30th Sep 24
The Everything Rally will Spark multi year Bull Market - 30th Sep 24
US FIXED MORTGAGES LIMITING SUPPLY - 23rd Sep 24
US Housing Market Free Equity - 23rd Sep 24
US Rate Cut FOMO In Stock Market Correction Window - 22nd Sep 24
US State Demographics - 22nd Sep 24
Gold and Silver Shine as the Fed Cuts Rates: What’s Next? - 22nd Sep 24
Stock Market Sentiment Speaks:Nothing Can Topple This Market - 22nd Sep 24
US Population Growth Rate - 17th Sep 24
Are Stocks Overheating? - 17th Sep 24
Sentiment Speaks: Silver Is At A Major Turning Point - 17th Sep 24
If The Stock Market Turn Quickly, How Bad Can Things Get? - 17th Sep 24
IMMIGRATION DRIVES HOUSE PRICES HIGHER - 12th Sep 24
Global Debt Bubble - 12th Sep 24
Gold’s Outlook CPI Data - 12th Sep 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Governments Love Secrecy to Hide their Crimes and Totalitarian Ambitions

Politics / US Politics Jun 17, 2013 - 10:56 AM GMT

By: Michael_S_Rozeff

Politics

"Governments, like married couples, are entitled to their secrets" has written Richard Cohen a few years back. Which secrets? Lines have to be drawn. A government shouldn't cover up crimes under the mantle of secrecy. It shouldn't conceal wrongful seizures and exercises of power. This government and the preceding one under Bush have concealed the fact that they were collecting information wrongfully, namely, information on private communications. The term "national security" cannot reasonably be invoked as an excuse for doing this because it's too vague, and almost anything can be construed as affecting "national security". The quest for catching terrorists cannot be offered as a reason because there are bounds on searches and invasions of privacy that have long standing and that specifically apply to government and policing activities. These governments have gone way beyond these bounds and then compounded their trespasses by attempting to keep them secret.


The government has kept secret or tried to keep secret its collecting and storing information on everyone's secret and private communications. Thanks to Edward Snowden and his predecessors, this wrongful secret has been revealed publicly. There is no crime in revealing the wrongdoing of the government by revealing a secret program of massive invasions of privacy.

If every word one speaks or writes in an e-mail is stored where it can possibly be turned against you by some very costly legal imposition and accusation, if every movement and gesture one makes can be recorded by cameras, a climate of fear, caution, distrust, suspicion and persecution will become established. Human beings must have privacy. Diaries are private. Much of what we say and think we limit to people whom we trust. We do not want our letters steamed open or our e-mails available for reading in government data banks. We don't want records kept by the government of whom we have called. We do not want police snooping into our homes and private effects with the excuse that they are looking for criminals or terrorists. We do not want the government to have powers like this that invade privacy and that can be used to squelch political dissent. It is very easy for government to become oppressive and totalitarian, and getting at everyone's communications is one way to become oppressive and keep that oppression in place. We have to have lines we draw that prevent government from doing what the Bush-Obama governments have been doing. All of this is common sense. There are the strongest reasons for stopping this NSA activity. The government officials and the corps of commentators calling for Snowden's head and supporting the surveillance state are dead wrong.

The spurt in the surveillance state is in part an outgrowth of the Bush-Obama war on terror, which in reality is a convenient propaganda device to conceal a basic agenda of expansionism of the American empire. Overseas expansionism is driving the creation of terrorism which in turn is driving the surveillance state and the police state domestically.

The foreign policy of expansion of control, taking down foreign governments, invasions and wars, fomenting revolutions, and attempting to rebuild states has dire domestic effects. How? The country is on a continual war basis. Occasional terror incidents strengthen the hands of government so that it can institute wholesale violations of civil procedures that were once considered inviolable. Police become militarized. Surveillance of Americans rises steeply. The government invokes national security at every turn. The government proposes that it can torture and assassinate. Phoney justifications for excessive and inherent executive powers are put forward by lawyers like John Yoo. The Justice Department loses whatever independence it had from the chief executive. War becomes almost habitual. The president goes into wars by his own say so. Executive power increases. Continual war and/or the expansion of empire has important ramifications domestically.

The president is expanding the U.S. involvement in Syria. This has briefly and temporarily taken the spotlight off of Edward Snowden's revelations. More lie ahead. But Syria, the AUMF, terrorism, foreign expansionism and the surveillance state are actually all joined into one big issue. They are not separable. This "one big issue" is not yet widely recognized or seen for what it is. These matters are being treated as different things by the MSM, albeit related.

One big issue is rising to the surface. Because of this one issue, Americans will increasingly question continual warfare, government secrecy, the police state, the surveillance state, the war on terror, executive power, the role of the mass media, and government propaganda. They are all linked. What is this issue and how will it be named?

Michael S. Rozeff [send him mail] is a retired Professor of Finance living in East Amherst, New York. He is the author of the free e-book Essays on American Empire.

    http://www.lewrockwell.com

    © 2013 Copyright Michael S. Rozeff - All Rights Reserved
    Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.


© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in