Governments have a legitimate need for secrecy in some situations. If FBI investigations of white collar crimes were posted on a public website, for example, there would be a dramatic rise in both flights and wire transfers to Belize.
The blame here lies squarely with legislators that have drafted laws that are intentionally worded to give the public a false sense of privacy while enabling agencies like NSA to run amok. We elect these representatives precisely for this reason - they are supposed to protect our rights in situations where we can't. Not only did they create these laws, but they were apparently overseeing the mass-surveillance programs established under them and had no problem with the extraordinary Constitutional violations they enabled. Our own President has come in in strong support of these programs. Whether you voted for him or not, you should not be OK with that.
Every senator or congressman that has anything to do with intelligence oversight, along with those that had anything to do with the drafting of these laws, and all other elected officials that have or will come out in support of these programs, must never be reelected. This, unfortunately, is the only realistic defense that US citizens have against their tyrannical government.
> Governments have a legitimate need for secrecy in some situations. If FBI investigations of white collar crimes were posted on a public website, for example, there would be a dramatic rise in both flights and wire transfers to Belize.
I think this argument is based on a strawman. The 'secrecy' most people assume and that the government wants is 'keeping secrets indefinitely at their sole discretion'. The 'secrecy' needed by your or any other scenario is merely a time-limited secret, ie. that all information must be released publicly once investigations are completed. The former is intrinsically harmful, the latter shouldn't harm anyone.
The blame here lies squarely with legislators that have drafted laws that are intentionally worded to give the public a false sense of privacy while enabling agencies like NSA to run amok. We elect these representatives precisely for this reason - they are supposed to protect our rights in situations where we can't. Not only did they create these laws, but they were apparently overseeing the mass-surveillance programs established under them and had no problem with the extraordinary Constitutional violations they enabled. Our own President has come in in strong support of these programs. Whether you voted for him or not, you should not be OK with that.
Every senator or congressman that has anything to do with intelligence oversight, along with those that had anything to do with the drafting of these laws, and all other elected officials that have or will come out in support of these programs, must never be reelected. This, unfortunately, is the only realistic defense that US citizens have against their tyrannical government.