Unbelievable!

My local building codes are proprietary; the city can't hand out a copy because they are copyrighted by some company in Colorado. So, I have to go down to the city engineer's office and play a game of "see if you can tell what I'm thinking" when trying to get a building permit.

Did you know that medical diagnostic codes are also proprietary?

And, of course, your vote is probably counted by a proprietary system which your registrar of voters can't even see. You can trust it, of course, because the vendor tells us its trustworthy.

Thanks for the info Pierre.. quite amazing!!

Lets hope the replacement for John Ashcroft might swing the pendelum the other way a bit

I gotta say, this scares the hell out of me. It sounds like somthing out of '1984'. Also, I believe it is expressly forbidden in the Constitution. I am not sure of the exact section, but I know one exists, that says that it is unconstitutional to pass or enforce laws not available for public review.

This is a pattern that has traveled down through history. Wasn't secrecy an issue for Martin Luther in the Protestant Reformation? I seem to recall something about the church not allowing the people (non-clergy) to read the Bible. They had to take the Bible (and its interpretation) as it was shoveled out by the Church and were not allowed to form their own opinions.

Hopefully, this new trend towards secrecy will work no better for the government today than it did for the Church in the 16th Century!

It sounds like some dark futuristic thriller, the "Department of Homeland Security" has been born out of the "War on Terror" and has secret laws that you are not allowed to know about.

As someone who grew up in a country that fought a "War on Terror" against just the IRA in a tiny little country and failed miserably for decades. I can say. there is no way to fight a war on terror, the war on terror is no more than a way for the politicians to be able to manipulate the people and to create such monstrosities as The Department of Homeland Security.

If the experience of England is anything to go by, all this will do is to make lives more difficult for anyone with Arabic or Islamic connections. The name Denney is common in Ireland, to my knowledge, our family is of Scottish decent, however, that did not stop the dirty looks, the extra checks whenever anyone heard our name.

Arabs and Muslims are visually easier to identify and this will just lead to alienation of all Muslims and Arabic people within the USA. If you alienate your people you are going to create trouble, Muslims and Arabs are only the new additions to an already excessively long list.

P.S.

It appears that the pat down ruls have recently been altered.

http://www.tsa.gov/public/display?theme=40&content=09000519800ce037

This meme seems to be spreading quite widly, I have seen a lot of similar posts,

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"Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death."

-- Adolf Hitler

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According to this story it has been around a while.

http://papersplease.org/gilmore/index.html

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Before The Law

BEFORE THE LAW stands a doorkeeper. To this doorkeeper there comes a man from the country and prays for admittance to the Law. But the doorkeeper says that he cannot grant admittance at the moment. The man thinks it over and then asks if he will be allowed in later. "It is possible," says the doorkeeper, "but not at the moment." Since the gate stands open, as usual, and the doorkeeper steps to one side, the man stoops to peer through the gateway into the interior. Observing that, the doorkeeper laughs and says: "If you are so drawn to it, 'just try to go in despite my veto. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the least of the doorkeepers. From hall to hall there is one doorkeeper after another, each more powerful than the last. The third doorkeeper is already so terrible that even I cannot bear to look at him." These are difficulties the man from the country has not expected; the Law, he thinks, should surely be accessible at all times and to everyone, but as he now takes a closer look at the doorkeeper in his fur coat, with his big sharp nose and long, thin, black Tartar beard, he decides that it is better to wait until he gets permission to enter. The doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit down at one side of the door. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be admitted, and wearies the doorkeeper by his importunity. The doorkeeper frequently has little interviews with him, asking him questions about his home and many other things, but the questions are put indifferently, as great lords put them, and always finish with the statement that he cannot be let in yet. The man, who has furnished himself with many things for his journey, sacrifices all he has, however valuable, to bribe the doorkeeper. The doorkeeper accepts everything, but always with the remark: "I am only taking it to keep you from thinking you have omitted anything." During these many years the man fixes his attention almost continuously on the doorkeeper. He forgets the other doorkeepers, and this first one seems to him the sole obstacle preventing access to the Law. He curses his bad luck, in his early years boldly and loudly; later, as he grows old, he only grumbles to himself. He becomes childish, and since in his yearlong contemplation of the doorkeeper he has come to know even the fleas in his fur collar, he begs the flea ' s as well to help him and to change the doorkeep er's mind. At length his eyesight begins to fail, and he does not know whether the world is really darker or whether his eyes are only deceiving him. Yet in his darkness he is now aware of a radiance that streams inextinguishably from the gateway of the Law. Now he has not very long to live. Before he dies, all his experiences in these long years gather themselves in his head to one point, a question he has not yet asked the doorkeeper. He waves him nearer, since he can no longer raise his stiffening body. The doorkeeper has to bend low toward him, for the difference in height between them has altered much to the man's disadvantage. "What do you want to know now?" asks the doorkeeper; "you are insatiable." "Everyone strives to reach the Law," says the man, "so how does it happen that for all these many years no one but myself has ever begged for admittance?" The doorkeeper recognizes that the man has reached his end, and, to let his failing senses catch the words, roars in his ear: "No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am now going to shut it."

-- Franz Kafka

Bruce,

Always enjoy a little Kafka. Thanks for the post.

I find it strange that we are supposed to be fighting a war on an idea, 'terror', with guns. The only way to win a war of ideals with a gun is to kill everyone on the other side, there can be no compromise. The truth is, no one ever intended to fight a war against terror, or even terrorists. This war is essentially a violent push for cultural imperialism. I am not saying that we should not have gone after Bin Laden and the groups responsible for the 9/11 attacks. A proportional response is certainly called for in such a case. The problem is with the disproportionate response. The knee-jerk, kill in anger, reaction that serves only to galvanize forces already unhappy with us and make issue of the separations natural to our different cultures. Everyone who spoke in opposition to the war spoke of how it would lead to a loss of the respect of our allies, but I say the bigger problem is the loss of respect of our enemies. The respect of our restraint, along with the fear of our power, was the reason such attacks did not happen earlier and more often. I also believe the fear in America was exaggerated. I was no more afraid for my life after 9/11 than I was before. I think the government saw an opening to continue a campaign they were forced to abandon before and they jumped on that chance, using every reason they could, and making up reasons when none could be found.

Joe

You are so right

If only all citizens of the United States of America would stand up and say it, rather than believing the myth they have been sold, then perhaps a huge amount of bloodshed and suffering could be avoided.

Unfortunately, the majority believe the myth and have backed the President to continue the war on terror, my bet is that Iran is next, the excuse this time will be that they are secretly developing WOMD.

Since my last posting I came across this article, it essentially says that American intelligence in the run up to the election was, as misinformed as it was in the run up the the invasion of Iraq, the significant terrorist threat was not aimed at the USA but at London! Of course it is possible that the terror threat had an impact on the voting, but I couldn't possibly comment.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6514619/site/newsweek/

I wish I could say I was shocked and confused by how such a mistake could be made, but I am not. This is quickly becoming standard operating procedure. Either the intelligence community needs serious reform, or the administation needs to stop using it as a scapegoat just because they are commonly considered beyond the realm of public criticism.

Well, as the bully says on the playground, "Wathcha gonna do about it?" Lots of secrets. And lots of potenitial consequences to those who pry into them. As Pierre makes the rules inflecting behavior on this site, so others make the rules, overt and covert, that inflect our polity. What is the role of philanthropy in addressing the tinkering of democracy? Where are the key leverage points in media, law, commerce, technology, education, community building, or politial organizing?

Check out the Nieman Foundation's Journal http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/04-3NRfall/V58N3.pdf page 82 onward...

"By one estimate, during the past 25 years the U.S. government has classified between 7.5 and 8 billion pages of information— enough to replace all 18 million books in the Library of Congress with shelf space to spare. This revelation prompted the Intelligence Security Oversight Office to suggest the secret keeping is excessive and call for restraint. It warns the federal government is classifying so much that it is putting the very secrecy it prizes at risk. Even some members of Congress said “whoa” when the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) censors blacked more than half of the 500-page Senate report on pre-Iraq war intelligence."

"Today journalists are observing a growing culture of secrecy in Washington and the use of “national security” to justify restricted access and sometimes complete closure throughout all areas of government. Organizations representing their interests have taken initial steps toward pushing back.The American Society of Newspaper Editors has begun to organize a national Sunshine Sunday for March 13, 2005 and will ask newspapers and TV stations across the country to prepare special reports, editorials and other commentary for that day about open government. It is working with the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government to enlist support of all of its member organizations. This could be the first step in a national FOIA awareness campaign.SPJ [Society of Professional Journalists] is developing a “tool kit” on how to conduct an FOIA audit—a look at how well, or poorly, officials in a community or region or state comply with that state’s open records laws. Audits have been successfully conducted in about a dozen states and put public officials on notice, prompting a variety of remedial actions and informing the public about the law and their rights.The Reporters Committee for Freecom of the Press has just published the fifth edition of “Homefront Confidential,” its comprehensive analysis of the laws and regulations dealing with national security and their consequences. The report raises the “threat level” to freedom of information."

"Translated into an “Interim Final Rule,” legislative changes provide the new and larger Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and related departments with the authority to designate as SSI any information—whether they create it or collect it—about any form of transportation they regard as being in any way related to security. This includes state, regional and local records as well as federal documents. Certain agencies are empowered to execute nondisclosure agreements with state and local officials and private contractors to make sure they don’t disclose the information. These nondisclosure agreements are a relatively new tool in the secrecy game, and they work because any breach carries a stiff fine and possible prison time.The TSA regulations did not make news in Washington. Nor was much attention paid to an earlier set of regulations allowing the Department of Homeland Security to gather and seal vast amounts of information on the nation’s infrastructure or a recent directive on instructing DHS employees to mark sensitive but unclassified information as being for official use only.Indeed, one reason the shroud of secrecy that covers Washington today is so frightening is because it’s become so routine. Secrecy is the standard, not the exception. Any presumption of transparency has been lost."

Since my last workshop on positive media, I've developed a much greater respect for investigative journalism, and the need for a whole lot more of it. Unfortunately, it is being squeezed, too.

This post and all its subsequent responses (especially the Kafka, thanks for that) take me into so many interesting places in my mind. Hopefully I won't be boring anyone in my sharing, but this seems like the type of community where you'd just skip my rambling and move on, if so. So here goes.

First, what intrigues me most about the secret law issue, and all the related issues, is that it always throws me back to the way I felt as an American, immediately following the events of 9.11.01. Things like this throw me back to the moments and days after.

Gripped in unison with others by that kind of fear, I wonder if in those moments, am I so easily led as to help create the kind of climate where I would not only allow but clamor for something like this to ultimately happen, not seeing the eventual effects?

Because unless there are some members of congress here now, no one I know closely and personally voted for the Patriot Act, or any of the things it spawned, which would include the climate for secret laws to be possible. But it's all cause and effect. Either I voted for one of the people to be in office who voted for it, or I refused to vote for someone else who might not have.

Just four years ago, requests made to comply with secret laws would have caused a national clamor. Now, there's barely a ripple, and this is not the kind of story you'd find in the mainstream news.

I never thought, between that moment and the Patriot Act, what its children would grow up to look like. It was the Patriot Act that woke me up and by then it was too late.

There was only one dissenter to having it passed, Barbara Lee. And it's not that I blame them, they are human and were probably gripped by the same fear as I at that point. I'm not sure that for me, the issue of assigning blame, to myself, to them, or anyone else, is completely relevant at this point. The question now is, as someone asked earlier, what to do about it.

And I think a big part of the picture of what to do about it is overcoming our silence, compliance and especially fear. So step one is this, the dissemination of information, and the discussion that goes forth after it.

What's sad, is how afraid I once was of acting, to be honest. As strong as I felt I used to fear the consequences of participating in this kind of discussion would be. I'd think, "Am I going to end up on some kind of a list because I read or responded?" when I'd see things like this.

Now I feel like, first, that's ridiculous. On what grounds? (Of course, now that there are secret grounds, they could be entirely made up. Breathing could be against the law, but how would I know. And would I self-expire if it was?)

And the fear I used to have is intriguing to me because the whole thing holding this kind of thing together is fear. As long as I disagreed with these kinds of policies but was afraid, I was either silent or compliant or the latter by virtue of the former.

And for some reason, the glue that holds this whole thing together is that, at some point, enough of a majority has to be compliant or silent in some small way, at the same time.

It's sort of like in Ayn Rand's book, Who is John Galt? Times were hard, and everyone wanted it to be better, and asked for a change. And the changes that were rolled out by world governments, at first, were acceptable to those who were not the producers. But before long, even people who benefitted directly from the policies turned against them because they led to even greater ruin.

So I can't pretend that I know where to begin, or what to do after sharing in the information. I just feel strongly that it will only continue as long as I permit it. (I say I instead of we, because for me, that's what it boils down to - it would be easy for me to say "we" and let that "we" do the work necessary, then detach myself. To me it's like saying "someone".)

On the other hand, another belief of mine is that what I put my attention on is what manifests in the world. So in seeking a solution, I want to place my attention on that solution, rather than on the problem.

And since I'm currently procrastinating in beginning my day's work, I'll start thinking about what the solution would be. And I ask you all - what is it that we'd want the world, or our government, or the law, to look like, instead of this? I mean, obviously what it was before, sure, but if so, how far back would we be going?

It seems to me if we knew what that was, we could organize around that, and bring it into being.

Quick fact check - Barbara Lee only voted against the autorhization of military force being passed on to the President in the event of a terrorite attack...

1/ If it is secret then we can't see it to check if it really is secret.

2/ There was no real debate on the Patriot act, it was a masterpeice of manipulation, anyone who argued against or who voted against would have been unpatriotic.

This is a classic manipulation that nobody will do much about.

I'll begin with this famous quotation:

"In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me -- and by that time no one was left to speak up." (Martin Niemoller)

American political life, life in general, this world, the universe at large -- each features the tug of polarities: light and dark, good and evil, open and closed, transparent and secret, embracing and reviling. Undoing the inherent nature of polarity may be beyond us -- indeed, the evidence suggests that it's either beyond God Herself, or not in Her design.

But we can choose our poles. That's never been difficult for me: I grew up in the South during the civil rights movement with a black orphan for a best friend, so light, good, open, transparent, and embracing have appealed to me ever since. By nature and by circumstance of birth and upbringing, I'm on the side of the trees, the whales, people of color, those who can't speak for themselves and those who are afraid to, and -- most of all -- their children's children's children.

It's plain that there are people with perspectives contrary to my own. While I celebrate their individual rights to form opinions and choose ways of living, I decry the common inclination to extend the same into myriad forms of oppression and control over others under banners of "Truth", "righteousness", or "security" . As the late great comedian and social philosopher Bill Hicks would say, "If you're against abortion, don't have one!"

Our unique civil rights were won, and have been maintained over hundreds of years, with the blood, sweat, and tears of millions of human beings. That they are being so quickly eroded, and in the face of so little resistance, should alarm us all. And it should alarm us into resolute action unless we wish to be speaking our own version of Niemoller's words to our children.

I think Phil Cubeta posed a salient question in his post of 21 November: "Where are the key leverage points in media, law, commerce, technology, education, community building, or politial organizing?" In response, I'm going to flog the horse of my little OneWorldOneGodOneLove Manifesto until it gets up and runs: intelligent organization of a deep web of information and action tools is the answer to government misconduct. More generally, it's the face of democracy in the 21st century.

Amen, Brian.

Secrecy by its very nature is antisocial. Only those who fear public knowledge of their own acts require it. And how better to attempt to keep the public ignorant than to impose secrecy laws.

Secrecy, like a vampire, likes the dark.

Secrecy breeds horror and repression and Silence and acquiescence allows it to grow.

Slavery, The Inquisition, Pogroms, Gulags, Internment, Concentration and Extermination camps, Pol Pot, Bosnia, Masked Killers beheading civilians, where would you like to start or stop?

Turn a light on it and shine it bright so that we may cause it to wither to dust.

I just came through the San Jose airport. TSA was inspecting a woman in her 50's. They had her raise her arms, felt under her armpits and her breasts, then had her spread her legs so they could probe her upper inner thighs with a metal detector, all in plain view of the public. I was utterly amazed at the process, and how brusquely she was treated by government employees.

Meanwhile, the FDA allows our flu vaccine situation to deteriorate to a point that would make a bioterrorist proud. And our health care system kills at least 40,000 people per year due to preventable medical errors... These are real problems that we can really solve, yet they have been going on for years.

Does anyone else think that our priorities are terribly off base?

"Our"? To whom are you referring when you say "our", Tom? When I think of "our" priorities, I think of the priorities of MY family of fellow earth creatures, which are laughter, music, the teasing of children, indulgence of curiousity, lovemaking, scratching in the sun, and eating fresh organic peaches (rinse and repeat). There are some other folks whose priorities run more in the direction of funnelling all the world's petrodollars into their own pockets, oppressing dissent and investigation, and -- evidently -- groping and humiliating women in airports (and of course much, much worse).

A central difficulty in the war between laughter/love/light and dark/authoritarian/sweatywoolenuniforms is that the evil-minded are so often also single-minded -- the bastards don't take time off for play! Cheney and Wolfowitz, may de good Lawd bless their precariously positioned souls, wouldn't come out of their bunkers for a hot tub full of hot buttered cheerleaders, while some of us have foregone a thousand afternoon's incomes chasing butterflies.

In order for us to have our place in the sun, and to be unhumiliated in it, we absolutely must follow Joe Hill's famous dictum: "Don't mourn, organize." Have I mentioned how we might go about this?

Citizen journalism, investigative blogging, and grass roots organization are ways to communicate about such realisms of the current administration --and to spread the word in an exponentially growing (i.e., linked) manner.

Until such time as the government chooses to silence the web and CB radio, and to impose "content restriction" on cellular and other wireless means of communication, there remains the vehicle(s) and opportunity to maintain voice.

The Patriot Act and other such realities of the day (or, perhaps better said, the administration) are merely the tip of the iceberg. But then again, if one goes by the electoral college and the vote (albeit questionable in any number of ways), a majority of Americans are in support of and agreement with these policies.

The next two years are crucial for getting the word out and advancing positive change. After that there will be two more years of Karl Rove (et al) preparation for the next step. No time to rest for those seeking to effect change.

In many ways the results of this month's election are truly a call to action.

Will I be jailed or have my bandwidth taken away for such writing? As Americans we think, no, that's not possible. But then we think of the man reading My Favorite Goat (or whatever that book was called) and the prisoners held without representation or contact with family, and the atrocities and . . .

But no, so many will claim, it can't happen here. Except that it has already begun to happen. First comes the secrecy, then the restraint of communication and freedoms. next thing you know -- need I say more?

Another take on the media and privacy: http://www.letitblog.com/epic/

Wow, Tom, thanks for that link. I sent it in an e-mail to many, and also blogged it, hoping to spread the word and get it viewed by many others.

Tom Munnecke said:

Another take on the media and privacy: http://www.letitblog.com/epic/

Very nice. I am so glad they didn't mention eBay. ;-)