CJR Campaign Desk: Archives
The Secrets War

“A huge door is closing within our government,” Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy expert at the Federation of American Scientists, recently told the Federal Times. “The message is: ‘We don’t want you talking to anybody outside of government.'”

As the Bush administration prepares to begin its second term, much has been written about the president’s intolerance for dissent or even raised eyebrows among those closest to him. Less attention, however, has been paid to efforts by the White House to restrict access to vast amounts of information and to create an atmosphere in which secrecy is rewarded and criticism silenced.

This is the type of story — a gradual erosion instead of a single, headline-grabbing event — that most in the press tend to overlook. Yet in the coverage of government, it may be the most significant event of all. …

Elsewhere in the federal bureaucracy, the cloak of secrecy is spreading rapidly under the guise of enhancing national security. In the aftermath of 9/11, Attorney General John Ashcroft sharply restricted information available under the Freedom of Information Act, an invaluable tool for journalists probing the activities of government and government employees. …

But the secrets guarded by those in Washington don’t only involve Star Wars programs run amok, or abuses of civil rights in a time of war, or poor management of an agency vital to national security. Denial of access to information of all sorts is growing “at an epidemic rate,” according to Associated Press President and CEO Tom Curley.

Secrecy — and the conflicts of interest that it promotes — clouds the decision-making process of government in issues as diverse as medical guidance to the nation’s physicians and the acquisition of aircraft. And those are just the instances that have come to light in recent days.

It’s the media’s job to push back on that closing door. The rewards will go far beyond a wealth of great stories.

–Susan Q. Stranahan

Economist.com | Meritocracy in America

A growing body of evidence suggests that the meritocratic ideal is in trouble in America. Income inequality is growing to levels not seen since the Gilded Age, around the 1880s. But social mobility is not increasing at anything like the same pace: would-be Horatio Algers are finding it no easier to climb from rags to riches, while the children of the privileged have a greater chance of staying at the top of the social heap. The United States risks calcifying into a European-style class-based society.

The past couple of decades have seen a huge increase in inequality in America [mjh: hmmm, starting with Raygun]. The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think-tank, argues that between 1979 and 2000 the real income of households in the lowest fifth (the bottom 20% of earners) grew by 6.4%, while that of households in the top fifth grew by 70%. The family income of the top 1% grew by 184%—and that of the top 0.1% or 0.01% grew even faster. Back in 1979 the average income of the top 1% was 133 times that of the bottom 20%; by 2000 the income of the top 1% had risen to 189 times that of the bottom fifth.

Thirty years ago the average real annual compensation of the top 100 chief executives was $1.3m: 39 times the pay of the average worker. Today it is $37.5m: over 1,000 times the pay of the average worker. In 2001 the top 1% of households earned 20% of all income and held 33.4% of all net worth. Not since pre-Depression days has the top 1% taken such a big whack. …

The most remarkable feature of the continuing power of America’s elite—and its growing grip on the political system—is how little comment it arouses. Britain would be in high dudgeon if its party leaders all came from Eton and Harrow. Perhaps one reason why the rise of caste politics raises so little comment is that something similar is happening throughout American society. Everywhere you look in modern America—in the Hollywood Hills or the canyons of Wall Street, in the Nashville recording studios or the clapboard houses of Cambridge, Massachusetts—you see elites mastering the art of perpetuating themselves. America is increasingly looking like imperial Britain, with dynastic ties proliferating, social circles interlocking, mechanisms of social exclusion strengthening and a gap widening between the people who make the decisions and shape the culture and the vast majority of ordinary working stiffs. …

Teddy Roosevelt advocated an inheritance tax because he thought that huge inherited fortunes would ruin the character of the republic. … The Republicans, by getting rid of inheritance tax, seem hell-bent on ignoring Teddy Roosevelt’s warnings about the dangers of a hereditary aristocracy.

20 Amazing Facts about Voting in the USA

20 Amazing Facts About
Voting in the USA

Long-Term Plan Sought For Terror Suspects (washingtonpost.com) By Dana Priest

Administration officials are preparing long-range plans for indefinitely imprisoning suspected terrorists whom they do not want to set free or turn over to courts in the United States or other countries, according to intelligence, defense and diplomatic officials.

The Pentagon and the CIA have asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for potentially lifetime detentions, including for hundreds of people now in military and CIA custody whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts. The outcome of the review, which also involves the State Department, would also affect those expected to be captured in the course of future counterterrorism operations. …

As part of a solution, the Defense Department, which holds 500 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, plans to ask Congress for $25 million to build a 200-bed prison to hold detainees who are unlikely to ever go through a military tribunal for lack of evidence, according to defense officials.

Lifetime imprisonment for people for whom there is insufficient evidence for a trial. A clear violation of our constitution. Everyone in the Bush Administration is guilty of violating our constitution — I recommend long-term imprisonment for them all. mjh

[Thanks, Lisa T!]

War and Peace: Campus engaged in great dichotomy – Words on war By Carolyn Gonzales

David Margolin, adjunct research assistant professor of linguistics in the College of Arts and Sciences, says that language tactics used by United States presidents during wartime have changed. “We have gone from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,’ to the current administration telling Americans, ‘Be afraid, be very afraid,’” Margolin said.

Groups on Right Say Christmas Is Under Attack By Dana Milbank, Washington Post

Those on the other side of these battles say the Christian groups are wildly exaggerating the threats from a phantom enemy for the purpose of mobilizing evangelicals to contribute funds (some groups are explicitly using the Christmas issue to raise money) or to become politically active. On the Christmas fight, the American Civil Liberties Union, the group most often cited as the enemy of traditionalists, says it has not filed a single case blocking Christmas displays this year and cites half a dozen instances over the past year in which it has fought on the side of more religious expression.

“This is the winter equivalent of those summer stories about shark attacks being on the increase,” says Barry Lynn, who heads the liberal group Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. The conservative groups, he said, “think they can make Christians feel like a besieged majority. It creates a Christian solidarity against all those who would oppress them: secularists in this season, gay and lesbians next month, abortion the next month.”

Whether the threat is real or a straw man, conservatives have been aggressive this season in citing the danger to Christmas. This week, Jerry Falwell, a conservative leader, told supporters that “so-called civil libertarians attempt to purge all vestiges of faith from the American public square.” Also this week, Paul M. Weyrich, another conservative leader, proclaimed that “the campaign to eliminate Christmas from our society is well underway.” Several conservative commentators have echoed the charge on television and radio and in newspapers.

Records Released in Response to Torture FOIA Request

“I am responding to your request for feedback on aggressive treatment and improper interview techniques used on detainees at GTMO. I did observe treatment that was not only aggressive, but personally very upsetting, although I can’t say that this treatment was perpetrated by Bureau employees. It seemed that these techniques were being employed by the military, government contract employees and REDACTED.”
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Notes allegation of detainee at Abu Ghraib: “They tortured me and cuffed me in an act called the scorpion, and pouring cold water on me They tortured me from morning until the morning of the next day, and when I fell down from the severe torture I fell on the barbed wires, and then they dragged me from my feet and I was wounded and, and they punched me on my stomach.”

[via The Daily Aneurysm at jabartlett.com]